Why I decided to Change my Career path in Corporate Education to Teaching in Secondary School District:

I decided to change my career from corporate education to teaching at a local school district for one simple reason; providing excellent education to youth of today. In reading posted discussion, I have learned in this class EDLD 5366 from my cohorts who are already fulfilling their requirements as teachers. Teachers provide a lifelong impact on the student lives they touch. In his book A Theory of Fun, professional game designer Ralph Koster argues that mastery is what makes games fun, that the act of learning and being rewarded for learning can be extremely interesting, if done in the right way. The key to educational excellence is rethinking a new role for excellent that teachers can embrace in the classroom and extends beyond it into leadership activities. Among current policy initiatives such as, No Child Left Behind,are attempts to integrate stronger teacher roles into guidelines for incentive plans and to use teachers' strengths in the decision making process at local and district levels. With the increasing complexity of instructional tasks, teachers are demonstrating their potential as collaborative researchers. Technology in and of itself will not create more engaged students or better students. However, well-chosen technology resources infused into classroom instruction can create more engaged and better students. There are forces converging to support emerging teachers' roles as leaders. Good teaching and the teaching of the future will make school life vital to our youth. Therefore, I'm beginning my journey into education that features creative thinking and research to help educate students. I believe this is important if we really hope to facilitate change. Most of us like to think that the benefits of technology will help transform education, but we absolutely cannot assume that a trend in the consumer, media, or business world will necessarily translate to a trend in the education world. A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of researching how video gaming can be used as a learning tool for students. Video games on the other hand, do not separate assessment from learning assessment and feedback is contagious (Big Thinkers, 2008). This is why the structure of future thinking is so important to the field of education. We have to be able to approach our administrators, districts, and policy makers with visions of the future supported by research and thoughtful consideration of trends.

References

Byrne, Richard. 2009 “The Effect of Web 2.0 on Teaching and Learning.” Teacher Liberian 37, No. 2: 50-53

Koster, Ralph. A Theory of Fun for Game Design. Paraglyph, 2004

Big Thinkers: James Paul Gee on Grading with Games. The George Lucas Educational Foundation, 2008. http://www.edutopia.org/james-gee-games-learning-video (accessed March 22, 2010)

The Stairway To Learning

This week, I had a unique opportunity to create a learning technique using Stykz.  Stykz is online interactive software that allows the user to create different styles of stick figures to showcase an animation learning tool to students through QuickTime media player.  In reading my colleagues and other educator’s blog, I discovered that majority of educators already use an interactive media guide for their students while teaching in the classroom in addition to other multimedia learning tools.  In just learning the animation side of Stykz, I also found that you can add alphabet and number gadgets to your design table along with the stick figures.  These interactive tools act as an agent to attract the attention of the instructor and student.  More importantly, an educator’s goal is to find tools that young learners can use to create multimedia communications. 

What is Branding

In this week lesson, I learned the true meaning of a brand. A brand can be defined as a name or symbol that is commonly known to identify a person or a business. I have always known that a brand was associated with companies like Home Depot, Wal-Mart and Pepsi. These large corporations are known for their unique name and products in order to separate their business products from the competition. In reading the assigned articles, I understand that personal branding is getting your name out in the marketplace. Branding encompasses who you are as a writer, journalist, author and educator or whatever you want publish for the world to know about you. This week, I had to create a brand and much like anyone else, I created a brand that would uniquely identify me as a person, who enjoys working with others, helping others, and given back to the community.

In creating my brand, I first used the suggested exercise from the article by L. Alcantra, “The Art of Self-Branding.”. In the exercise, I emailed my friends and family to describe me as a person. And here are their posted responses.

Name / Relationship / Time Known / Description
Richard Brown / Spouse / 10 years / Driven, focused, and knowledgeable


Denise Duran / Co-worker / 4 years / Strong-willed, committed, and humorous


Denise Evans / Friend / 3 years / Independent, self-reliant, frearless / bold/courageous and kinetic


Nicole Grant / Co-worker / 9 months / Funny, smart, and witty


Marquita Martinez / Co-worker / 1 year / Honest, direct, and polite


Hollie Roper / Sister / Forever / Tenacious and sensitive

 

My brand is called the Groove. I chose the term groove because it reminds me of being on the go and listening to music in my daily activities. In thinking and designing my logo, I decided to add an interchangeable loop of ribbons to freely flow in connection with my inner-self, the design of the brand is a reminder of who I am as an individual and for the people I would like to touch now and in the future. I have a strong desire and commitment in people and non-profit organizations.

