Project review by a Classmate

This week we had the opportunity to meet with a classmate and "present" our culminating project proposal.  Sami and I were teamed up and I had a great time learning what Sami is doing for her final project.  Once we were able to talk, (I had some internet issues that needed to be worked through and we eventually spoke over the phone) we discussed our projects.

Sami is doing a great project that will give her students knowledge about Internet safety.  She has really thought things through completely and has been able to figure out a solution to teaching students who are too young to get accounts for many of the Web 2.0 tools we have used in the program.  However, instead of presenting these items on the web, she will have the students create posters and make public address announcements using the school newsletter.  However, she could also take pictures of the students work and put that into a slide presentation and put that on her school's website.  That would also reach more audiences.

I thought that Sami has done a wonderful job with this project and it was exciting to hear her speak about this project.  I hope that she does well and that her students enjoy the project.

Post session 2

Ahh, now I'm feeling a bit better.  First, I have to give a shout out to Rachel & Sami, two great people who gave me some very kind and needed words regarding my last post.  Wow, it has been a busy week and I am so glad to be moving forward again.  I can't even believe that I finally finished 555, which BTW was two classes ago.  But, now we are on to new and hopefully a fun filled conclusion to this master's program.

I met with Louis for the second time and I am much more excited about the progress that has been made this last week.  I have started putting my project together in SMART notebook and although it is currently ideas all over the place, it will eventually turn into 6 main music lessons (two total for this project), and all will be interactive on the SMART Board, and have assessments at the using the interactive smart response units - at my school we call them SRUs for short.

I am really getting into this project and enjoying creating these different lessons.  So far, it has been time consuming because I am also learning some of these techniques as I go, but I'm getting good ideas from colleagues from around the world.  I am a member of a Facebook group dedicated just to Band Teachers.  I contacted a few people and they were able to give me some ideas on what to create and what they have used that has worked well and what hasn't.  It was a great interaction with teachers that I have never met, probably never will, but were discussing some very positive things.

I see the end...but I'm not there yet.

599 - Here we come...

So we are in our last class and I am feeling way behind.  I am not thrilled with being in this position and I hope that I can get it all done in time.  Currently, I am working on a Smart Notebook lesson that will have two main lessons; music theory, and rhythm.  I am in the process of getting all of these different pieces ready but there are so many different aspects of this project that it is a challenge to know which one to do next, or if I even have all of the parts figured out yet.

After my meeting tonight, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed.  It is time to get moving.  Let's go!

Final Blog for 565 - Almost Done!

It has been a tremendous year and half and we are almost finished.  I can see the end in site and I think it is going to feel awesome when WE all get there.








In our last blog for this class, we have been asked to answer the following three questions (see below).

• How has your definition of leadership altered or been reinforced? Your definition of teacher leadership?
• My definition has been reinforced beyond belief.  I have always felt that a strong leader creates a positive environment and helps others to succeed, among many other qualities.  This course has shown me that it is possible, no matter how much we get shot down or denied opportunities, to make a difference and to make real change happen for the better in our schools.  It has been a long time since I have felt rejuvenated like this and I am thrilled to have the feeling that I can shake this negative feeling and pick myself up and continue on.
• The definition of teacher leader has changed quite a bit.  I see so many similarities between being a leader and being a teacher leader, but they are not the same.  I have always struggled with the fact that I am trained in two very different methods of learning - one from the US Army, and one that is more education based from UW-Whitewater.  There have been some real changes to those philosophies over the years also.  After 9/11 I went into Mitchell International Airport to protect our country from future attacks.  That experience changed my views on so many levels.  At a later time, I changed jobs and moved to the Mukwonago area.  The experience there was different and so negative that it has changed my view of education and leadership.
  However, I feel that after learning so much in this master's program, I am once again feeling positive and have the resources to make a positive change to my district.  I have been so bothered by the constant denials that I have lost focus and plan to make more relationships within the district and cultivate positive ideas with others.  Hopefully this strategy will enable me and them to show these important changes are good.
• Has your opinion of your leadership potential changed?
• Yes.  I have always felt Mukwonago had enormous potential, but have lacked the vision and the strength to make it happen.  This program has helped me see that I can still be apart of the change, but I have to learn more about making that change happen slowly.
• Do you agree with our textbook's assertion about "improving education from within"? If so, what will you do to help?
• Of course I do.  As stated in an earlier assignment, it is the teachers who really make a difference, not the politicians.  We can't be overwhelmed with the negativity surrounding us.  We must find ways to enhance our school districts and create those ideas with research and discussion with others.  Once that discussion begins, the most important step is follow through.  We all have strengths and weaknesses.  But follow through is a must if we really want to make change and improve our districts so that they are the best possible schools in the state.

