EDLD 5363 started with a busy agenda for making a digital story using Photo Story 3 software. When I first began, I wrote out my script and then cut and pasted the dialogue into a PowerPoint file. I thought I could easily transfer the words over, but in the end it just helped me plan my photo story.
Next, I had the daunting task of finding the pictures that went with my story. I chose to do a story about my daughter, Grace, and what it’s been like for her to be raised in a home with six brothers. I knew I had the pictures I needed, but I would have to search for them. We have over 11,000 pictures on our home computer and they are mostly organized by date. After downloading the program, I added many pictures to my Photo Story. It was then that I realized I could not take the pictures back out and put them into their own folder – ouch. I wish I had thought of that at first because I will probably need them again for other purposes since this is Grace’s senior year in high school.
Adding the narration was easier than I thought. Reading the script by picture makes the process smooth. After watching the product, I was very pleased with the results! I was ready to turn it in. Then I saw it was 4 minutes long - bummer - great for mom and grandma, but not good for my assignment. I cut several pictures and combined the narration for a few slides onto one slide. I was disappointed that my sound was not the same quality. It is quieter on the newly recorded pictures. I did not change my equipment, but I was in a different room in my home.
In the end, I created two photo stories – the original 4 minute one for family and an “abridged” version for my assignment. This was a productive assignment for me. It is a great way to organize my photos, too.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Saturday, August 28, 2010
EDLD 5363 Web Conference Reflection Week 1
This week, there were three opportunities to attend web conferences with Dr. Abernathy. I was able to be admitted at the end of the conference on Thursday the 27th and copy and paste the chat file. And I attended both the Friday and Saturday web conferences. I find that they are helpful because there are others who have the same questions as I do and usually I can just listen and read the chat to have my questions answered. I am glad the digital story can only be 2 minutes long. I also found that students mentioned websites they found very helpful in completing this assignment and the ones coming up. (diigo.com, osalt.com and camstudio.com) Some of us figured out that we could chat privately during the conference, so we were able to set up our group for the PSA in the later weeks.
I have to admit that I was surprised by students in other cohorts that appeared to have not done anything for this week’s work. It seemed that they had not even looked at the Epic site or read the assignment! Yikes! If this is the case, it may be helpful for Dr. A to just state the basics of the assignment up front with any announcements, and then ask for questions. Maybe reminding people that they can chat privately would keep the chat box from having multiple conversations going.
The audio and video is going well for the conferences. And I appreciate Dr. Abernathy taking the time to do these conferences. I find the conferences very helpful to me for answering questions and gauging my progress in the class.
I have to admit that I was surprised by students in other cohorts that appeared to have not done anything for this week’s work. It seemed that they had not even looked at the Epic site or read the assignment! Yikes! If this is the case, it may be helpful for Dr. A to just state the basics of the assignment up front with any announcements, and then ask for questions. Maybe reminding people that they can chat privately would keep the chat box from having multiple conversations going.
The audio and video is going well for the conferences. And I appreciate Dr. Abernathy taking the time to do these conferences. I find the conferences very helpful to me for answering questions and gauging my progress in the class.
EDLD 5363 Script for Digital Story
Baby Grace was born the third child in our family. She had two older brothers. Dad and Mom decided they would have all the children God gave them. Eighteen months later Grace gained a baby brother. After three more years another brother was born. Then in two more years two more brothers were born. Grace now had six brothers. Grace learned to love camouflage clothing. She also became a good fisherwoman. She learned to play air soft gun wars and to play video games. Her favorite movies are all action packed –Transformers, Fast and Furious, and the A Team. When she got to high school, her mother let her paint her room any color she wanted – she picked pink. Grace finds time to get away from it all by reading many books. Her favorite place to go is Barnes & Noble with her dad. She also has written spy novels on her laptop. Grace loves Starbucks and even had a Starbucks themed birthday party for her sixteenth birthday. She became an athletic trainer and is not afraid to help the football players’ with their injuries. But she still loves pretty dresses. And she loves to do arts and crafts. She hopes to make money selling her homemade greeting cards. “The Brothers” come running whenever Grace bakes up her famous chocolate chip bar cookies. She plans to major in communications at Texas A&M where her brother is in school. Sometimes she thinks she would like to join the Army or the Air Force and be a helicopter pilot. Somedays she thinks she wants to be a CIA agent. No matter what Grace does she will do it well.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
EDLD 5301 Reflection on Action Research
The entire process of inquiry research is new to me as I have been out of school for many years. I see this research process as having more value than a lot of the theory research I have read in educational journals. The key ingredients of inquiry research that make it so valuable are it is practical and it has immediate application. Another great thing about action research is that you get to pick the topic to suit your needs and interests. Each district and school has their own personality, so those that live in that environment have a grasp on what needs to be reflected upon.
In this course, I enjoyed learning concrete steps to take to conduct an action research project. Since this project is part of my internship, I am pleased to have taken research as my second class. Now I have a detailed plan that I can work on throughout the school year.
The first step in this process is to discover what “wondering” or “inquiry” you would like to pursue. “Wonderings materialize at the nexuses of the real-world observations, dilemmas, felt difficulties, and passions that you develop in your work as an administrator.” (Dana, 2009, pg. 30) These wonderings can be in one of nine categories: staff development, curriculum development, individual teachers, individual students, school culture/community, leadership, management, school performance, and social justice.
