Runninghead:REFLECTION FOR TECHNOLOGY STANDARD V

Reflection for Technology Standard V: Productivity and Professional Practice Walker B. Wellborn Lamar University

REFLECTION FOR TECHNOLOGY STANDARD V Reflection for Technology Standard V: Productivity and Professional Practice Self-Assessment

Educators use of modern educational technologies to enhance their productivity and professional practice affects the learning opportunities of students in the Bonham Elementary classroom. I have always believed any practice or experience with new technologies will open the doors to educators willingness to learn and provide the opportunities for their students to experience more technologies in classroom activities. Educational technology facilitators and leaders should bolster the use of modern technologies by contextualizing the tool for teachers, at least before using the technology for them. Contextualizing allows the teachers to learn with a simplified version of the technology in order to learn how to operate the tools for themselves (Williamson & Redish, 2009, p. 104). Instead of doing the necessary student audio recordings for the teachers myself to create A Day in the Life of a Kindergartner digital storytelling project applying multimedia technology, I facilitated discussions with a representative team of kindergarten teachers to discuss a strategy for them to approach and accomplish the project. For the field-based activities for the TF/TL Standard V Productivity and Professional Practice I learned to allow teachers to learn more from guided practice. Although the teachers in the initial meeting knew how to record with a common tape recorder, we expanded their experience how to acquire quality digital audio and digital pictures ready for uploading into a professional video-editing program to make a multimedia for public viewing. To enhance the recording of their students in normal class settings a few teachers were provided hand held microphones and shown how to record using Audacity, a free cross-platform digital audio recording and editing application. These few teachers in turn helped to guide other fellow kindergarten teachers and aides to capture their assigned recordings. Learn as a Learner I have the ability to do the recording and photography myself, but to develop the professional practice of teachers meant to instruct them in a manner how they would instruct their students. For this project to be successful the project must be teacher-centered before it would become student-centered.

REFLECTION FOR TECHNOLOGY STANDARD V I learn by example and especially learn best for what is relevant to my situation, therefore it was

important to model the recording process and explain how Audacity saves as a compressed MP3 audio file using the accompanying free LAME encoder plug-in, downloaded separately and imported into Audacity through its preferences. Along with my face-to-face facilitation teachers could follow-up later with online support. Downloadable user manuals in various formats, wiki, and online tutorials are available to guide how Audacity records, plays back, trims audio file with simple cut, copy and paste features. Also sound normalization, fading in and out, and sharing the file in an efficient file format size help teachers to customize the recordings as they wish (Audacity, 2011, para. 1). If there were editing difficulties, I was available by email or instant messaging to support the teachers remotely during or after class time. Only email telecommunications was used to share files and note production progress during the project. Otherwise the actual collaboration among teachers during the project and three face-to-face meetings enabled me to facilitate teachers to skillfully create in-class multimedia audio, picture and video assets for the final production using modern productivity technology. Lifelong Learning Skills I have found it difficult to turn loose of control in any production process using most technologies that I facilitate. However I am pleased I did so with the Bonham Elementary kindergarten teachers who created all multimedias assets that showed or demonstrated student involvement in specific daily learning activities. The facilitation allowed me to be a part of the creative technology process of the teachers and to critically think through setting incremental stages of shoots and recordings, helping teachers interact with students using technology to learn, and monitoring their process toward successfully completing the capture of excellent assets for the multimedia presentation (APA, 2008, para. 7). Collaborating with educators in improved ways to work and learn using educational technology can help develop a professional practice among the teachers of a school that can adapt quickly to a need for change (Williamson & Redish, 2009, p. 106). I plan to delegate more control to others. I plan to trust and collaborate more among the educators whom I facilitate and lead. Perhaps in the future I could impact the success of a professional learning

REFLECTION FOR TECHNOLOGY STANDARD V community by facilitating one or more projects such as the Day in a Life of a Kindergartener that would serve small groups of faculty as a relevant and manageable inquiry throughout the school year to continuously learn and practice instructional methods using contemporary educational technologies (Dana, 2009, 22).

REFLECTION FOR TECHNOLOGY STANDARD V References American Psychological Association (APA). (2008, March 28). Motivational and affective factors. Learner-sentered psychological principles. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/ed/lcp2/lcp14.html. Audacity: Free sound editing and recording software. (2011). Documentation and support. Help. Sourceforge.net. Retrieved from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/. Dana, N. (2009). Leading with passion and knowledge: The principal as action researcher. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Williamson, J. & Redish, T. (2009). ISTEs Technology facilitation and leadership standards: What every K-12 leader should know and be able to do. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education.