Leadership, Wk 5

It has been a busy week.  This week, in addition to really getting school going, on Saturday we also hosted a Marching Band Competition for the first time in Mukwonago, went to another competition on Sunday, and tried keeping up with recruiting 5th grade students into our band program and keep up with class work.  It's been a bit challenging.

This week's assignments was viewing a Jeff Skoll video about change and talking about data.  We learned a lot about data in a course earlier in the cohort, but this spoke more about how to make change happen successfully rather than just making data happen.  We learned in the game we played in August, about how much discussion was needed for positive change to really occur.  That has been a real test in education these past 9 months.  The scary thought is, if we don't act on our educational beliefs, who will?  What might happen if no educator fights for education?  How will America survive the global future?

These are all questions that require us to act and to do so smartly, so that we are as successful as our we desire for our students. This course has been a real eye opener for me, especially the game we played, and I hope that as the years go on in education, that we can all gain strength together and fight for our students.

Post Game

This game was really enlightening for me because I really didn't understand just how much discussion was needed in a non-formal setting before change could even be formally discussed.  Our group had some initial problems but quickly found out that we needed more discussion and more training so that people could make decisions that could be necessary for improved student learning.

This week, we then had an assignment that discussed changes that had taken place in our jobs or our lives that could have been better.  The chart showed how things could have been improved based on the things we learned in the game.  It was a great assignment after the game we played in August.

Post Game activities

So we've learned a lot this week about leadership and what it means to make changes.  Our team worked pretty hard at the game we were doing in class and we discovered, well maybe I discovered, that it takes a lot more talking with colleagues and other people in the district to really create an environment for change.  I really thought, probably naive of me, that we were all in this together and no matter who brought up the idea, we could make change.  I was dead wrong.  There are so many other aspects to think about and discuss with outside members in order to make that change happen.  It was quite surprising to me and really and eye opener.

This next school year I am planning to taking some of the ideas from the reading and focusing on one each month of the school year.  Since discussing this with my wife, who is also in education, I realized that I don't speak to my administrators as well and as thought out as I could.  So this year will be the year of learning how to better communicate with my administrator and how I can effectively communicate with not just him, but also with other staff members.  We are all in this together but it's the way I go about creating this environment of change that will really determine our success or failure.

Data Analysis

This week was filled with a lot of data analysis.  I find it is very interesting to see the areas that should get a focus but may not be for whatever reason.  The hard part of this whole assignment is that there are a lot of numbers to pay attention to a lot of screen flips to get it all figured out.

This we we also read chapters 2 and 3.  Now, there was a lot of information regarding the potential hiring of new teachers, what questions should and shouldn't be asked, and how to properly ask the questions so that we do not lead the person to the answer.  However one section just got me laughing aloud, and that was the discussion on proper e-mail etiquette.  Wow was that fun.  I spoke in the questions about how there are teachers that have difficulty with understanding that e-mail is also a professional way of communication.  Everything that is sent through e-mail is saved in public record and can be used as evidence or as a way to gain information about a specific teacher.  There are two such people in my department who have difficulty understanding this concept, and one of them does not understand that by using italics and quotations does not help us understand what you are trying to say.

Given our current political environment, I found the funding area of WINNS to be most interesting.  Although there are no clear trends I did pay attention to the fact the local tax rates to fund the school district have gone up in recent years.  The explanation for that is that we have been inside our 5 year referendum that was voted on a passed by the taxpaying community.  After the 2011-12 school year, that referendum will have expired and we should see a decrease in that category.  That is the scary part for our district.

Leadership in School

I was the department chair for the music department for 2 years, grades 7-12 in two different buildings.  I was an experience.  I chose to resign as the chair after the birth of my daughter so that I could spend more time at home but also because it was apparent that the position was designed to fail, and although my best efforts were focused on changing the position, the administration refused to follow through.

