Field-based+Activities+Monthly+Report

June 2010, 24 hours

♥♥

July 2010, 7 hours ♥♥

August 2010, 19 hours Also in the course of this month I traveled to Austin for the T3 Grant Conference as a representative of Plainview HS. In this conference we learned more about the Texas led ProjectShare and several other universal applications to use in the classroom with funds received from the grant. (12 hours)

Teacher technology use and knowledge survey. (.5 hours)

This month I began discussions with our Student Council Sponsors to begin a campaign for internet safety (.5 hours) ♥♥

September 2010, 3 hours On September 15th, our principal, counselor, technology director, maintence director and I presented to the school board the need to update infrastructure at Plainview HS. In our board presentation I specifically presented the school board information on our T3 grant, NCLB part D, and the Texas LrPT. I used a Prezi, which can be viewed on the right in the Plainview Board Presentation Page. It was a very good experience to stand before the board. I look forward to the potential changes that may come from this opportunity.

Update---in the November Board Meeting, our school district decided to renovate the high school to correct some infrastructure problems that currently limit our technology.

Update 2---September 2011 was our groundbreaking ceremony for the new renovations. Phase 1 will formally begin in October of 2011 with completion in July of 2012. The renovation will consist of 3 phases.

♥♥

October 2010, 6 hours ♥♥

November 2010, 3 hours media type="custom" key="7861075" or the website may be viewed directly at //** [] **// ♥♥

December 2010, 18 hours Book study under Region 17 T3 Grant using Moodle for the book //Rewired// by Larry D. Rosen, Ph.D. ♥♥

January 2011,6 hours ♥♥

February 2011 No professional development or internship hours during this month due to UIL and other extracurricular activities. ♥♥

March 2011, 1 hour In this month I did not do any regular professional activities due to Spring Break and TAKS. However, I had the opportunity to speak in an impromptu fashion to our school board in favor of building a new high school. This months open board meeting on March 24th was an intense meeting in which community members and various others spoke in concern of the proposal. I fielded research based information on the need of infrastructure that would be best provided by a new building. ♥♥

April 2011 This month I had the opportunity to participate in a workshop about digital storytelling. It was presented by StoryChaser's facilitators Wes Fryer and Don Wilson. It is also the first Celebrating Texas Voices workshop to be held in Texas. This workshop is to help teachers in sharing the stories of their students in a digital manner. Celebrating Texas Voices is the Texas sister community to Celebrating Oklahoma and Kansas Voices. You can see the story I created at the Celebrating Texas Voices Ning. ♥♥

May 2011 This month I did a short training session on National Geographic Education. This focused on one of the tools that National Geographic has created to help students explore geography and history online from home and school. (.75 hours)

This month I began working closely with my co-teacher to help her with planning for the new course Professional Communication. This is a continuous work that began this month, but will continue throughout the 2011-2012 school year. (4 hours, with contining updates) ♥♥

June 2011 This month I completed the Online Verizon Thinkfinity Training for Trainers session. This 6 week training helped me gain the skills to train my staff and community to use Thinkfinity in their homes and classrooms. (30 hours)

This month I also did a training session for teachers on campus interested in digital storytelling. This session allowed me to show teachers the basics to developing a multimedia presentation, the use of Audacity and PhotoStory 3, as well as publishing to the internet. (approximately 3 hours, preparation & 6 hours, session) I will follow-up with teachers in December to see how they are planning to use this in their classrooms. ♥♥

July 2011 This month's training focused more on the administrative work that I could potentially do in the near future. Dr. Anthony Muhammad spoke at the Region 17 Service Center about leadership in the 21st century school. I went to two workshops by him, Learning by Doing and Who's in Charge of us all. (12 hours).

This month I worked with my former principal, now district curriculum coordinator for secondary education on planning for future career ideas and possible changes for our district. In this meeting we discussed the potential use of iPods in the classroom for ESL students based on research I did for our Accountability course. As a district we are further looking into the use of iPods for our ESL students. (1 hour) ♥ ♥

August 2011 Thinkfinity and Social Networking for Educators training session. This 2 week course allowed me to learn more about how Thinkfinity works as a social networking site for educators, parents, and students. This will be particularly advantageous as I begin to train our staff and hopefully community members on this awesome tool! (15.5 hours)

During the Thinkfinity and Social Networking session I was required to attend two sessions touring the community. Each session counted for .5 hours and was useful in showing us how to maneuver around the community. (1 hour)

This month I met with our campus student council once more to gauge their perception on the internet safety campaign they began in 2010-2011. We discussed some minor changes and what they will continue to do as they campaign this year for internet safety. (1 hour)

Presentation to West Texas Speech Association teachers regarding use of various technology tools in the classroom. (1 hour) media type="custom" key="10737300" ♥♥

September 2011 Early this month I met with our District Technology Coordinator/Technology Facilitator to train and discuss the classroom use of Gaggle for our students. (1 hour)

PHS Groundbreaking ceremony was held on Tuesday, September 27, 2011. For more information please see the article in the Plainview Daily Herald. media type="youtube" key="XkOkyD_87Vg" height="315" width="420" This month I also had the opportunity to purchase some equipment for the Professional Communications classes. This was a valuable experience as it required me to look at bids from vendors, potential use of the equipment, and student safety invovling the equipment. (1 hour) ♥♥

October 2011 media type="custom" key="10703958" October 5, 2011-I presented to the Iota Tau members of Delta Kappa Gamma. The presentation focused on the very basic history of eReaders and Smartphones with a help session for these teachers and retirees on how to use these devices.

♥♥