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Assignment 5.2 Albemarle County Public Schools

Albemarle County Public Schools seem to have a great grasp on how the coaching process and cycle should function in order to be the most successful. They really stress the importance of Phase 1: Establish the Need. Numerous times throughout the video, coaches talked at length about they operate by having the teacher share their needs and questions they have with a coach they feel comfortable with. There are three coaches per school and each coach has three schools they're assigned to, so I think they've done a good job ensuring that everyone can find a good fit and help address Phase 2: Create Partnerships. Once teachers are partnered with a coach and have identified the need, they then enter Phase 3: Target Differentiated Partnerships. This entails brainstorming together to come up with whatever tool or instructional strategy the teacher would like to implement to address the need identified in Phase 1. Then, the coach can either model that instructional strategy for the teach...

Assignment 3.3 SAMR and TPACK

The SAMR Model     SAMR is a model created by Dr. Ruben Puentedura to help teachers better integrate technology into their classrooms and teaching (R, 2013). SAMR stands for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition. Substitution is the lowest level, as it means the teacher simply substitutes a piece of technology for a strategy the teacher already uses, with no functional change (R, 2013).      Augmentation is the next highest level because while it still substitutes a strategy with a technological tool, there is a functional improvement from the substitution (R, 2013). Substitution and Augmentation are both types of technology enhancements.      The next two levels are considered transformations because they result in total redesigns of tasks or the creation of entirely new tasks (R, 2013). Modification is the third level and it involves using technology to significantly redesign a task or teaching strategy. Redef...

Assignment 2.2 Conference Time

Have you ever found the perfect conference to attend, but when you approached your principal there wasn't enough money in the budget? Unfortunately, this is a common occurrence in the public-school system. Fortunately, though, there are many free and low-budget options out there, including virtual conferences! The focus of today's post is about just that: the 2015 Future of Education Technology Conference (FETC), which is one such virtual conference. You can find the playlist of YouTube videos here . I've summarized a couple of my favorites below, one of which was presented by Nashla Tiwari and Lisa Clois, and the other presented by Syliva Martinez. You can access each presentation by clicking their heading below. Engineering for Success: Technology Tools to Help Your Students Prepare, Find, and Succeed (21 minutes) This first presentation gives a number of practical and easy-to-implement technology tools that focus on preparing students for secondary education, helping the...

Assignment 2.4 PLN Part 1b Entry - Introduction to the Blog

Hi Kinder Krew! I thought I would take a moment to introduce myself to all of you out there!  I have been teaching since 2013 when I was hired at Eleanor Roosevelt High School (Greenbelt, MD) to teach Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, and Research Practicum/AP Research. My family and I moved to Johnson City, TN in July 2019 where I currently teach Chemistry and AP Research. The enrollment for AP Research continues to grow and more and more students are interested in conducting scientific research, so I'm excited to see where next year takes me! For this blog, I plan on discussing what I'm learning in regards to technology coaching and relaying best practices related to coaching. I also hope to curate some useful resources on my Weebly, which you can access here . Thank you for joining me on this journey! Please subscribe to the blog to stay up-to-date with what I'm posting.  ~Alex

Intro to ISTE Standards 1.3

                                                                                 The Seven ISTE Standards             The seven new ISTE standards for students are empowered learner, digital citizen, knowledge constructor, innovative designer, computational thinker, creative communicator, and global collaborator (ISTE, 2022). Below I will explain each in detail and offer some suggestions for activities and technologies that address each standard Empowered Learner             The empowered learner standard calls on students to take an active role in demonstrating competency by the technology choices they make (ISTE, 2022). Canvas Learning...