More recently, I have tried to introduce new technologies to other teachers and to help influence the tech department to consider opening up Twitter to our district.  Although there is no plan at this time, I am slowly demonstrating how this can be used in classrooms and show that it is possible to develop a plan for inappropriate behavior on the school network.

Other music teachers in my department are open to my ideas and welcome any ideas that help make their job more efficient or that will be interesting to introduce to their own students.

ePortfolios

Right now, my department does not use ePortfolios at all.  In fact, my department is not very technologically savvy so I would not be surprised if some of them would not even know what an ePortfolio even is.  I do know that there are several teachers in the district who have an ePortfolio, but I could not find their locations online.  One colleague has one on DVD and gives to perspective districts when he applies for a position.

I am excited to get an ePortfolio established for me online.  This is has been a goal of mine since starting this degree program, but never had either the time, or the training to put one together well.  I am happy to say that hopefully this class will help me produce a highly educational and informative portfolio.

I have been a bit confused as to how things are organized with the course thus far.  I know that we aren't very far into the course, but I have had trouble locating the assignments that are due each week because they are spread out in different locations.  Right now, some assessments are located in the assessment area, but not labeled by due date, while other things are located in the discussion area.  Is there another location to check for assignments?

Legislation Reflection

I was surprised reading some of the information in the WI Act 222 where it discussed virtual schools and online charter school funding.  I didn't know many things about virtual teaching and wonder why there is a 5,250 pupil limit to online learning in WI.  Although I am personally excited to be able to teach online in the future, I was hoping that my wife could do the same.  However, the 30 hours of professional development towards teaching online will prevent her from doing so at this point.

It was a wake-up call when we learned just how expensive it is to start an online charter school, but I still think it is worth it because that is the future of education, at least in part.  :)  I am still skeptical about online teaching of a performance class or an art form that asks students to produce an emotional connection to the artistry.

Student Focus

I think one of my biggest weaknesses is creating a lesson plan with a rubric that incorporate differentiation. I know that I teach it everyday and I modify my lessons as best as possible, but I don't ever document it in my lesson plans or plan out how I'm going to make changes.  This is something I know is needed and probably the best thing to do when teaching, but even more important when teaching online.

This was a great week but it was also very busy.  These assignments were great and very valuable but at a time when I have concerts and the online presentation caused me to fall behind.  I feel better now that I am caught up but it was a pretty overwhelming feeling.  Glad it's over.

Reflection

It was a great week learning about how each group of people have benefits or challenges to an online learning environment.  It was pretty simple to relate to the challenges of educators, especially since I am going through similar challenges myself.  I discovered that I recently went through the stage of isolation.  This is where the student goes into isolation and attempts to leave their responsibilities of the course.  I am hoping that I have now left my feeling of isolation and am working hard to recover.

Learning about what students and parents might go through is important.  If teachers could better understand their students and how the parents were doing with our own courses, the relationship and learning environment for the student would be better.

Socialization

I have chosen to present on socialization for our final presentation.  This is a topic that I apparently need some more information on to help students interact in a future online environment.  I am excited about this topic but also have been working very hard to break it down to a more manageable discussion topic.

The idea that students will be taking more online courses is easy to fathem.  However, the concern is weather those online courses will make face-to-face social development more of a challenge for our future young people.  We can all think of students who face challenges when it comes to social behaviors.  The question that is concerning is what happens if those students face similar challenges in an online environment where there are no biases.  Will students flourish in this setting and will students who ordinarily do not speak out in class feel compelled to interact more?

These are issues that I plan to discuss and refine for my presentation.  Do you have ideas that I have not covered or want to help drive a discussion?  If there is something I should cover that you have thought about, please let me know!

Social Communication

I wrote about how I was excited on social communication but was concerned about how it might impact family life.  I know it is important for parents to set and teach etiquette rules for technology, but sometimes that is difficult not only for parents to stay on top of, but also a challenge for teachers to reinforce.

The future will be a bright and exciting one.  Social communication will become more and more easy for young people to access and use.  Educating these students will hopefully be able to capitalize on this technology that we will be able to integrate these ideas into our educational system.

