EDLD 5306 Reflection

This course is really my first introduction into teaching and educational technology as a whole. Before starting this degree I even though I have worked in the school district for over 6 years, I have very little to do with the daily “educational” part of the school and district. When doing a self-assessment I found that I really had little knowledge of the main reason that the school is here, to educate the youth. In the past I have viewed the school as a business and treat it as such. I don’t feel that my classes will fully change my view of this, but I do feel that they will give me a greater understanding and help me be a better employee, as this class and assignment have. One of the primary things that I have learned from this class is a greater understanding of the Long Term Technology Plan and the STaR chart. The class did give me a greater, and much needed, insight into these documents and has opened up my eyes to a wide array of other areas that I had not thought about before, such as creating a fully interactive classroom.

My approach to this assignment was straight forward and simple, find out how to present the STaR chart information to beginning teachers. This was complicated for me in that the only real exposure that I had before this class to the STaR chart was hearing the name. While at the beginning I was apprehensive about how I would be able to accomplish this, I found it much easier than I initially thought. One of the greatest resources that I had for this assignment was the technology director who, as with most of the classes, took time to explain and elaborate on any questions that I had.

I feel that understanding the information in the STaR chart, especially to the ability to teach it to others, will become an essential part of my job in the future regardless of my position in the school system. If I become a technology director it will be an integral part of information that I will be able to use to mold the district and/or school to align with the Long Term Technology Plan, and if I remain in Information Technology it will allow me to ensure that the technology is in place in the schools so that teachers can fully utilize current technology. Speaking about these items with the technology coordinator and superintendent has shown them that I am willing to put in the extra work and understanding for the district and has allowed me to play a greater part in areas that I have historically not been included in. One of the things that I would like to have a greater understanding about is the Long Term Technology Plan. Understanding this document can only come with time and research, but I feel over time I will be able to use this document in every aspect of my current and future jobs in the school system.

Comprehensive Examination Part 1

Comprehensive Examination for

Technology Leadership

Christopher T. Rasile

EDLD 5370 Cohort 8

Dr. Kay Abernathy

February 23, 2011

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to cover the information that has been taught within the past eighteen months during the Masters of Education in Technology Leadership program through Lamar University. In addition to the course content that will be reevaluated a description into the future of Mr. Rasile’s professional career will be addressed and covered as well as a look back at some of the most important and relevant information and experiences that have occurred during the and because of the Masters program.

Comprehensive Examination for Technology Leadership

The past eighteen months have been a myriad of information and knowledge that, for the most part, have been new to me and have introduced me to a whole new world within my current job. Although I work in a school district, I am the network administrator and have been very distant from the educational part of the business due to this. The courses that I have taken throughout the educational degree have given me a newfound understanding and respect for the teachers and staff as well as given me a strong drive to help and support these individuals in more than a technological way. This examination is a guidebook to the information that I have gathered over the past eighteen months, the projects that I have completed and my future goals and aspirations within my career path.

Position Goal

As stated earlier I am currently the network administrator for our school district and have held that position for the last seven years. Although I have not been directly involved in the budgeting, planning, and training of the teachers within the district I share an office with the districts technology director. Throughout the years I have been a source of information for the technology director when she is working on items such as E-Rate, yearly budgets, grants, and other district level financial information. Initially these kinds of things were not interesting to me, but the more that I have learned and understand what kind of impact a technology director can make in a school and district, the more interested I have become in holding a district technology directory position. Since the technology director at our school district has no intention of leaving, I intend on perusing that position within another district after finishing this degree. I will use the knowledge that I have gained in this degree program to help the teachers and district create a more interactive and positive learning environment at our school and district. Whether it is from a position of a network administrator or technology director my goal is to help the teachers, district, and students perform to the best of their ability through technology.

Leadership Goal

The reason for completion of this degree program is pretty simple for me, I like to lead rather than follow and I love technology. This degree will give me the education and information that I will need to help educators implement technology within their classroom that will have a positive effect on students that will help guide them into adulthood. My goal as a technology leader is to help pull schools into the twenty-first century and ensure that they are not trying to play catch-up to the “real world” but helping the students prepare for changing technology before they become standard. This includes several areas such as ensuring the correct tools are in place in the classroom, ensuring that the faculty and administration understand how to use the technology, and following up to ensure that the technology is being used. Personally, this degree will lead to a more fulfilling position emotionally and financially.

EDLD 5366 Reflection

This class has been very interesting to me on many levels. I have never had to look objectively at articles or advertisement layouts before, only being an observer, but this class has given me newfound respect and I objectivity look for things such as contrast, alignment, repetition, and placement. One of the things that I have never given much thought to was the placement of items in movie posters. It is interesting for me to see the great thought that the designers put into placement of the times on the advertisement to represent items in a movie.

In week two we discussed personal branding, and one of the areas that I thought I was doing pretty well in, a business card, there was a suggestion in the reading that made me rethink the design aspect of my card, adding a picture on the card. One simple line “The card should contain a picture” (Schawbel, 2009), made me seriously rethink my current business card, as well as business cards that I have received over the years from business contacts. A photo on the card can personalize the card, as well as help the recipient remember who you are. This can help set you above the crowd, especially in a time when a company can have dealings with vendors and businesses from around the globe.

