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Blog Post #4

In the final stages of my practicum, I scheduled a day to spend with the technology coordinator of the Elmore County school system, Mrs. Barbara Burchard. We began the day with her answering emails and returning phone calls. She told me that most of her day is spent at her desk solving problems that arise. This happened to also be the case on this day. One of the problems had to do with an issue involving the school's management system, INOW. There were two schools that could not post grades for report cards. Mrs. Burchard spent time on the phone with someone from INOW support as well as administrators in the affected schools. Another problem arose concerning a technology survey that was scheduled to be sent home. There was a need to have the survey translated into Spanish. Mrs. Burchard first had to locate the translator and then send her the survey to be translated. At 10:00, a webinar was scheduled to discuss the new management software that will be utilized beginning this summe...
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Blog Post #3

After putting the presentation together for the professional development training, I had to practice the delivery of the material. I did this several times to make sure I was comfortable and knew exactly what I was going to say. As I went through this practice, I made changes to parts of the presentation that needed clarity. This took approximately 5 hours. I also had to make other preparations in order to be ready to deliver the training. I secured an iPad stand to use for recording the presentation. I also made copies of the evaluation form and the slides handout pages. This took approximately 1 hour. On the day of the professional development, I gathered everything I would need to set up the room. I then gathered my thoughts and went through the presentation one last time. The training began at 10:00 am and lasted about 30 minutes. Once the training was over, I collected the evaluations and put the room back in order. In total, this portion lasted approximately 4 hours. Later in t...
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Blog Post #2

Before I could begin preparing to deliver the professional development training, I first had to meet with my practicum supervisor, Barbara Burchard. We discussed the details of my plan and elements in which I may need assistance. We agreed on a time for the training to take place. We also discussed scheduling a day in which I could spend some time with Mrs. Burchard in a shadowing experience. This meeting took approximately 1 hour. In order to prepare to deliver the professional development training, I needed to begin putting together a newsletter and thinking about the elements that would need to be included. I chose to use Microsoft Word as the tool to create the newsletter because many of the teachers are familiar with it and use it often. As I was building a prototype for my presentation, I also researched different aspects of the newsletter to make sure I was adequately prepared to deliver the material and answer questions that may arise during the training. I also practiced mak...
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Blog Post #1

To begin preparing for my practicum, I reviewed the technology needs assessment from the Elmore County Public School system. This information was acquired from the technology coordinator, Barbara Burchard. After analyzing the document, I determined the areas in which there was a need. In addition, I interviewed Mrs. Burchard in order to identify other areas of need with regard to technology. Gathering this information and analyzing the data took approximately three hours. I used this information as well as the ISTE Standards for the basis of my professional development plan. To begin preparing the professional development, I had to complete a training course on Quality Matters. This was an online course in using the Quality Matters rubric, which is used to evaluate online courses. The course had several components and took approximately two hours to complete. The bulk of my time then was spent on utilizing the QM Course Worksheet to build my professional development plan. The worksheet...
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