FINAL POST!!!!!!

Well this is it! Throughout this program I have come a long ways. Not only do I feel more comfortable with technologies (which was my goal), but I feel as though I have gained many valuable tools and experiences along the way. I can take what I have learned back to my students and fellow staff and be a real leader for technology in my school.

What I have learned in this program has changed my professional and personal life. Now I can put to use these magical web 2.0 tools for many things in my daily life. Ning, Jing, doodle, moodle, Google, Wiki, and animoto, just a few of my favorites! I have learned to create presentations and documents online, and can share and collaborate via web based tools, communicate by blog, micro blog, forums, chat, and Skype. I can do things and find things on the web that I never dreamed even two years ago!

I want to thank everyone involved in this process. To my classmates thank you for your patience, kindness, and sharing. We did this together it has been a long road, but a good one. To our instructors Louis, John, Jim, Greg and so on, thank you, you have been truly and inspiration, guiding light, and a wealth of knowledge and experience. I know that without all of you I could not have done this.

Finally, I want to really go over the top and share my feelings. As I write this final blog, I feel a sense of relief. This was more work than I thought it would be but it has paid off. I feel successful, because I know that I have completed this program, done my best, and learned more than I anticipated. I am proud for many reasons. Proud that I have a Masters degree, proud to have pushed myself and learned so much. Proud to be able to share my new knowledge. Lastly, I am excited. I am excited to be done with all of this, excited to start a new school year, to share all of my new tools, tips, and tricks with students and staff, and I am excited for what is next. To continue to learn, to be able to look back at this experience and say "this was only the beginning".

599 wk 2

This week I draw even closer to the end! It is really great to look over my site and review all of my work and how far I have come! As I finish up my course work, I have posting new tools for my classroom to the 599 site. I have already posted screen casts that I plan to use in the classroom and I am beginning to post lessons for usage of the Ning and Badgerlink. These tools will be used right away in the fall with my first group of classes. I am looking forward to using these new tools and sharing them with students and other staff.

599 wk 1

Starting this last class really feels good. It has taken a lot of work to get this far, even more than I anticipated, but I have learned a lot along the way. During this class I get the opportunity to show what I have learned and I look forward to that. I have begun making the transition between my old Ning that I created and a new Wiki that is still free to use. I am preparing to add the use of the Wiki and an online automotive reference to my classroom in the fall. I experimented with the Ning last year and when I used it things seemed to work. As I work through this last class, it seems fitting to really be focused on how I am going to incorporated all of this newly acquired knowledge into my classroom!

565 wk 6

Well, I have read a lot of articles on change the last two days. I have never thought of change as a process before, I just always assumed that change happened. When I think about real changes that occur, they do take time and there is always a few steps involved, so once I started thinking in this way it made a lot of sense to me. The best theme I read about was an organizations capacity for change. This means that with all the daily work, day to day happenings, and so on, does your organization have room on its plate for change without effecting the normal everyday functions. If your employees are overwhelmed as it is, they probably cannot handle change and will be resistant to it. If things are going smoothly, maybe change is a possibility. If not, the work load will have to be lightened in order to make room for change. This line of thinking makes a lot of sense to me as an employee. If I do not feel overwhelmed, I will be more open to trying something new, if my head is spinning, I'm going to tell you to take your new idea and "shove it" because I don't have room in my head to even think about it. Capacity for change..........when that is considered, the change process will be easier for all parties involved!

565 wk 5

I have begun reading articles on change and it has proven to be quite an in depth topic. I am slowly learning that if you really want to have real change you cannot do it on your own. I have always been and independent operator, but if I needed help I could always talk people into it. Real change requires more communication than that. I have also started to interview some of my classmates on the change game, it sounds like I really missed a great experience. Kara told me that the most important thing she learned is communication. Talking to one group of people, going to talk to another group, and then going back to check on the first group. In other words VERY thorough communication. I look forward to learning more about this topic.

565 wk 4

Wow! Its nice to be back, but it is busy. I have been married for one month (which is great) but I have only been home for a few days and I have lots to do. Getting back into the swing of things is tough, but I have enjoyed exploring these leadership topics this week. I know that I can always improve my leadership skills, especially when it comes to leading in technology. I also enjoyed going throught the analysis of change worksheet because it helped me see the process of change and that it does not come right away. It was nice to think through this process, instead of just winging it like I usually do!