Online Learning - 550

What a great start to this new class.  I am still a little worried about how much time I will need to complete some of the assignments, however thus far (even after a Guard weekend away), I have managed to make it work.  There are many assignments that are very relevant to what we are learning and I am looking forward to instructing the class sometime in the future.

Learning the some of the differences between synchronous and asynchronous learning really helped me understand what it is we are really working towards.  I always knew that we would be certified to teach online after this program, however to be honest, I was getting worried because previous courses haven't discussed these things.  Now with the start of this course, I am excited to dive into the ins and outs of becoming an online facilitator.

Last week of Stats

This week was incredibly busy for me.  In addition to the work we had, I am also the festival manager for our solo & ensemble festival in Mukwonago.  This year alone we have 24 schools, about 7 or 8 non-member participants and over 2,000 students performing at over 840 events.  I am currently scheduling all of those events and it gets a little crazy.

Anyway, I had fun trying to find the information for the bibliography.  I didn't realize how much information about music careers were out there and that there have actually been statistical data about them.  I found interesting things about various music careers, all the way from music teachers to recording artist to film sound engineer.  It was truly amazing and very neat to read about and learn.  I really enjoyed this assignment and hope to use this in future concert programs and publications.

Survey's and Search

This week was a blast getting our survey results gathered.  I have a lot of fun, I know it may be a little strange, gathering up that data and making various charts.  The Google Doc options make creating these charts a snap and I always have a lot of fun manipulating data like this.

We also had to watch a video on Bill Tanzer that discussed how research is formed based on what is being searched on various search engines.  It is amazing how much information can be gathered based on the simple search criteria.  Amazing things these search engines are.  :)

Survey Bliss

I was really excited about the assignment this week.  We had to create a survey.  I love surveys, not sure why, but I really enjoy learning how to manipulate the data into graphs and charts.  I'm not sure why I enjoy this, but for some reason I find the ability take information from surveys or questionnaires and such, and create an easy way to interpret the information.

Recently, I started tracking our music department enrollment numbers and have been able to enter this information into a short questionnaire for other teachers.  I've now been able to take that information and using bar graphs, pie charts, trend line, etc., I can present this information to administration as a point of keeping music programs in our district.  Given the current political climate, I thought it would be prudent to be able to show how much our numbers have grown.

Stats, week 2

Okay, so it hasn't been all that bad in class these past two weeks.  I had been expecting a very challenging course involving everything from easy math problems to downright complicated statistical mathmatics.  I am happy to say that I have been able to keep up with the assignments and learn some of the basics of statistical analysis.

Thankfully, I have a wonderful group that is supportive and helpful.  Although we have faced many challenges in our profession recently, we have found that not only are the group meetings needed to complete our various assignments, but it has also been a place for us to chat (or vent I guess) about the political happenings around our state.  I am blessed to be a teacher, I am proud that I have chosen to continue as a lifelong learner, and I glad to be with such a great group of professionals and friends.

Stats? Ah!

I have been wrapping my head around this for a few days now, but I am pretty worried about this course.  You might think that hey, you're a musician, shouldn't you be pretty good at math?!?  Well, I never have been and dealing with numbers worries me.

I am looking forward to learning about charts and how I can add this information into my conversations as factual data and I hope that we learn how to bring firm numbers to our administrators and technology personnel to help improve our technology in our schools.

SMART Goal

There is one goal that I want to do with my band students and that is blogging.  I have said it before, I think it is a very useful tool and I believe the students at my school are not getting it at all, so why not in band.

I would like to see my students reflecting on several things throughout the year.  It goes without saying that all performances would have a blog post attached to it.  However, I would also show YouTube videos of performances and ask them to comment or respond in some way that relates to the performance.  I want to begin by starting up a blog post for their solo & ensemble performances and then get a reaction to how they felt the preparation was compared to the performance.  I am firm believer that the process is more important than the product and I want to help my students see how this can be fun and reflective and how it might impact their next performance.

Since I want to start one up for our solo & ensemble festival, that means my time line is here.  I want to begin this immediately.  However, in an effort to make it more realistic, I believe I will ask for volunteers on this trial basis and see how it goes.

Web 2.0 - last class

This was a great class.  I really enjoyed learning about all of the possible web 2.0 tools that are available, and also where I can go to research new tools for the future.  I plan on implementing a few of these tool very quickly.

