Tech TuneUP class update 4.23.10

Kerry and I met after school today to talk about the rest of class.

The end of class is really coming up quickly and we realized that we simply did not get done what we had hoped to do.  Chalk it up to an overly ambitious plan ;)

Several people have asked for an update on requirements related to successful completion of the class.

We will publish this post in email, OneNote, the TechTuneUp blog (techtuneup.blogspot.com)

We meet next week (April 27^th) and at that time will go over several other formative assessment tools that are available online.  Kerry will demonstrate how to use Poll Everywhere, an online survey tool that can be completed by the computer or a cell phone.  I will show how to use Google Forms as a way to administer quizzes and gather formative data.

The remainder of the April 27^th class will be used for work time. 

We had hoped to do some work with Excel and analyzing gathered data from your formative assessments but think that is practical with the limited amount of time we have remaining.  However, if you gather some data and would like to take a shot at the analysis please feel free to bring to one of the remaining classes. 

Then on May 4^th we have our last session.  We will allocate plenty for project work and then end the class by sharing our projects with each other.  Since we have 25 people in the class, we know that sitting through even a 5 minute presentation by each person might not be the best use of class time we are looking at doing more of an open house where people rotate through a number of projects at any one time.  That should allow us to both get the information on the projects in which we are most interested and get us headed home before dark.

As far as assignments we have assigned the following:

1)      Identify and make progress on a significant project of your choosing that is beneficial to both you and your students. 

2)      Subscribe to a number of feeds in Google Reader, create a blog and post several posts each week during class to share your new learning.  By the end of class we would have had this assignment in place for about 5 weeks so 10-15 posts seems reasonable.  Remember, we are trying to building new PD habits and posting 12 times the night before the last class doesn’t really accomplish the intent of the assignment.

3)      Experiment with on assessment technology tool we studied in class (or one you’ve found).

4)      Proudly share what you’ve learned in this class and accomplished on your personal project during the last class.

Kerry and I are so pleased with all the work and great discussions that are happening in this class.  At the same time we realize that we are not meeting the needs of all participants as well as we would have hoped.  We will certainly try our best in the remaining classes.

Like the rest of the world, education continues to change and keeping pace with new information, techniques, and tech tools is a challenging task.  Our hope is this class has helped you grow.  If you are interested in learning more and continuing on this type of work I expect to be having our regular tech tuneup class this summer during the week of August 2^nd and hope that you can join us.  The pacing of a 2 semester class is quite different than the one hour class and allows people to tackle multiple projects as well as delve into the latest state data.  More information should be coming out about that opportunity in the next week or so.

Mark and Kerry