565 WK 3

This week I have semi enjoyed the videos I watched during the course work. Some where a bit repetitive, but I feel as though there are some good points. I especially like the discussion about mellinals and how they relate to older (sorry veteran) teachers. This has been a really big thing in my young career because I came in 3 years ago with a bunch of energy, ideas, and a world beater attitude. Not that any of that is bad and not that any of it has worn off, but there was some adjustment from my ideas to the real world. I have made a lot of changes to my program since I started teaching and a lot of these changes are new tricks that are technology based. I have always known how to value experience and take the advice of those who have been there. There WAS a teacher that started the same time as me that wanted to change everything in her area and did not listen to anyone. She was too smart and too stubborn, and now she is looking for a job. I apprecieate the help and guidance of other teachers and my administration and I mix that with my own feelings and ideas and hopefully when the day is done I continue to grow and make changes, learn, and get better at this job.

565 wk 2

This week I am very interested in looking at statistics for my district. I have used WINSS and the DPI site before for my PDP, but I have never looked at testing or anything like that. There is a lot of information on these sites and it is interesting to see how your school performs and how it compares to other schools in your area and the state. I was glad to see that Freedom performed well and it averaged about what I expected. It is also interesting to see how the scores can fluctuate from year to year. I don't know how to drastically improve these scores and since I am not a regular ed teacher, I am not going to be the one to tell the math department (for example) that they need to do a better job. I am looking forward to hearing the ideas and opinions of others on this topic!

565 wk 1

I am crazy busy and this is the latest I have ever posted a blog. I have not even started course work for this week which is also uncharacteristic. I am working 60+ hours a week which is less than I have for most of the year, but still too much to have time for homework. I am moving into my new house, painting, and redecorating. The wedding is only 3 weeks away and my bride and I are still working on that too! Oh well, I dont know what to expect from this class, I know its about leadership in our schools, but that is hard when your not even off probationary status yet. I am looking forward to finishing up this program, I have learned a lot more than I thought I would, I have enjoyed myself to a certain extent, but I am ready to be done.

555 blog 3

Well I have made good use of our time off in the last couple of weeks and I feel like I have the course work under control. I have been crazy busy with our semester car projects at school and I feel like we are way behind, but I think every spring goes like that. This week I tackled the 3.1 culminating experience proposal and I must say that it was very frustrating at the start because I did not have a clue where I was going, but now I am looking forward to 599. I think I have a great proposal and a good project to put into my classwork and classroom. I am going to explore the Auto Repair Reference Center which is an online resource for automotives. It is full of information on vehicle repair and it will be a great tool for my students. I feel like the end is near for us, but yet so far away!

555 blog 2

We are on spring break this week and I am sadly taking the time to do most of my course work. This week I am working on my artifacts and standards for my portfolio. I am very glad that we have used google docs throughout this program as it is very easy to link documents to our portfolio websites. I made an e-portfolio when I was at Stout and I spent a ton of time scanning documents and trying to upload to the portfolio.

This process thus far has gone pretty well. I found the creation of my Google site pretty easy. I have already made all of the pages that I need and I am finishing up with all of the artifacts and reflections to go along with them. I am glad to say that I have found 1 or more artifacts for each class that we have taken thus far and I am hoping to be able to keep up to date as we progress through our last classes. I look forward to finishing this portfolio and this program!

555 blog 1

This week is our first week of Cedo 555. We are looking at online educational portfolio examples. I looked for quite some time online and found a few good examples. I was also able to find some portfolio rubrics to use as an assessment. After reviewing some portfolio examples, I was able to construct my own portfolio rubric. I am confident that as I begin to put my portfolio together that I can reflect what I learned and meet educational standards. I am looking forward to learning how to build a good portfolio and I hope that I have all of the needed artifacts.

550 wk 6

This is our last week of this class and as usual I must say that I am pleasantly surprised by how things went. I have learned a lot about teaching and facilitation online and I have had the opportunity to experience it as well. This course was stressful and the work load was a bit overwhelming at times so I am glad to be done, but I also have appreciated working with Greg and Ken through this process. I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel as we have 0nly three classes to go. I am surprised by how much I have learned during this masters program and how exciting it is to share some of these tools and experiences with my students and colleagues.

550 wk 5

Because of our break this week I am working on weeks 4 and 5 at the same time. This week we are going to be using Google docs to collaborate online and create a presentation that we will use during our next live class period. Our group will discuss online learning and present our slides for a few minutes as a group. This could be a new challenge because now we will facilitate as a group. I have team taught before quite a few times and I teach golf lessons all the time with multiple teachers, but online facilitation with 5 teachers will no doubt be exciting! I am looking forward to using Elluminate again and having the challenge of online group facilitation. I was very leery of this class to begin with, but as I have had to say over and over again throughout this program, I am pleasantly surprised!

