Educators seek out opportunities for leadership to support student empowerment and success and to improve teaching and learning.

Educators:

 

2a)  Shape, advance and accelerate a shared vision for empowered learning with technology by engaging with education stakeholders.

 

When I first came to the district I am in now, I had been using technology a little more than the rest of my department.  During my interview with the department head, the Dean of Students and Learning, and the Principal, I had mentioned that I use Plickers and Nearpod throughout my lessons.  Both of those activities were new to those interviewing me, and once I explained them (and had been offered and started my new job), I was asked to present Plickers and Nearpod to the rest of the faculty and a small handful of parents (similar to that of a PTO).  Both forms of technology allow me to assess students in a low-stress situation, but can also allow for more in-depth and thoughtful questions than the traditional true/false and multiple choice.  These truly opened a door to many different activities and lessons now that we didn't necessarily need a paper and pencil exit ticket, quiz, or test anymore.  

 

2b)  Advocate for equitable access to educational technology, digital content and learning opportunities to meet the diverse needs of all students.

 

After my first year at the school, I teamed up with the Special Education Department head to play around with IXL in the classroom.  IXL is a program that has "lessons" if you will, for every standard and in the math and English classrooms from pre-school through Calculus and English IV.  We were able to assign lessons to our students and the program would give them questions to answer while tracking all data possible.  The program would give students points for correct answers and take points away for wrong ones.  It would provide a step by step guide to get the correct answer if students answered wrong as well.  As teachers, we are able to see every question the student answered, what they answered, how long the "lesson" took them (vs how long their computer screen was open) and more.

 

After a very successful first year, my team teacher and I went to the Board of Education, presented our findings, and, once our district was successfully able to go 1:1, we were blessed to have the Board say they would pay for an IXL account for each student.  During our presentation, we noted how this program can be used as an entrance ticket, exit ticket, review game, homework, or even differentiated throughout the classroom.

 

2c)  Model for colleagues the identification, exploration, evaluation, curation, and adoption of new digital resources and tools for learning.

 

I had also used Google Classroom before coming to my current district, so once we went 1:1, and I was enrolled in ISLT 9471: Instructional Systems Design, it was only fitting that I worked with my group to create a workshop on how to "Google Your Classroom."  This workshop is meant for faculty on an institute day so they can learn how to use Google Classroom as a teacher and as a student, as well as the different ways to utilize it within their own specific subject classrooms.