Last month when we were first introduced to our Major Project, it didn’t take me long to decide on a topic. As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been a participant of the Connected Educator Project for the past three years, which has had a great impact on my development as a teacher. When discussing this with Trevor Kerr (who also happens to be a colleague at St. Kateri), we both saw an opportunity within the current framework of the Connected Educator Project to create a resource that could help to make an already amazing project, even better. As a result, due to our shared interest and passion as Connected Educators, we have decided to work as a team for our Major Project. The Inspiration for our ProjectSince our last unit included an interview by Bart Cote, who discussed the Connected Educator Project, I won’t go into great detail about the project, but rather provide a brief history that served as the inspiration for our major project. Over the past three years, the number of participants involved has significantly increased on yearly basis. In the beginning, the Connected Educator Project consisted of 28 educators who possessed a strong relationship with technology, and were from diverse teaching background that reflected all grade levels. In its second year, that number increased to 66 participants, with the majority still quite comfortable with technology. However, in the present year, the number grew to a staggering 130 participants, which created more diversity with regards to the overall experience and relationships with technology. With this trend in mind, it’s obvious that these numbers show no signs of slowing down anytime in the near future. This growth signals an increasing amount of educators who are becoming more comfortable incorporating technology into their own pedagogy, which is a strength for the division. However, when comparing the number of participants in the project to small size of the Education Technology Department, it became clear that there are going to be potential roadblocks, specifically in relation to training and professional development that could arise for new Connected Ed’s in the future. In the earlier rounds of this project, new participants were provided with multiple opportunities for training and professional development to help ease their transition into becoming a Connected Educator. These full day PD opportunities provided training and opportunities for meaningful growth and collaboration with fellow Connected Educators. Unfortunately, face-to-face PD has been significantly decreased for recent participants due to ministry budget cuts and the sheer number of people in the project. In the present year, the division is only able to provide two half-day sessions throughout the year for participants who are new to the project. While this is an unfortunate situation, both Trevor and I saw an opportunity to create a resource that would help bridge the PD gap and help ease new participants into the project. What is our Project?As mentioned above, professional development and training for new connected educators has been dramatically reduced since the beginning of this project. With this in mind, Trevor Kerr and I have decided to develop a self-guided professional development resource that can be utilized by new participants of the Connected Educator Project, as well as other teachers in the division. While anyone would have access to this resource, the primary focus would revolve around the Grade 6-8 level, as this is area in which we have the most experience. This resource, or “Connected Educator 101” as we have tentatively titled it, would be broken down into five important areas to aid in the integration of these devices within a classroom setting. These areas of focus would be:
Each of these areas would include detailed explanations and instructions (both written and recorded) for the set-up and utilization of these tools. Sections detailing technological tools would also contain student work samples to give connected educators a deeper understanding of the application for each tool. The format that we’ve decided to utilize in order to deliver this content would be the creation of our own web page. The Benefits of our ProjectDue to the decrease in professional development, new participants are coming into the project with less training and limited opportunities for growth compared to previous years. In addition, with the expansion of the project, many of the new connected educators are still at the developing stage in regards to their relationship with technology. This inexperience, coupled with the expectations of the project, could create a lot of unnecessary stress for teachers at a very busy time of the year. To make matters worse, there is currently little to no resources that have been created to bridge the professional development gap left by these budget cuts. The combination of all of these aspects were the motivation behind creating an easily accessible, self-guided professional development program to help ease teachers who are new to the Connected Educator Project, as well as those who are beginning to dip their toes in the technological waters.
1 Comment
stephen wihak
3/13/2019 12:36:05 pm
Nice to see your project fleshing out nicely, Matt! I wonder if it might be helpful to use the SAMR model as a sort of Bloom's taxonomy to organize and categorize these sections of your website:
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Matt BrescianiI'm a middle years teacher in Regina, Saskatchewan, working towards a Masters Degree in Education. Archives
April 2019
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