aleaf in japan

Amazing Couple!

At the moment after the natural disasters in Japan, many expat families with children hesitate to go back to Tokyo and Yokohama. This is a big issue for the IB high school students who are getting their work ready, adjusting their grades and applying for the universities for the following year. They need their work done. A lot of the IB teachers are already in touch with these students who are scattered around the world through email. They answer the questions they have and guide them in their studies. But these students need proper guidance and study in the following months and they need to take some required exams in order to graduate. This is a particularly difficult situation for both the teachers and students who are at the moment in different countries far away from each other. On the other hand right after the earthquake happened in elementary school, our principal sent out an email to teachers to prepare some e- learning material for their students as the school had to be shut down for another week before the spring break. This raised a lot of concerns from both ends. The teachers, being through the earthquake and the nuclear disaster and being expats advised to leave the country, have been through a lot of stress. They did not have any time to sit down and think about any kind of e-learning at all. On the students’ side it was no different story. Their families had taken them away from the cities; most of them evacuated their homes and flee to their home countries. Some of both end lost family and friends. As a result the teachers put together a package and the students have been informed about it. We all are curious what percentage of these kids have gone through these e-learning materials, what percentage did not. While all these were happening, as a part of my studies, in my current course I was reading about online learning tools. After spending some time on different online learning platforms, I have to admit that I find them useful. If we had an online learning center for our students to follow the subjects they were taking in high school online, now they would not have had suffered from contacting their teachers at all times. And on the teachers’ side it would have been easier as the notes and resources would have been already present at this site. For elementary school, with the support of parents the kids could have followed up with content they were supposed to be working on. May be as the IT department, we need to sit down and discuss about these online tools as they might be great backup resources and platforms in students’ ongoing learning process.

References:

Hargis, J., & Schofield, K. (2007). Integrating Online Learning into Elementary Classrooms. In P. Adamson, B. Adamson, & N. Clausen-Grace, et al (Eds.), What Works in K-12 Online Learning (pp. 33-47). Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education.

YouTube: “Using Moodle in the Classroom” located athttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9XfwBzt1mY&feature=related

Have you seen the movie ‘ The Social Network’ ? I highly recommend it. It is about how to build a social networking website (facebook), its ups and downs and building road to success.

http://www.thesocialnetwork-movie.com/

Currently I am in Siem Riep, Cambodia getting ready for the Cambo Challenge which is starting tomorrow. Me and my husband will be driving a tuktuk for 10 days covering 1450kms. We are taking this challenge to help build a water supply pipeline in a village called Chambok.

Please check our blog and follow our adventures. Go Team Tanuki go!

http://www.teamtanuki.com

Cheers!

For the past two months I have been focusing on ‘Integrating Technology Across the Content Areas’. During this course I designed a GAME Plan for myself, set goals and created unit lesson plans to support my goals and integrate technology in the classroom. I had the chance to look into NETS-T and NETS-S standards and integrate them in my daily lesson plans. (NETS, 2010).

My Game plan had the goals of professional development, teacher and student support. In order to integrate technology in the classrooms of elementary grade levels from kindergarten to Grade four effectively, I first had to have the teachers equipped with the right kind of technological tools that they needed for their classroom usage. Being a part of the school’s IT team, I had the chance to deliver their needs to the IT department and find the appropriate tools for their integration. This was the first challenge I had because the classrooms were not equally equipped with the right tools and in order to have an effective integration first I needed to solve this problem. After having some research done and going through negotiations with the IT department and the administration, the classrooms were well equipped. We supplied fifteen iPads and fifteen laptops for the Grade levels Kindergarten and Grade1. The grades from two to four needed some softwares to be installed into their laptops and some classes needed projectors, cameras and headphones so we ordered them as well.

The second challenge was to level the teachers’ knowledge on integrating technology in their curriculum. With the assistance of the curriculum coordinator, being present in the grade level unit planning meetings, we integrated technology in their daily lesson plans. This took a lot of time and effort. But in the end every grade level had projects using technology in their units.

The third goal was to assist the teachers and students using technological tools in their classrooms. Some of the teachers were resistant using these tools due to their low self-esteem and lack of experience in integration. I started to run technology morning meetings with every week with a good amount of attendance. These sessions helped a lot of teacher to gain confidence and be compatible with new technologies. A good amount of them started their classroom blogs and documented student work and shared their classroom experience with their peers and the school community.

The last goal of mine was to improve my knowledge and experience in the field in order to be more helpful to the teachers and students. I was lucky that in the second week of November I attended a workshop run by Alan November (November, 2008). In this workshop we had discussions on web literacies and one to one integration in schools. As I had studied his teachings in my last course in Walden University, this workshop was a good supplement to my studies and gave me ideas to implement more creative projects in the classrooms.

