Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership
Teachers continuously improve their professional practice, model lifelong learning, and exhibit leadership in their school and professional community by promoting and demonstrating the effective use of digital tools and resources. Teachers:
- participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning
Participation in local and global learning communities is something I believe very strongly in. My local community consists of my immediate colleagues here in the School of Education and UMKC, and the local technology in education group, Kansas City Technet. I spend a great amount of time with my two immediate coworkers reflecting on how we could improve our teaching. I participate in Yammer, a micro-blogging service for institutions, and UMKC has one. Finally, I participate in Technet by attending the yearly conference where I attend presentations given by teachers about their technology use as well as give my own presentations.
I participate in the global learning community through services like Twitter, and Diigo. These services provide me ways to learn new information, and also provide my own input into the global conversation.
Artifacts
- exhibit leadership by demonstrating a vision of technology infusion, participating in shared decision making and community building, and developing the leadership and technology skills of others
- evaluate and reflect on current research and professional practice on a regular basis to make effective use of existing and emerging digital
tools and resources in support of student learning
Artifacts and reflection are expected to come from the Action Research class, currently in progress
Artifacts
- None
- contribute to the effectiveness, vitality, and self-renewal of the teaching profession and of their school and community
Since I teach future teachers, it could be said that the entire class is a part of renewal of the teaching profession. Beyond that, my participation in Technet is a good practical example of my contributions. Each of my presentations have focused on providing information about tools that teachers may not have been aware of beforehand with the goal of making them more effective Teachers.
Artifacts
Every year I give a presentation to the local Technet conference with a theme of integrating new technology into the Teacher's toolbox. From the feedback I've received, these presentations have been very helpful in providing teachers the information they need to expand their technology usage.
One way I've demonstrated leadership in infusing new technology usage was the YouTube Discussion Board. Previously, discussions have taken place inside of blackboard using text as the medium of ideas. Blackboard was a very non-ideal location to hold these discussions for a variety of reasons, so I set out to find an alternative. I decided that given the cultural importance of YouTube, a video discussion inside of it would be very relevant.
One of the goals of the class I teach is to develop the technology skills and leadership in students. One really good example that accomplishes both of these goals is the Web Application Presentation. In this assignment, students are not only gaining important skills for using web applications, but also cultivating important leadership skills as they teach the class how to use their chosen web application.
Artifacts
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NETS text taken from the ISTE Website.