The 4 Principles of Design: Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity

I have always been fascinated with art, especially oil paintings.  One of my favorite paintings is the Mona Lisa.  I have always been drawn to artists who have that unique mine and steady hand to design a nice piece of art for people like myself to enjoy.  This week assignment was a mind blower for me, because one of the areas of focus that I’ve never taken into consideration the four elements of design; contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity.  In the first part of design process, I understand that a great contrast can give off a very good first impression for the viewer.  Choosing the right style, images, colors and fonts can give a document a great lasting impression.  That is why I chose several images with a bold color scheme, and added a black style font with an alluring steel gray back ground.  Moving on to repetition, repetition in a print design is as simple as repeating design elements which can help create a consistent.  In my newsletter I repeated the element in the font text in the body of the document.  The third element is alignment; alignment plays a vital role in how you would position your images on a document.  It acts as the same principle as if you were painting a portrait, mirror, or just a room.  We want to make sure that are colors and images are in aligning with one another in order to make the document stand-out. As you can see, I align each school mascot right underneath one another.  And lastly, we have proximity; proximity is grouping like elements together and separating those elements that are not.  In my document, I’m going to fall back on the school mascots, although they are different, I position the logo right underneath one another and provided content for each logo.

The 4 Elements of Design: Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity

I have always been fascinated with art, especially oil paintings.  One of my favorite paintings is the Mona Lisa.  I have always been drawn to artists who have that unique mind and steady hand to design a nice piece of art for people like myself to enjoy.  This week assignment was a mind blower for me, because one of the areas of focus that I’ve never taken into consideration the four elements of design; contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity.  In the first part of design process, I understand that a great contrast can give off a very good first impression for the viewer.  Choosing the right style, images, colors and fonts can give a document a great lasting impression.  That is why I chose several images with a bold color scheme, and added a black style font with an alluring steel gray back ground.  Moving on to repetition, repetition in a print design is as simple as repeating design elements which can help create a consistent.  In my newsletter I repeated the element in the font text in the body of the document.  The third element is alignment; alignment plays a vital role in how you would position your images on a document.  It acts as the same principle as if you were painting a portrait, mirror, or just a room.  We want to make sure that are colors and images are in aligning with one another in order to make the document stand-out. As you can see, I align each school mascot right underneath one another.  And lastly, we have proximity; proximity is grouping like elements together and separating those elements that are not.  In my document, I’m going to fall back on the school mascots, although they are different, I position the logo right underneath each other and provided content for each log.

EDLD 5366:  Digital Graphics, Animation and Desktop Publishing

The Landmark Writing by The Egyptians

We are in an era where pictures can be seen around the world in a matter of seconds. Personally, I have always been intrigued with ancient art encrypted by the Egyptians, especially the designed and structure of their artistry. I have found the ancient Egyptians to be fascinating people. They brought to the world a cutting edge of writing style, mathematics, and art through hieroglyphics which is a combination of words and images. In superior with their own language, the Egyptians were excellent graphic artists in their architecture framework, creating a distinctive style by using hieroglyphic etching in human and animal like figures. This particular picture represents the writing style by the Author communicating to his people.

This next image, was also done by hieroglyphic writing and drawing, that allowed the artist to present the most important figure which usually represented their King or God. In the photo show below, I will apply the four elements of design starting with contrast: The contrast of this picture represents colors alike, which consist of an array of multiple colors (red, tan, green, white and black) which bring out the true representation of the God and Goddess. Repetition in the picture is using the same colors which are demonstrated in the writing tablets and on the man and woman. Now we will look at the alignment of the photo. The alignment directs our vision to the vertical hieroglyphic tablets. The woman and the man are position in the center of the hieroglyphic wall. Lastly we have proximity; proximity in looking at the picture, we can see that the woman is sitting directly in front of the man, their position is considered face-to-face and in proximity of one another.

