The web conference this week was required. It was held at 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, August 30th. There were about 45 people in attendance. Some still encountered technical difficulties including me. I had problems hearing the professor, she kept cutting in and out. During this session we talked about the degree plan that we would be following and the order of the classes. We also discussed the internship requirements.
Textbooks and the Tk20 account were also a subject that we covered. Ms. Borel also stressed the importance of printing and reading the weekly overviews each week because they contain the latest information. We discussed getting our email accounts and blog url's added to the class webpage. Ms. Borel also reminded us of the post conference activities that needed to be done after each conference. We talked about printing mentor documents from the resource folder and picking a mentor and getting them to sign the mentor agreement.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
EDLD 5306 ET8038 1st Web Conference
The first web conference that I attended on wednesday, August 24 was very helpful. It allowed my to figure out how to work things and work out some of the bugs that I encountered before the required web conference this week. It was nice getting to put faces to names also. We were also able to gather some helpful information to help with the second part of the assignment. We were give an alternative link to replace a link that was not working. I was really surprised at the variety of places that everyone was from and the jobs they held. We even had one fellow that was comfortable enough to eat on camera and this started a little side conversation all in itself. I am looking forward to working with all of you and learning from each of you as I am sure that everyone has something unique to offer to the group.
Value in Technology Assessments
I believe there is value in assessing educator's technology leadership knowledge and skills. Taking all of the assessments that we had to take in week 1 was time consuming but it was helpful. These assessments pointed out areas where I had strengths and more importantly areas where I had weaknesses and guided me toward professional devolopment to take to improve in these areas.
This same belief carries over into us assessing the knowledge of our students. We would not expect our students to be able to accomplish something or even attempt a project until we were sure they had some understanding of what we expected and how to do it. For example, in my 8th grade science class we have a project where the students need to create a flyer advertising the latest atomic theory and create the atomic model that goes along with that theory. I would not just assign the project without assessing the students skills about the technology needed to do the project and then offer a lesson on the program if needed so that they could be successful.
The pros for assessment are obvious. The assessments offer educators feedback on their skills and let administrators know what professional development should be offered for their employees.
The cons of assessment are that it may make educators a little gun shy in trying new things if they think they will be assessed on everything they try and if they are unsure of how these assessment are going to be used. Another drawback is that assessments seem to be written is a one size fits all model. The same assessment is given to all educators whether they are kindergarten teachers that may just use storytelling technology or the high school web master teacher that should be using and teaching all of the web 2.0 tools.
This concludes my opinion on the value of assessing educator's technology leadership knowledge and skills.
This same belief carries over into us assessing the knowledge of our students. We would not expect our students to be able to accomplish something or even attempt a project until we were sure they had some understanding of what we expected and how to do it. For example, in my 8th grade science class we have a project where the students need to create a flyer advertising the latest atomic theory and create the atomic model that goes along with that theory. I would not just assign the project without assessing the students skills about the technology needed to do the project and then offer a lesson on the program if needed so that they could be successful.
The pros for assessment are obvious. The assessments offer educators feedback on their skills and let administrators know what professional development should be offered for their employees.
The cons of assessment are that it may make educators a little gun shy in trying new things if they think they will be assessed on everything they try and if they are unsure of how these assessment are going to be used. Another drawback is that assessments seem to be written is a one size fits all model. The same assessment is given to all educators whether they are kindergarten teachers that may just use storytelling technology or the high school web master teacher that should be using and teaching all of the web 2.0 tools.
This concludes my opinion on the value of assessing educator's technology leadership knowledge and skills.
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