In week three we had to create an animation, but the real revelation for me was the discussion of how we, as a people, learn. More specifically how short term memory objects can so easily be lost and how to create those short term memories into long term memories. I knew that using audio as well as video and other stimuli would help to increase the likelihood that the information would be transferred to long term memory, but I never really understood why. The reading also stated how too much information at the same time can overload the short term memory, and to only focus on the core items that we need to teach, verses adding “fluff” around the edges. This is something that I can use when helping to create workshops for the teachers, since there can be a tendency to add extra items that in the past I have been deemed as extras to enhance a presentation. Blooms digital taxonomy was another new concept for me, but the breakdown of the levels of understanding combined with digital techniques was really eye opening. Having this knowledge going forward can help me create workshops that will allow the teachers not flow up the chart of understanding so that they will be on a higher level, publishing work, by the end of the class.

Week four was mostly about getting the newsletter done, which was gratifying in its own way, but one of the things that stuck out that week was in the discussion thread where Jason Greer stated that he used Halo to teach and excite the kids about history and historic battles. His innovation in using a non-educational tool and molding that into something that was exciting and educational was amazing to me. This is something that I have already discussed with the technology director and we are looking into how we could do something like this at our district.

Moving forward from this class I will be able to take the knowledge that I have gained, especially how to create effective long term learning, and integrate that into workshops that will help teachers understand the mechanics, and implementation of these mechanics into the classrooms. Before all of this, I will have to craft my teaching skill to effectively integrate those tools into the workshops, which is something that will only get better with time and practice.

Churches, A. (2007, April). Bloom's digital taxonomy. Retrieved from http://www.techlearning.com/article/8670

Schawbel, D. (2009). Personal Branding 101: How to Discover and Create Your Brand. In Mashable/Business. Retrieved December 4, 2010, from http://mashable.com/2009/02/05/personal-branding-101/

Understanding Multimedia Learning: Integrating Multimedia in the K12 Classroom. (2008, September). Retrieved from http://www.brainpop.com/new_common_images/files/76/76426_BrainPOP_White_Paper-20090426.pdf

EDLD 5366 Animation

Book Of Kells Design Review

First off I have to admit that I have always been fascinated with ancient text and their artwork, especially the Book of Kells, so this was definitely an easy pick to examine. The page that I chose to examine is Plate XII. The Evangelical Symbols, this is a great example of all four elements of design that we have been studying this week. The first impression that I get from the works, and what I would consider art, is the symmetry and the artwork that was put into the pages. First there is the contrast between the intricately intertwined knots and pictures and the blank spaces on the page, next there is the repetitive designs and symbolism, such as the knots, flowers, and shapes. Next is the alignment of the pictures, the one that I am analyzing has four definite boxes located in the four corners of the page, each with a circle inside that box. Proximity of these designs is very important, with the “important” part of the pictures being located inside and immediately surrounding the circles, that are inside the squares, that are in the four corners of the picture. Although the actual artist of the manuscripts is unknown, it is safe to say that this was a work of love and dedication, not only to their religion, but to art itself.

Sullivan, E. (n.d.). In The Book Of Kells. Retrieved November 20, 2010, from http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/bok/bok16.htm

EDLD 5363 Week 5 Reflection

This has been a very interesting and fulfilling project and overall class for me. At the beginning of the class I had only used iMovie to import a movie and post it to YouTube. Now I have created a PSA with voiceovers, music, transitions, video, and still pictures with my group and it turned out pretty darn good if I do say so myself.

All in all the project went pretty smooth, we did have some difficulty when scheduling our meetings, but we always found time at least once a week to meet and discuss the project. Preproduction basically laid the foundation for the project. During this process we assigned roles for each of us and created an initial script as well as ideas for shooting. After that Caroline made changes to our document to reflect where she would shoot the videos that were discussed. During production our entire group sent me what they had gathered, video, music, and voiceovers so that I could start editing the clip. During the post production we focused mainly on issues with the PSA video, first off the video was clocking in at around 85 seconds, so we had to cut some of the clips down, there were some voiceovers that had to be redone, and there were a couple of shots that had to be reshot.

As far as how our group could improve our service announcement, I really cannot think of anything else that we could have done in the allotted time. Of course if we had more time we could have adjusted some of the clips a little more, or done a few more things, but I feel that all in all our PSA turned out really nice and I am proud of it and what our team accomplished.

All of our copyright information is listed in the PSA document as well as at the end of the video.

Our team worked really well together. As I stated before there were some scheduling conflicts, but we all worked around them and created a successful project and PSA. Everyone in the team worked together and was respectful of each other’s ideas and input, everyone seemed “interested” and wanted to create a good project and not just something to get by with. I would be excited to work with any of my team members on future projects.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLyNP73pogY

EDLD 5363 Week 2 Reflection

For this assignment I reviewed Windows Movie Maker and Apple’s iMovie. I chose to work with Apple’s iMovie for several different reasons. First, due to the fact that I use a Mac at work and my MacBook Pro at home and in the past have used their software for other projects, so I am more familiar with iMovie that I am with Movie Maker. Second, I like the interface and ease of use that is integrated into iMovie over Windows Movie Maker. Adding audio, cutting, and editing clips is very easy and intuitive in iMovie. For these clips I will use .mov file extensions, the default video extension that it exports to. iMovie also offers the ability to directly upload content to iTunes and YouTube without having to first export the video. While this option was not what sold me on the software, it is a nice addition that new users or people that are not technologically proficient could find very useful.

As far as learning, I have never really been one to create and post content online, so this is helping bring me out of my shell and forcing me to use the editing software in ways that I have not done before. This will give me more confidence to use iMovie or other video editing software in the future for work and other projects. One area where I see this can have a direct impact on my current position is that I can create short podcast for the teachers outlining task that they can do on their computers. While creating the podcast might take a little time up front, it can save time in the long run by empowering the end user.