Understanding the four elements of design helps the viewer to understand what exactly is being communicated through contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity.  It has always been known that a picture can tell a story. 




EDLD 5366Digital Graphics, Animation and Desktop Publishing

Reflection on Action Research

Charolette Viser-Brown

EDLD 5301:  Research

November 8, 2010

Reflection on Action Research

When I first noticed action research as one of the required courses for Educational Technology Leadership program, I did not know what to expect.  First and foremost, I was fearful about taking this class because I haven’t had a lot of structure in researching data effectively as a business major and now crossing over to education.  In the past, I only looked at the economic factors of numbers and statistical data.  Since, I was so desperate and due for a change in my current profession; I started searching for a different career path that might strike my attention, to leave the world of business.  Convince, that I am ready to start a field that doesn’t always have stakeholders in mind, and the driving force of meeting budget short-falls by the end of the third quarter, I actually found myself looking for a career that I would find rewarding with some type of significant for my inner-self.  Once, I gradually started looking outside the box of what I really wanted in my new career objective, I then began to investigate more about technology leadership. 

With my new found quest for change, I thought, I have asked myself and my academic advisor all the right questions in guiding me where I can see myself fitting in.  In taking this action research course, I’m absolutely certain that I have made a great choice.  Now that I have taken this class, I’m no longer fearful in understanding what action research is all about.  What, I’ve learned about action research; it is not the monster that I thought it would be.  I understand the goal of action research is to gain deeper knowledge and understanding of what you are trying to research and accomplished by using different learning modules and exercises on how to effectively research your topic of interest. In the writing of authors Best and Kahn, “Action research is a process in which participants examine their own educational practice systematically and carefully, using the techniques of research”. Action research has made me more aware of what kind of information I need to pull from, and how to use that information in the most comprehensive aspect of what I’m trying to deliver or convey.  The most interesting thing about this class was the research topics that my fellow colleagues chose to implement in their action research plan.  One topic that has caught my attention and the hearts of many American is school bullying and Cyber-bullying.  “Cyber-bullying involves the use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior by an individual or group that is intended to harm others.” (Belsey. 2005)

Action research provides the opportunity to engage in meaningful dialogue within a field of practice for the benefit of all those involved.  The dialogue that takes place in our learning discussion each week provides a connective environment to the action research methodology.  Briefly describing a course of action to another individual helps to improve personal ideas and leads to knowledge in driving the discussion forum through reflection, and communicating to a larger audience as a whole.  As a student in an action research course, I have found value in writing a reflective blog.  Through reflection, I have become more courageous about my action research plan, the reactions and changes that are taking place within me and in my current field of study.  This practice has allowed me to examine and question my ideals and opinions.  Before action research, I have accepted my daily challenges without the knowledge of change.  As a result of action research, I can understand why change can become the upmost importance in my current environment.  Understanding how we learn gives me the opportunity to discover my strengths as an advocate learner. 

Action research creates a visual picture of inquiry that requires one to maintain a level of self-awareness at all times during the research process.  The ability to reflect on a certain action is only as strong as the level of active participation, our input and output.  To me, it is important to document everything, to contemplate, and to step away from the initial course of action, and focus beyond the already existed plan.  Engaging in action research has forced me to challenge past assumptions, understand and appreciate my current state at a deeper level, stand by personal goals and commitments, and open myself up to new ideas and changes.  EDLD 5301 has been an incredible experience in transforming my perception of action research.   

References

Belsey, B. (n.d). Retrieved November 7, 2010 from:  http://www.cyberbulling.ca/

Best, J.W., & Kahn, J.V. (1998).  Research in education (8^th ed.).  Needham Heights, MA:  Allyn and Bacon.

