MMP Proposal

Multimedia Montage Project Proposal

Background/Rationale:

During my student teaching in the Fall I worked closely within the Franklin Twp. School District in Somerset County. The school community that I was a part of for the first half of the semester was a second grade classroom at Hillcrest Elementary School. In continuing my internship experience, I joined the school community of a fifth grade classroom at Sampson G. Smith Intermediate School. During this time, it became evident to me how important the use of technology has become in the educational world and how advanced or lack thereof educators were in using these devices.

When involving myself in the fifth grade classroom it was very evident how technology has become imperative for students’ learning. I was involved in the school community just as the 1:1 Chromebook initiative was becoming implemented into the classrooms. Many teachers including my cooperating teacher were starting to learn just what technology has to offer in the classroom and effective ways of implementing it into his/her teaching. Teachers were required to complete online training programs on their own time in order to understand the different uses for the google programs as well as how to get started. In talking to a few of the teachers about these programs it became clear that the teachers were multi-tasking while watching these videos which in turn led to little if any knowledge from the training. Additionally, I was provided the opportunity to sit in on a professional development course for Google Classroom. Although teachers were engaged throughout the course many teachers left the room with many unanswered questions and stating various remarks regarding the amount of time that was allotted for this course. I became intrigued by this especially when a teacher who was sitting next to me asked me to send her my notes that I took during the course so she could go through the material at a more reasonable pace. This led me on deciding to design an online professional development training for teachers that will target what it is that they want to know (forum and website intertwined). This will enable teachers to view the website when needed and eliminate the monotonous required videos that are grueling for teachers to get through.

 

1.     Purpose/Goals: The main objective for my Multimedia Montage Project is to develop a professional development training website that will provide teachers the necessary knowledge and/or tips regarding Google for education products and how to effectively utilize them within their classrooms. My objective for the website is to create a combination of a website and a forum together so that teachers are able to gain the information based on their individual needs and desires as well as communicate and question other teachers regarding the tools that were explained. Additionally, I hope to organize the website so that teachers are able to navigate to specific areas regarding a topic they need more information about. When teachers are able to locate and utilize the information effectively it can help them dramatically in learning everything they want/need to know about how to use and implement google for education products in their own classrooms.

2.     Rationale & Summary of Project:

My project focuses on the implementation of google for education products within the classroom. Encouraging and supplying teachers with all the necessary tools/resources will help them to have a better understanding on the importance and knowledge for effectively using these resources in their teaching approach. The implementation of these different resources will help to improve students’ engagement and what they take away from various lessons that they are taught throughout the year. I am interested in developing an engaging as well as collaborative website that teachers can utilize throughout the time they are learning and being engaged with how to implement these different education products into his/her own classroom. Additionally, I would advise viewers of the website/forum to contribute by including their experiences and challenges that they may have encountered during this time on the forum. By teachers inputting their experiences this will allow future teachers as well as current and new technology integrators to have a better understanding towards this integration approach. Throughout the time I have spent with the teachers at Sampson G. Smith Intermediate School I think they would greatly benefit from a resource that they would be able to utilize for all their questions and/or ambitions for implementing technology into their classroom. Having a specific location where teachers can go will help them to reduce the amount of time searching the web for their questions or even the monotony of sitting through online training program videos. When teachers are able to narrow down their search for information this will not only be time consuming for them but will also provide them with fast and relevant information.

3.     Audience: The audience will consist of a wide variety of teachers within Sampson G. Smith Intermediate School. These teachers vary in their abilities with using the Google product technologies. Some teachers have very limited experiences with Google for education products as well as technology tools in general. However, other teachers in this school are well advanced and have a good understanding on how to utilize google for education products within his/her own classroom effectively and thoroughly. When designing my professional development training I need to take into consideration the various levels of abilities that the teachers have regarding google for education products as well as technology basics since both concepts go hand in hand.

4.     Overview of Your Instructional Plan and Your Learning Objective/s:

The proposal I have for the delivery of my professional development training session will involve me utilizing a screen-casting tool to create videos that will be informative for teachers when discussing the different google for education products that educators utilize within the educational setting. This will include how to set up their classroom and then how to administer different assignments, docs, slides, forms to his/her students. Teachers who are given access to my site will be permitted to view these videos for the duration that they are viewable to the public. I will post surveys onto the Google Plus communities I am a member of, as well as the staff at Sampson G. Smith Intermediate School. By doing this it will allow me to see the direction or focus that my website should have for this group of teachers and educators as a whole. Some of the questions that I will pose will be as follows:

-       Was it challenging to set-up your google classroom?