The second step in your plan is to collect data. It seems the best policy on data is to get the most possible from as many different sources. The term “triangulation” refers to the attempt by researchers to include varying sources of data. “Using multiple sources of data can enhance your inquiry as you gain different perspectives from different strategies.”(Dana, 2009, pg. 73) Data sources can include student testing and work, focus groups, interviews, surveys, field notes, pictures, journals and weblogs, videos and literature review.
After gathering all of your data, you must analyze it. This “means to search for patterns by comparing and combining data that typically are represented by numbers or words.” (Harris, Edmonson, & Combs, 2010, pg. 21) If you are a principal inquirer, your next step may be to determine a new direction based on the results of your data. This would be followed by taking action in response to your data-based decision for improvement.
Finally, the principal tries to maintain the improvement. If you are not in a position of leadership where you are making decisions based on your conclusions, the inquirer will need to share the results of their action research project with others. This sharing can occur through many avenues – brochures, speaking engagements, blog postings, reports, and journal publishing.
I also found the comments on the discussion board to be very helpful. My cohorts gave me sound advice as I prepared my draft plan. They pointed out things I missed and things I could change to improve my project. Some of them will clearly be valuable resources as they have great knowledge on the software program I will study in our district. Even though we live far apart, we were able to help each other in very effective ways.
The web conferences were also valuable to completing the assignments in this course and planning our action research project. It is a comfort to see others ask the same questions you have, so you don’t feel left behind. Also, students that were ahead and found obstacles voiced those problems and it was a benefit to hear how to address these issues.
Dana, N. (2009). Leading with Passion and Knowledge: The Principal as Action Researcher. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Harris, S., Edmonson, S., and Combs, J. (2010). Examining What We Do to Improve Our Schools: 8 Steps from Analysis to Action. Larchmont, N.Y.: Eye on Education.
In this course, I enjoyed learning concrete steps to take to conduct an action research project. Since this project is part of my internship, I am pleased to have taken research as my second class. Now I have a detailed plan that I can work on throughout the school year.
The first step in this process is to discover what “wondering” or “inquiry” you would like to pursue. “Wonderings materialize at the nexuses of the real-world observations, dilemmas, felt difficulties, and passions that you develop in your work as an administrator.” (Dana, 2009, pg. 30) These wonderings can be in one of nine categories: staff development, curriculum development, individual teachers, individual students, school culture/community, leadership, management, school performance, and social justice.
The second step in your plan is to collect data. It seems the best policy on data is to get the most possible from as many different sources. The term “triangulation” refers to the attempt by researchers to include varying sources of data. “Using multiple sources of data can enhance your inquiry as you gain different perspectives from different strategies.”(Dana, 2009, pg. 73) Data sources can include student testing and work, focus groups, interviews, surveys, field notes, pictures, journals and weblogs, videos and literature review.
After gathering all of your data, you must analyze it. This “means to search for patterns by comparing and combining data that typically are represented by numbers or words.” (Harris, Edmonson, & Combs, 2010, pg. 21) If you are a principal inquirer, your next step may be to determine a new direction based on the results of your data. This would be followed by taking action in response to your data-based decision for improvement.
Finally, the principal tries to maintain the improvement. If you are not in a position of leadership where you are making decisions based on your conclusions, the inquirer will need to share the results of their action research project with others. This sharing can occur through many avenues – brochures, speaking engagements, blog postings, reports, and journal publishing.
I also found the comments on the discussion board to be very helpful. My cohorts gave me sound advice as I prepared my draft plan. They pointed out things I missed and things I could change to improve my project. Some of them will clearly be valuable resources as they have great knowledge on the software program I will study in our district. Even though we live far apart, we were able to help each other in very effective ways.
The web conferences were also valuable to completing the assignments in this course and planning our action research project. It is a comfort to see others ask the same questions you have, so you don’t feel left behind. Also, students that were ahead and found obstacles voiced those problems and it was a benefit to hear how to address these issues.
Dana, N. (2009). Leading with Passion and Knowledge: The Principal as Action Researcher. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Harris, S., Edmonson, S., and Combs, J. (2010). Examining What We Do to Improve Our Schools: 8 Steps from Analysis to Action. Larchmont, N.Y.: Eye on Education.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Web Conference 31 July 2010
Web Conference
July 31, 2010
This web conference was led by Dr. Kay Abernathy. We discussed our e-portfolios and how the TK20 purchase we will make will store the e-portfolio for 7 years. (Hopefully, I will finish this degree before then) Some of the things will put into the e-portfolio are the 8 embedded course embedded reflections, our reflective readings, and our field based activities. We will work on compiling all these things during our last class – internship.
Dr. Abernathy talked about ways we can try to get our action research project published. She recommended THE Journal, English in Texas (Through TCTELA) and also the Lamar staff would be willing to help us find ways to publish our materials.
One student asked a lot of questions about the previous week's assignment which took up much time.
One interesting thing Dr. Abernathy said was that differentiated instruction was the new term for assistive technology.
July 31, 2010
This web conference was led by Dr. Kay Abernathy. We discussed our e-portfolios and how the TK20 purchase we will make will store the e-portfolio for 7 years. (Hopefully, I will finish this degree before then) Some of the things will put into the e-portfolio are the 8 embedded course embedded reflections, our reflective readings, and our field based activities. We will work on compiling all these things during our last class – internship.
Dr. Abernathy talked about ways we can try to get our action research project published. She recommended THE Journal, English in Texas (Through TCTELA) and also the Lamar staff would be willing to help us find ways to publish our materials.
One student asked a lot of questions about the previous week's assignment which took up much time.
One interesting thing Dr. Abernathy said was that differentiated instruction was the new term for assistive technology.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