The first tool I began using during this class is a Google Site.  I started a few sites that will coincide with specific classes I teach but the one I will use immediately will be for the solo & ensemble festival that Mukwonago hosts every year.  I am the festival manager for this festival which brings in over 1,000 students from SE Wisconsin to perform either solos or ensembles, or both, within a day and a half festival.  This is a big undertaking and I created this web site to assist students, parents, teachers with common information regarding our festival.  There are many pieces at work during this festival and it is vital to have the right information for a successful festival.

The second tool is blogging.  I plan to begin using this tool in phases and slowly incorporate it into our curriculum.  I believe it to be a vital and power reflection tool that can be used in my music classrooms.  People may think, why in a music class, shouldn't you be performing?  Well yes, but there is also a great deal of reflection that can occur to help the student improve on an instrument.  I believe that without reflection and understanding of what I just did, or just practiced or performed, there is little ways in which we can develop a plan for improvement.  As with all subjects, music and band are not different.  With reflection, and in this case blogging, positive improvements can be implemented.

Podcasts/Screencasts

This was a lot of fun this week.  I learned about podcasting or screen casting and I have to say, I am really excited to bring this technology to my program.  I joined screenr and recorded my first screen cast video that involved how to log into our Charms Office Assistant program.  This online portal is a location where students and parents can discover information about calendars, finances, forms, schedules, etc.  This is also the place where teachers go to send a quick e-mail and all students and parents in the program.  It's a wonder and easy tool for us to keep in better communication.

The screen cast was fun, but also had its issues.  I found that I tried several different screen cast sites, but liked Screenr the best.  I liked it best because I could manipulate how much of the screen is recorded, which for me was very important - I didn't need to show everyone my shortcuts, and I could also post this video anywhere I needed.

I'm positive that this will be used more frequently in my school band program.  We have several technological tools we use and this will be a great addition to helping students/parents get around using those tools.

Ahh, RSS.....where have you been?

I set up RSS without really knowing what I had done.  When we started this journey of working towards my Master's in Instructional Technology, I wondered upon this thing called Google Reader.  After messing around for a short while and adding the blog locations of all the other students in the cohart, I quickly realized I wasn't sure what this all does for me.

After reading this book and the chapters leading up to this point, I now understand what I should be doing.  BTW, I think I'll finally go bookmark my Google reader location now.  :)  Where has this technology been all my life?  Well maybe not all my life.  RSS is probably the coolest development since You Tube, and probably more useful than You Tube.  I think that this is something that should be taught to students in middle school or early high school to help keep all of these important website organized.

Microblogging

This week we learned about microblogging (Twitter) and photo sharing options.  I found that the most useful things we discussed this week that I can apply to my teaching position is the use of a blog (Blogger.com) and the photo sharing site.

I have used this blog for this Master's program, however after reading the text about how blogs can be a useful reflection tool and can allow students to understand what blogging can do for them, I began using one for my own class.  I now blog about my activities in class and have shared the site location with my students.  I think the students will enjoy it and I will eventually use it for a way for my students to comment on topics given in class.

The other topic was the use of photo sharing.  I have used one before for school pictures, however I use a different one for my personal use than school use.  I believe I will now move entirely to my personal one and then link my school photos to my Picasa site location.  I never use students full names and actually rarely even put a name by the photo.  I have found that in order for me to use these photos online, I should be more strict with how I post photos, that way I have protected myself even beyond what the district policy states.

Week 1 with Web 2.0 Tools

So far I have really enjoyed this week's assignments. The thing I learned the most was about all of the different blog spots there are on the web. I obviously use Blogspot for this course, but I have also used it in conjunction with my school band department web site. We, the other band directors and I, do not update it enough though. I am disappointed by this but hope to start the blog again soon.

I also have signed up for an EduBlog account and want to begin using this in my middle school and possibly my elementary school programs. This site is a bit more safe for my younger students. This site is really well designed for schools, teachers and students, with the focus being on student safety.

I was thinking that I can have a monthly post for my younger students and encourage them, at the beginning, to read the post and comment on the topic. This topic would be focused on music and most likely band, but as long as the students read the post, or view a link that I use, this might be a good way for them to earn a bit of extra credit and start looking to blogs as a possible learning tool.