To sum up, this course gave me insight on how to effectively integrate technology in the classrooms and ways to support teacher and student learning. I am still working on improving my GAME plan and goals. I believe as long as we have goals and plans for a better integration, the classrooms will serve better and more effective learning for the 21^st century students we work with.

References:

NETS (2010). Standards for Global Learning in the Digital Age. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf

November, A. (2008). Web literacy for educators. Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press.

As my classmate Tammy indicates in her blog post this week, the NETS standards are pretty similar when we try to compare them.They match each other perfectly. I list both standards below:

When I look at these standards both students and teachers’ standards are complimenting each other. For example the students become more aware of the digital citizenship if the concept is modelled by their instructors.

In my GAME plan one of my goals was to model digital citizenship to other teachers as well as students. I think I made a big progress in my goal. At the end of first term, which was last week, another grade level agreed to run their class blogs when the school reconvenes. They have had a couple of projects integrating technology such as shooting some videos and recording some voice which led them thinking of sharing the student products with parents and community. With some encouragement from me and some other colleagues, they came familiar with the idea of blogging and they are eager to learn. In’t that amazing?

This week I am revising my GAME Plan. The questions below will be my guideline.

What have I learned so far that you can apply in your instructional practice?

I have learnt that although some teachers are resistant to new technologies, some might be extremely passionate. One of the challenges that I have is to balance the two opposite poles. While some teachers are running ahead, others fall way behind. I learnt to be patient and support the ones who are resistant with my knowledge and experience whereas I support the ones who run ahead with relevant resources to dwell into their passion.

What goals am I still working toward?

I am consistently working toward a better understanding of integrating technology in the classrooms. I am trying to find platforms where I can share my experience and learn more from others. I believe in personal interaction and support of colleagues. The first hand experience that we have is priceless and sharing enriches it.

Based on the NETS-T, what new learning goals will you set for yourself?

NETS-T talks about “facilitating technology-enhanced experiences that address content standards and student technology standards.” Based upon this statement I would like to set up a goal on developing an appropriate scope and sequence for IT in my school. Currently we have an outdated one and it needs to be updated given the fact that 21st century learners need to be supported with relevant technologies we need to have a close eye on this development.

If I am not ready to set new learning goals, how will I extend what I have learned so far?

I feel like I am ready to set new goals and support them with new professional development opportunities.

What learning approaches will I try next time to improve your learning?

I’d like to be a part of an online community of international teachers exchanging ideas and experience. We have an online curriculum center (IB OCC) where we can collaborate on our curricula, where we connect and share sample units. I have been a part of an online community on iPads but I am in need of more connections with the teachers all around the worls.

• How effective were my actions in helping me meet my goals?

I think my actions have been very effective. I have communicated with my group of colleagues in my area and found out that the meetings that I want to go to will next be held in the spring. I applied for the Shanghai workshop and waiting for an answer from my boss on my attendance.

• What have you learned so far that you can apply in your instructional practice?

I learnt that although some teachers might be resistant to technology, in this way or another they come to terms with it and start using it. A good example is a teacher that I am working with who has been very reluctant on starting her own blog, suddenly last week decided to have her own blog, started it, using it and going to have a launch party next week to her parents’.

• What do you still have to learn? What new questions have arisen?

I still have to learn to be patient and easy going. I need to be more organized in my lesson plans and commit to my schedule. I have to check all the tools that I will be using (laptops and iPads all charged, microphones working,etc.). And try to be in the classrooms a couple of minutes before the sessions start to make sure everything is working properly.

• How will you adjust your plan to fit your current needs?

I think I need to add some notes and review my plan a bit. Generally my plan works and will continue to work as long as stick to it. I know that it is a flexible plan and it is OK to adjust it here and then a little.

Do you adjust your plans?

On Saturday we had a pecha kucha night as a part of Bridging the Gap Conference. I was one of the presenters,too. Have a look at what I’ve done:)

2010 YISBTG Pecha Kucha – Elif Raskin from Yokohama International School on Vimeo.

Yesterday we had the first day of our conference called the “Bridging the Gap” in our school. I ran a breakout session on iPads. Have a look at it: all_about_ipads

And we had Alan November as our keynote speaker. We discussed web literacy and becoming a 1:1 school.

Have I told you that I designed the poster?

And most of all, I will be presenting in our “Pecha Kucha” night. My presentation will be about “Team Tanuki”. More about it later:)

Feel like I am a juggler, many things in my hands…