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 21st century skills within my professional
development training to have my learners fully engaged on my website. Some key
21st 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 7th
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 21st century skills
into my website. I plan to have everything completed by April 21st,
2017 but would like a finalization of the project to be made on April 17th,
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 16th-February
23rd:
Await survey responses
February 24th-
March 3rd:
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 4th-
March 18th:
Create screencasts answering/walking teachers through the different products
and how to set up accounts/classrooms
March 19th-
April 2nd:
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 3rd-
April 6th:
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 7th: Submit project for peer
reviews
April 8th-April
17th:
Consider peer feedback and continue to edit my website for professional
development
April 18th-
April 20th:
Review and have others look over my website to provide any last minute
suggestions or remarks. Prepare for final submission of product
April 21st: Submit Final
Project!!!!!!!!!!
