My Technology Mentor Project
"It is not about the technology;
it's about sharing knowledge and information,
communicating efficiently, building learning communities
and creating a culture of professionalism in schools.
These are the key responsibilities of all educational leaders."
- Marion Ginapolis
Introduction
My technology mentoring project will be mentoring my 3rd grade teaching partner. We have worked together for the last 15 years and when I mentioned about an upcoming technology mentoring I would be needing to arrange for my Ed Tech class, he got excited. "Teach me how to set up a classroom website like yours!" I had to laugh. This was a huge step for him because he had decided last year that he was only going to do a minimum class webpage. He and I were both irritated that our district required teachers to maintain a webpage with a list of things that had to be on it (of course, that was a demand on one of those days before school starts when the only thing you have on your mind is getting ready for the new group of kids). Last year we had to use the district's page creator program which is rigid, boring, and difficult to use. I decided to create one this last spring on Weebly, and when he checked it out, he wanted to create something like that for his classroom. There are many benefits for a teacher to have a classroom website that is customizable to the needs of the teacher, parents, and students.
Timeline & Plan
The goal of assisting my colleague in creating a classroom website also includes the goals for my teaching partner to become independent and self-reliant in designing a website with Weebly, to customize his website to match his needs, and for him to feel comfortable with trouble-shooting the program. He wants to not only create the site, but learn how to add and organize pages, link pictures, add buttons with links, insert text and videos, posting spelling lists and newsletters, and student & parent links, as well as a link for ordering Scholastic Book Orders.
My timeline for this project began a week ago, September 16th, and to continue mentoring until mid-November. We will meet during our prep or before or after school once or twice a week, depending on the need. The times vary due to our busy schedules. The timeline of our goals for each week during the mentoring period (September, October, November) are intended to keep us on track.
Weekly Goals
September
Week 1: Open an account on Weebly & choose a theme for the site template
Week 2: Familiarize with Weebly's website editing tools (titles, text boxes, inserting columns)
October
Week 3: How to add and organize pages, discuss what he wants to have on his site, look at other teacher examples
Week 4: Inserting images & videos, adding links to buttons, text, & images
Week 5: Setting up Scholastic Book Clubs online ordering for parents & link to website
Week 6: Uploading documents, converting Publisher newsletter docs to pdf format, posting spelling lists & newsletters
Week 7: Student links
November
Week 8: Parent resources (field trip information, links)
Week 9: Fine-tuning, maintenance, trouble-shooting
Beyond Week 9: Be available for support and guidance as needed
Data Collection
I will collect and analyze data in the form of self-written weekly journal entries and reflections, requested reflections from my teaching partner, and a record of meeting dates and what was accomplished. There will also be a link to his classroom website as part of the data collection and analysis.