Pilot Research - Action Plan for the use of iPods

During the weeks of implementation in my action research plan may change from the original action plan which is the use of iPods for homebound students to all students who are in grades 6 – 8. My goal for the plan should consist of minimal revision and new additions and revisions from the advice of lead instructors and student participation. The action requested will be a collection of information about the techniques of iPods for teacher and students based on student lectures and collective information on new lesson plan for the students. The study of the action plan will take the approach of collecting information from other districts and learning workshops as a comparison analysis to show that all students in every district are on the same learning curriculum. As a direct result, I am motivated to explore the use of iPods by accumulating evidence from research material that would be a contributing factor to explore the effective use of digital media tools for students of today. Despite the strategic importance of effective new product development as a source of learning materials, most new products for learning activities can fail to achieve their anticipated outcome for success. The goal of my action plan will provide an ideation goal for the project and form a project team. The team assigned will compose of 3-5 people from teachers, IT department, and students. Team members will typically spend 12 to 20 hours per week on the project. To implement the action plan, I would need technology savvy students and teachers to support the development of implementing iPods as a learning tool on campus.

EDLD 5301 Action Plan: Podcasting for Homebound Students Grade Levels 6-8

Goals
Step 1: Attend a workshop(s) on bridging podcasting into schools.

Step 2: Introduce and Implement a Podcast pilot program for homebound students.

Step 3: The program objective for students to be able to access various assignments and submit assignments on-line.

Step 4: Interview at least three schools with an integrated technology program to test the pilot program.

Step 5: Test the program for readiness.

Step 6: Introduce the technology to selected school for implementation.

Action Step 1: Attend a podcast training class at University Houston IT training center.

Timeline:
December 2010 thru Jan 2011

Evaluation:
Laptop, Audio ear phones, editing software, Internet and iPod.
Revise and test the software program.

Action Step 2: Request an appointment with North Forest ISD, Rosenberg ISD, and Waller ISD.

Timeline:
Oct. 27, 2010 – Nov. 9th – 11th 2010.

Evaluation:
Resource materials about the benefits of podcasting in the classroom for homebound students.
Research key information to present the use of podcasting.

Action Step 3: Meet with school Administrators to implement a pilot program for at least 1 school to test the effectiveness of podcasting .

Timeline:
Jan. 2011 – Feb. 2011

Evaluation:

Laptop, speakers, and dummy slides of lesson plans, and objectives for school administrators to follow.
Hands on learning modules.

Action Step 4: Create a plan to introduce the pilot program to a teacher who will facilitate the on-line learning environment.

Timeline:

March 2011 – May 2011

Evaluation:

Presentation Slides, laptop, audio equipment, and software tools.
Evaluate the teacher response to the on-line learning environment.

Podcasting for Homebound Students Grade Level 6 - 8

The title of my action research plan has changed from week to week. The more I research, the more information I find on this interesting topic. I have finally narrowed the topic to focus on a specialized group of learners (homebound). Podcasting has become very popular since it first came on the scene as an audio and video file in 2004. In the past, podcast has been used primarily of recording lectures and discussions. The convenience of allowing students to listen to lectures several times can help the student to improve academically. Instructors can use podcasting to integrate dependent courses such as Art and History. I would like to see podcast become development for students in grade levels 6 - 8, designed specifically for homebound students; in an effort to offer these students the same quality education as students who are able to attend classes on a daily basis. Through the use of podcast, home bound students will be able to perform better on their assignments when they know other classmates are doing the same type work and at the same level.

Author Gardner Campbell makes the following statement: "Podcasting can reveal to students, faculty, staff, and communities even the world the essential humanity at the heart of higher education" (p.44). Educators understand that every individual learning style are uniquely different, podcasting can provide the affordability for learners to playback an audio file as many times as possible. This is why; I believe podcast would enhance a students learning ability. Moreover, I believe if school administrators implement podcasting in their schools, they would be able to assign multiple classes to one particular teacher to host the online learning community. The added benefit to this online community will promote more users to use podcast, and parents would be able to see the added benefit of online teaching; student enrollment may increase because of the popular tool of the popular tool of podcasting.

Reference: Gardner Campbell (2005), Assistant Vice President for Teaching and Learning Technologices and Professor of English at the University of Mary Washington: Podcasting in Educaton. Novemember/December 2005: EDUCAUSE; p. 44

Action Research Lessons from scholar Practitioners

In looking at the audio recording from the interview of Dr. Timothy Chargois, Director of Research, Planning, and Development in Beaumont ISD. He is clearly focused on teachers investing in their learning environment by providing learning modules that would impact the student success.