550 wk 4

Last week I got the chance to present my first virtual lesson on Elluminate. The first thing that I did is start a timer because I felt that it was hard to keep track of time without being in a real classroom and watching the clock. Then I fiddled around with the moderator tools and actually, surprisingly, did quite well. I was able to facilitate a great discussion for longer than I actually wanted to! After the discussion I used the web tour tool to show some useful videos on youtube. I was impressed by how easy it was to moderate using Elluminate and how comfortable I was during the lesson. I look forward to my next opportunity.

550 wk 3

This week I have prepared for my first online facilitation experience. I am looking forward to using elluminate to facilitate a discussion about how to teach face to face classes online. This topic is personally interesting to me because of my classroom content. I am going to share with my classmates how I have f0und some ways to teach face to face classes online. I am looking forward to sharing with them and also getting some valuable feedback and ideas on how they may look at teaching some of my content online. I will be using the file share and web tour tools to give my discussion a nice twist. I will share my outline with the class right away and then also take them on a web tour to youtube to show some useful videos on automotive content. This is a short exercise, but I am looking forward to the experience.

550 wk 2

This week during class we got the opportunity during a break out session to be the facilitator in elluminate. This was the first chance that I have had to be a teacher or facilitator online. I must say that it will take some getting used to just being able to monitor who has their hand raised, who is chatting in the text box, and who is speaking on the mic. I was impressed by my success for the first effort and I must say that I thought it was pretty easy to use even for a novice, but to reach a level at which I would be comfortable teaching would take some work. I am excited to explore the role of an virtual teacher, I do not know how that will apply to me in the future, but this is a good experience. If I cannot teach my current content online, maybe I will expand my horizons and teach something else online. This class is going well, I look forward to next week!

550 wk 1

This is our first week with the new course and I am interested in seeing what this course will offer me. We have begun to look into the positives and negatives of online learning and I was surprised to hear what some people think online learning is capable of. Some online teachers think they can make a better connection with students online than in the classroom! To me I don't see how that can happen, but I will keep an open mind and see what I can learn. I have been surprised over and over again throughout the program and I am sure that this class will not disappoint. I am eager to see how my courses and content will blend with online learning, I do not see right now how I can teach any of my courses online, but I'm sure I will learn some good tips and tricks about online teaching along the way.

540 WK 5

This entire class on stats has been different than what I thought it would be. I was not happy to see the first bit of actual math, but once we got past that and began exploring how we can use data in education, I was pleasantly surprised. This week we explored google trends which would be useful to follow the trends of any hot topic. Students could use this tool to follow a hot current event and see when the topic peaks and also find some useful links on the topic. I also enjoyed looking at some of the stat sites. As you would expect, the CDC and National Archives have a ton of information. The CDC site is great, but the Archives site was difficult to navigate and it would be challenging to find specific information. I also enjoyed searching the internet for automotive trends and stats. Automotive and especially domestic automakers is a hot topic these days and finding stats is not all that difficult. What I enjoyed most about this class is reminding me that stats can be easy to find and useful. They should be part of any research and report.

540wk 4

This week learning about Bill Tancer and how cookies are actually used is very interesting to me. In the past I just assumed that someone was keeping track of my browsing habbits, but now I know who! Tancer has a unique business with Hitwise and I am sure that his data is strong evidence of browsing trends and user characteristics. If I owned my own business, much less ran a large corporation, I would NEED to employ the Hitwise group in some way, or be left behind by those that do. To monitor, track, and collect data on web browsers is absolute marketing brilliance. Using this data companies can better place their products in front of consumers and better serve them as well. I am glad that Hitwise claims to collect this data anonymously, but I am not naive enough to think that someone else might be tracking ME! Or that's just paranoia.

540 wk 3

This week as a group we designed and implemented our own survey. We chose to survey our peers on the advantages and disadvantages of block scheduling. The survey was short and simple, but I believe we got a clear view of how our fellow educators feel about block scheduling. During the survey process, I was impressed with how easy it was to create a survey with survey monkey and be able to analyze the data and draw conclusions from it. I enjoyed using survey monkey as an online tool for data collection. Survey monkey allows you to create your survey and share it with you participants as a link, on your website, or by email. This was a useful tool and a good experience.