                                                                 i.     What made or didn’t make this task challenging?

-       Do you update your Google Classroom daily?

-       What resources have you utilized to understand how to use the different            Google for Education products?

-       Which product do you use most frequently or plan to use most frequently in your classroom? Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Drive, Google Forms, Google Slides, or Google Classroom.

-       Which Google for education product was easiest to learn?

-       Which Google for education product was hardest to learn?

-       Is there anything with these programs that you are still having difficulty learning or understanding?

-       When utilizing these products in your classroom have you found an increase in student engagement?

-       What product do students enjoy using the most in your classroom?

5.     Technological Tool/s & Rationale:

For my Multimedia Montage Project, I will design a website that provides educators with a resource they can access for learning about the different aspects pertaining to the range of google for education products. As I mentioned earlier I will be designing multiple screen casting videos that will be uploaded to my website. The website designing site that I plan to use is either Adobe Spark or Wix. I plan to step out of my comfort zone and use Adobe Spark since I was interested in this tool when watching Elaina’s MDMC still media critique. However, if I find that this site designing tool is challenging to use or does not fulfill the needs I would want for my website I will fall back to  the website designing website, Wix, which is a website I used when taking Introduction to Digital Tools. Overall I am looking forward to designing this website and integrating different collaborative tools such as forums and/or blogs to engage teachers in discussion with one another in order to successfully implement Google products for education into their own classrooms.

6.     Learning Theories/Principles: When designing my project there will be different guiding principles of teaching/learning that I will take into consideration in order to drive the information being administered to my audience. In reflecting on my own learning experiences I have found that I learn best when I observe a procedure being done and then try it on my own (the act of seeing and then doing). With this in mind I think it would be imperative in my professional development that the same approach is applied. Without teachers being able to try the different tasks on their own they will never fully understand the functionality of the Google products for education and how they will be able to benefit their students’ needs in the classroom. Another principle that will be addressed when designing my project would be the integration of different 21^st century skills within my professional development training to have my learners fully engaged on my website. Some key 21^st century skills that will be evident within my professional development website would be collaboration, communication, creativity as well as critical thinking. It is important that I build these skills strongly throughout my website so that teachers will continue to collaborate with one another beyond the learning session environment. Additionally, these skills need to be established throughout my website in order for teachers to inevitably implement these skills into their own e-learning environments within his/her own classroom.  

7.     Timeline: I expect to have a good completion of the project by April 7^th in order to receive valuable feedback from my peers in hopes that by the time I make the necessary revisions I will have a great finalized product. I will expect to have the website in working order up until then based upon the needs of what needs to be inputted based solely on the input I receive from my audience. I expect to get my survey responses and to begin implementing them into my website no later than the end of February so I can start to screencast and integrate the different technology tools and 21^st century skills into my website. I plan to have everything completed by April 21^st, 2017 but would like a finalization of the project to be made on April 17^th, 2017 so I will be able to spend the rest of that week taking the time to review and have others review my final product to make any last revisions.

ROUGH ESTIMATES:

February 16^th-February 23^rd: Await survey responses

February 24^th- March 3^rd: Construct the layout of the website based on the different Google products for education that will be discussed. Create different tabs for each product. Develop the forums.

March 4^th- March 18^th: Create screencasts answering/walking teachers through the different products and how to set up accounts/classrooms

March 19^th- April 2^nd: Utilize the Google Plus communities and other forums to collect and integrate everyday questions into my website. Maybe even access Google products for education frequently asked questions or help pages for added topics to add to website.

April 3^rd- April 6^th: Play around with making last minute touches to website and implementing different design features we learned about earlier in the course. Prepare for submission for peer reviews.

April 7^th: Submit project for peer reviews

April 8^th-April 17^th: Consider peer feedback and continue to edit my website for professional development

April 18^th- April 20^th: Review and have others look over my website to provide any last minute suggestions or remarks. Prepare for final submission of product

April 21^st: Submit Final Project!!!!!!!!!!