GAME Plan...Still in Progress

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my current professional development plans. I began working towards improving my teaching practice by working on two “International Society for Technology in Education” standards: 

 

1.      “Develop and model cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with colleagues and students of other cultures using digital-age communication and collaboration tools…” (ISTE, 2008 4d), and

 

2.      “Participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning…” (ISTE, 2008 5(a)).

 

 My last post offered an update of my progress, and now I am sharing this continuation. Just to refresh your memory, my plans to engage in learning communities entail beginning with establishing relationships with other Alberta technology teachers. With that in mind, I have been diligently building a database of all the schools in Alberta. I am finding all the information I require to do this and thought I would share some of what I have discovered:

  

Alberta School Type	# of Schools*
Charter **	3
First Nations	36
Francophone	18***
Private	109
Public	475
Separate	93

* I have only collected data on senior high schools because there are 2,347 schools throughout Alberta. Collecting contact information for all of these schools would be far too time-consuming. I am teaching senior high school students, so I will begin with fellow senior high teachers.

**I did not even realize Alberta had any, so this came as a surprise to me

*** This is far more than I expected to see

 Now that I have a database containing school names and relevant contact information, I need to wait until the fall before I can communicate with each school’s technology specialist. This is not as much of a set back as I initially considered. This gives me the requisite time to plan what I wish to discuss with my colleagues at the above noted schools.

Planning my discussion with colleagues is a newly arisen concern with this project. I have focused on gathering the contact information so I can start contacting my fellow technology teachers, but what exactly do I want to discuss with them? I want to ensure I am succinct, articulate and convey my plans in a way that shows my colleagues I want to create a community that will benefit all of us. For example, I must be sure to incorporate discussions regarding aligning assessments with curriculum outcomes (Cennamo, Ross & Ertmer, 2009); are they incorporating technology into their assessments? If so, how are they doing this?

Throughout my career as a consultant, I have organized large numbers of individuals to see a common goal come to fruition. This project, however, is of a scale far greater than any in which I have been involved. I see what a huge undertaking this is and have come to the realization that I cannot accomplish building this community within my first year back in the profession. I want to ensure this Alberta technology teachers’ community produced meaningful discussions, and simply knowing who one another is will not translate into meaningful discussions.

With this in mind, I have modified my plan as follows. I will establish relationships with other senior high school technology teachers in my district. This will be a relatively small community as there are only five of us. There may be a strong technology community in my district already, but because I was hired only a few weeks ago, I am not yet aware of existing professional learning communities. I eagerly look forward to discovering the collaborative opportunities that await.

Although I have modified my plan to be far more local than I initially intended, I have not abandoned my vision of establishing a province-wide community of technology teachers. Such an organization may, indeed, already exist. I hope this is the case, but I have not yet discovered such a group. Joining an existing group would be far easier than initiating one. However, I would be delighted to be a part of a movement that could help all Alberta teachers integrate technology into their classrooms.

------------------------------------------------------- 

References

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2010). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). National education standards for teachers (NETS-T). Retrieved July 5, 2011 from http://www.iste.org/Libraries/PDFs/NETS_for_Teachers_2008_EN.sflb.ashx