Effective Websites-Week #5

I've really enjoyed this reflection assignment. Each program that I am coordinating this year, have a link on our school's homepage. I am charged with updating them, and as such, I had already been thinking about web sites, the most appropriate information to share, and accessibility for all. This assignment has really provided me with important tools to complete that task.

It is important that the content on a school website is appropriate. Administrators and/or web administrators can follow the State/Federal Law: 508 compliant/accessibility code to ensure that content is acceptable. It is important to note that in many counties, such as Montgomery County, the school principal is responsible for all information shared on their school's site. Consequently, it is important that school administrators work closely with the web master to provide a clear, and informative website with easy to follow links. This helps to ensure that every member of the school community has access for important information such as school information, address and directions, school programs, school staff, contact information etc. The digital natives are starting to become parents. As such, a thorough school website is the perfect tool to reach out to many of those families.

I am using googleweb. I plan to include informative graphs regarding important data. I will also include a section that will share tips and resources for every member of the school community to get involved.

Week 4 Reflection-Presentation Tool

Time is and always has been a precious commodity in the field of education. These days however, an educator’s time is chock full of new interventions, programs, trainings and meetings. Although these meetings are ideally relevant and important, they can still take away from the time that teachers have to plan, grade, analyze, and discuss. In order to continue to improve and learn new strategies, teachers need not only programs and meetings, but also chances for collegial discourse. When given the time, teachers relish the opportunity to share best practices, talk about new strategies and interventions and much more. Although required meetings and trainings are often embedded with opportunities for teachers to talk, it is difficult to engage in in-depth sharing when given only a few minutes.

This is where GoogleDocs comes into play. This web based program allows users to post documents and materials for others to share. The program would be ideal for sharing of lesson plans, documentation of meetings, interventions, etc. Teachers could add, delete, share and edit documents with one another. Users are able to choose who can see posted documents. One downside of this program could potentially be that as a leader, you would need to be cautious of what is documented and shared about students and teachers.

I believe that the pros of this program outweigh the cons. Content specialists could monitor the planning or assessments of their department. This tool would allow school administrators “to ensure the integration of appropriate technologies in instruction and learning environments to maximize student achievement,” which is the 2nd Maryland Technology Standard for School Administrators.

Week 3 Reflection-Date

Most leadership teams will tell you that drafting, writing and revising their school's vision and goals takes a lot of time and effort. These goals guide the work of the leadership team and the school community. In a school comprised of a diverse student body and varied learning levels and styles, data is integral in answering the question “are we moving toward our goal?" Using data to find the answer this question of course leads to a conversation that includes many more questions.What is working? What isn't working? What can we change? What trends are we seeing? What are our next steps?A conversation that includes questions like these leads educators to institute programs and strategies that promote a positive learning environment. Following the trends in student data allows teachers to re-teach, re-assess and differentiate instruction. At Clemente, we collect data in a variety of ways. At the classroom level we collect formative data and summative data through assessments, Promethean Activotes, surveys, consensograms and data points. At the school level, we collect data through MAP-R and MSA Data, state, county and school survey results, and students and group grade trends.I believe that at Clemente we efficiently use data to drive our decision making. However, I would like to see teachers become more independent with collection tools such as MyMCPS, SWIS, survey programs, etc.