Truth be told, teachers have an obligation to leave in incredible impression in the lives of thier students. We are aware that school experiences help shapes, mold and can influence how children view themselves inside and outside the classroom. For example: my son Rory is in the first grade, he enjoys his teacher and his classmates. His teacher learning style is very positive, and she provides a strong impact on how my son reacts in the classroom. Because his teacher possess a great attitude toward her students and in the classroom, my son is fascinating with becoming a teacher. Last year, he wanted become a professional race car driver, today he wants to become a teacher, he models his teacher professionalism. All teachers play an important role with children current and future decisions. Children come to realize that teachers make a difference in thier everyday lives.

Action Research Project: Podcast

Purpose: The purpose of my research project is to show how podcasting can benefit students, teachers, parents, and the community collectively in the educational environment. The deployment of podcasting can be created from original content material by teachers in communicating their learning objectives for the students. This information can be in the form of PowerPoint slides or creation of an audio file that can be downloaded to a PC or digital media format.

Implementation: The type of podcast(s) that I plan to develop in my action plan, students will be able to access course material on-line, through audio recordings, and PowerPoint printable lecture slides for Office 2007 and 2010 for PC and Mac users. In an audio format, the use of MP3 players, iPod, or mobile devices that has the application for downloading media files for playback. Students who do not have access to the listed portable devices can access the file and listen to the content on their computers.

Significance: By popular demand the growth and success of blogs, Facebook, and MySpace; I am certain that students, teachers, parents, and the community will find that podcasting would be a great addition to the education technology amongst students. Creating lecture slides or audio lectures through the use of podcasting will allow teachers and students share in a wide-variety of learning experiences. It provides them with a learning exposure that is unique to them and makes learning meaningful. Teachers will be able to use the technology to provide power pack presentations, share their daily class objectives, and provide questions and answer forum for students. Podcasting will provide the student the flexibility to download and review course material at any time. Students will be able to listen to lectures at their own pace. Students can also benefit from the use of podcasting as another learning tool for collaborating with other students.

My expectation in my research plan in the implementation of the use of this technology will focus on delivering instructional content such as written and oral lectures, and should be used as a vehicle for disseminating classroom lessons. Additionally, I would like to see students use podcasting to deliver oral presentations, this capability will allow students to record and share their presentations with their classmates over the Internet. Lastly, podcasting will be used as a media tool to provide students with classroom lectures, activities, class agenda, classroom forums, and distance education, all students who collaborate with one another whether its face to face or on-line, podcasting can play a vital role in the learning arena.

Educational Leaders can use Blogs as a form of Communication

An educator leader can use blogs as an interactive learning tool to post weekly agenda's, assignments, and learning resource materials to students. Blogging brings synergy to the classroom forum that can be beneficial to both the teachers and student to become actively engaged in classroom activities.

Action Research

In reading the article on action research, I discovered that action research can be used in many facets. Action research can be defined as a methodology to approach various situations in a rhetoric setting. For example: Most educators always start with a normal routine for their students, the action plan almost never changes. Action research can play a vitality role in implementing the change from normalcy of a traditional classroom setting, by helping teachers to acquire and use technical skills to deliver practical changes in collaborating with his or her students. Action research provides effective strategies for teachers who deal with different types of barriers that they might face on a day-to-day basis. Moreover, action research provides some fundamental steps for educators to investigate areas of concern and meet classroom demands and school challenges. By examining what criteria’s that can be met in keeping students focused on current lectures and assignment, and also gaining their attention when the students’ are exhibiting signs of becoming disengaged in the classroom. As I come to understand the various approaches and techniques in action research, it is merely deciding on what areas to focus on; what data collection techniques should be used; and an action plan to deliver for educational change. Since action research can be used on a large scale that actually fits with every teacher or educator in mine. In my current role as a corporate educator, I will use action research to redefine my learning modules to fit with my audience; through the use of action research it will allow me to collect useful data that is meaningful to my learning environment.

