5.2 Professional Learning
Candidates develop and implement technology-based professional learning that aligns to state and national professional learning standards, integrates technology to support face-to-face and online components, models principles of adult learning, and promotes best practices in teaching, learning, and assessment. (PSC 5.2/ISTE 4b)
Artifact: ItsLearning Training
For standard 5.2, the artifact that I am sharing was created in the ITEC 7460: Professional Learning & Technology Innovation course. My final project involved me creating a technology workshop for my staff. For this assignment I chose to redeliver a new an upcoming resource from our school system called, ItsLearning. ItsLearning is a new learning management system that I am currently piloting in my school. I have learned a great deal about this resource and I felt that it would be great to share some of these resources with my staff.
There are currently several teachers in each building piloting this new system and next year our entire system will begin the launch. I felt that this would be a great time to develop and implement a technology workshop for staff members that are interested in this resource. During a recent professional development I offered a face-to-face, online technology workshop that offered my staff a chance to learn about ItsLearning, how to navigate through the site, create home pages and learn about how to use the planners, add resources and online activities. Providing my staff with an early experience and giving them a chance to plan, explore, and create through this system increases their interest and learning. These are just some of the ways that I tried to model principles of adult learning during my technology workshop. ItsLearning is a great resource to increase our communication between home and school. Also, this resource promotes best practices in teaching, learning, and assessment. For example, this resource offers an analytic tool to analyze classroom or individual data. Our students will be capable of participating in online discussions, submit assignments and receive feedback from their teachers and they can also create projects too. ItsLearning is a great way to offer blended learning to our classrooms by integrating technology into our curriculums.
Looking back over this workshop I did not realize that some aspects of the ItsLearning platform were not available. Unfortunately, small sections of this management system are being released, which is giving many of us a chance to really explore and implement these resources. When I was redelivering this workshop, to my staff, the planner had just been released and it had some bugs that we encountered. We were able to work through them, but I wish that I had spoken to our Digital department earlier and had worked through them so that my presentation would have been smoother. Fortunately, during the screencast everything was working a lot easier.
This technology workshop can have a positive impact on our staff’s implementation of the ItsLearning management system. Having several staff members that understand how to navigate through this platform can provide our staff with several peer coaches. Also, have my technology workshop online provides my staff with several resources that they can refer to as they are implementing this resource in their classrooms.
There are currently several teachers in each building piloting this new system and next year our entire system will begin the launch. I felt that this would be a great time to develop and implement a technology workshop for staff members that are interested in this resource. During a recent professional development I offered a face-to-face, online technology workshop that offered my staff a chance to learn about ItsLearning, how to navigate through the site, create home pages and learn about how to use the planners, add resources and online activities. Providing my staff with an early experience and giving them a chance to plan, explore, and create through this system increases their interest and learning. These are just some of the ways that I tried to model principles of adult learning during my technology workshop. ItsLearning is a great resource to increase our communication between home and school. Also, this resource promotes best practices in teaching, learning, and assessment. For example, this resource offers an analytic tool to analyze classroom or individual data. Our students will be capable of participating in online discussions, submit assignments and receive feedback from their teachers and they can also create projects too. ItsLearning is a great way to offer blended learning to our classrooms by integrating technology into our curriculums.
Looking back over this workshop I did not realize that some aspects of the ItsLearning platform were not available. Unfortunately, small sections of this management system are being released, which is giving many of us a chance to really explore and implement these resources. When I was redelivering this workshop, to my staff, the planner had just been released and it had some bugs that we encountered. We were able to work through them, but I wish that I had spoken to our Digital department earlier and had worked through them so that my presentation would have been smoother. Fortunately, during the screencast everything was working a lot easier.
This technology workshop can have a positive impact on our staff’s implementation of the ItsLearning management system. Having several staff members that understand how to navigate through this platform can provide our staff with several peer coaches. Also, have my technology workshop online provides my staff with several resources that they can refer to as they are implementing this resource in their classrooms.