CED 565 Week 2

What can I say - I love data! I love to collect it and look at it in many different ways. Still, data is only valuable if it's being used to help kids. We should never lose sight that children aren't numbers. Data should be used for their direct benefit.

Our district is working hard to put more data in the hands of teachers. Our district hasn't always had a strong data culture. The conversation has begun to turn. I'm now having more frequent conversations with administration to co-ordinate the integration of data into our culture.

CED 565 Week 1

Leadership in my position can be varied. I'm currently the Data Manager for my school district. When I came into the position, I discovered that we were duplicating data entry and people weren't able to obtain the student data that they needed in order to accomplish their daily tasks. Access to student data was kept under very tight control and people had to constantly go to a select few people to get what they needed. I carefully reviewed what needed to be under tight control and what didn't. I strongly believe in building capacity in others. So I give up control of what I can and support others in learning how to make their own tasks easier.

Sometimes we find that our student information system and grade books don't have all the functionality that we need. I often have to look 6 months to a year into the future to obtain the functionality. I use my strong relationship with the company that makes the software to get what we need. This often involves visiting the company and working with higher level executives. The administration and teachers don't often see the results until a year later. In order to obtain what our teachers and administrators need, and avoid paying for it, I have to be very persistent and work well with others.

CED 555 Week 3

Time has gotten away from me with this blog post. The month of April just seemed to slip away.

Going through the process of planning my culminating project has helped me feel better about being able to complete it successfully. I've begun to collect resources. As part of the project I'm going to include the project lessons in my portfolio. Making the portfolio part of the project will help break additional focus to it's design. I recently went to a job fair where young hopefuls had portfolios two inches thick. While I'm not sure that more is better in the case of portfolios, I would like to bring some more strength to mine.

CED 555 Blog 1 April 15

I've started to consider the elements that I'll use in my on-line portfolio. As I go through the list of classes that we've taken it's difficult to believe that we're almost at the end of the program. I've chosen to focus on the Wisconsin teacher's standards. By focusing on these standards I'll be able to see the work that we've done in the program through a different lens. Everything that's done in the classroom should be directly tied to the standards. This exercise will be good practice for me.

I've also been reviewing the requirements of the culminating project. One of the steps is to design a rubric with which the project will be evaluated. This makes me consider designing the rubric first. What should be the criteria for demonstrating mastery of the topic that I'll be working on? Perhaps if I focus on what constitutes acceptable evidence of mastery, the process will become less intimidating.

CED 555 Blog 1 March 25

It's still difficult for me to believe that the end of the program is now in sight! What will I do with myself when school is over? Perhaps I'll finally be able to keep a decently clean house!

I'm thrilled that this class was created in order to help us get through our final project. I've been considering what I should do for my project. I've become particularly interested in how technology can be used to differentiate instruction. This is what I'm considering doing my project on. Does anyone has any thoughts on this?

This weekend I'm going to sit down and write my vision and mission statements. I admit that I'll have to do some thinking on this. As we've gone through the program, I've been pulling out some of the projects we've done, knowing that we would be doing this portfolio. I hope that I'll be able to integrate most of them.

CED0550 Week 3 News Aricle

On February 10, 2009 vitual schools made front page news of the Waukesha Freeman. Joe Petrie wrote an article called "Virtual Schools Virtualy Full." The article cites the fact that in 2008 an enrollment cap of 5,250 students was placed state wide upon on-line schools. The number of enrolled students is quickly approaching the cap. According to the article, a state audit found that open enrollment is fuelling much of the boom in on-line schools. Enrollment was capped by the state until research on the effectiveness of on-line education could be performed.

The questions surrounding on-line education are not just a manner of it's effectiveness though. There are financial considerations as well. I'd like to understand more about the financial side of the matter.

I will be watching the issues surrounding on-line schools closely. I suspect that there will be many developments within the next few years.

CED 0550 Week 2

Last week we used the break out session more. I think that was my favorite part. To anyone that says on-line learning doesn't allow for students to collaborate easily, I would show them the break out function in Elluminate.

My manager once ran a cyber school and is becoming a great resource as I work my way through this class. Today he let me borrow a book called "What works in K-12 On-Line Education." I skimmed through the table of contents and the book looks very interesting. If I have any Aha moments, I'll post them to this blog.