Master's of Business Administration (MBA)

I'm so excited, I just completed my MBA at Keller Graduate School of Management/DeVry University. I thought, I was crazy starting a new program at Lamar University, while still trying to complete my MBA. Well, my journey has finally come to a close and now I can devote all of my study time to my educational goals at Lamar.

Thank you God!

Finding a Site Mentor

My journey of looking for a site mentor has finally come to an end. I am so gracious to have a very good instructor as Professor Borel. Professor Borel, was able to step right in and assist me in finding a facility that will work with me throughout the program. I really appreciate everything she has done this past week. Unlike many of my classmates who are already educators, but my position is a little different than everyone else. I have experience in a different area of teaching and that is corporate training. I entered this program to learn more skills in leadership and technology training to provide my audience with an insight of technology learning without always has to teach on the same traditional learning modules of using power point presentation. I have always known that the technology of teaching is more advanced than what I was accustom too and the learning material that I have been using for the past three years; I needed change and develop a different and comprehensive learning style to my audience. No matter, the age of your subjects, an educator should be able to provide resourceful information that is relevant to his or her need of learning. In this class, I have already learned how to use other forms of communication besides emails. Learning to use blogs and wiki sites will allow me to present this information to my company’s IT department where we can start blogging to our colleagues and adding links to the blogs where we can store educational material for retrieval anytime as a resource guide. I am looking forward in what the program has to offer in a full learning spectrum.

Unfamiliar Territory

I started down my career path about 2 years ago sure of only one thing; I knew, I wanted to acquire a MBA to elevate myself in a managerial role, after receiving the desire position a few months ago, and with only one class left before graduating from my MBA program. The desire to remain in Corporate America is gone, because I recently became a volunteer with a very good non-profit organization that help inner-city youth who have the disadvantage of being able to use technology either in the home, school, or a neighboring library. After volunteering for the organization for approximately four (4) months, I knew I wanted a career in teaching. In what capacity, I had no idea. In my current role as an auditor for a manage care company, my role is to present reports written and oral. About 40% of my time is spent with educating physicians and their staff by presenting power point presentations and dummy scenarios of what the practice most common errors in their practices. Since, I have been an educator for the company; I’ve decided to take teaching on as a career. After taking my first class in EDLD 5306, I now know for sure that I want to teach grades 9-12th. I am still limited with knowledge of teaching and all the rules that apply, developing a new curriculum, and understanding State regulations that must be followed by all school administrators, teachers, and district officials. I’m ready to take that leap into unfamiliar territory. In reading my colleagues blogs, discussion area, I now see the art of teaching, and how it can bring excitement to both the student and teacher. In this coursework, I have learned how to use and create blogs, wiki’s, and use interactive videos; I have learned so much in this course thus far. Additionally, I have found this course a lot harder than what I’ve expected because the course material is like learning a foreign language. I’m now beginning to understand the logistic of learning how to communicate in group forums over the Web.

Diane Winborn 2006-2009 STaR Chart

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Blog Posting #1

Blog Posting #1
Educator Preparation and Development

It is important to know professional development provide opportunities for sustained, relevant, and timely staff development in a variety of formats. Student engagement is the key to all of the Texas Long Range Plan for Technology, 2006-2020. The key to success for all students is the assurance that they are fully engaged in their learning process. It is essential that we as educators equalize the learning environment in terms for students at all levels. The core framework of the Texas technology plan for teaching and learning is the integration of technologies into Texas schools to transform the teaching process by allowing for greater levels of interest, collaboration, creativity, and analysis. I believe technology is an indispensable component for our educational leaders with the vision for changing the behavior and relationships within the teaching and learning environment. In addition, teachers should take full advantage of technology to make classroom learning more engaging and relevant; and all learners should have access to resources for individualized instruction 24/7 to allow them to understand their learning environment. A teacher’s role in mentoring and leading is fundamental to the success of a student learning ability; and the student must act as the receiver of information in order to prove comprehension skills. In order for teachers to act as a facilitator, mentor, and co-learners, students must be an active participant in the learning process, and teachers need more time in the classrooms to explore best practices and learn new curriculum strategies. An online teacher resource center should be created which provides technology based resources to improve academic achievement. Further, school officials, principals, and assistant principals should support teachers in developing classroom websites and online resources to share lessons.