EDLD 5326 Action Research Update

My action research project is based on my schools 1:1 iPad initiative.  We start an Academic Leadership Academy (ALA) with 50 incoming freshmen students.  Each student was given an iPad to use.  The plan was to begin the iPad initiative with these 50 students and then after two years expand the program to include all high school students.  I choose to research the impact the iPads had on student achievement. 

I began by observing the ALA classes to see how students in class were using the iPads.  What I found was that most teachers were not integrating iPad use into their lessons.  After discussing the issue with my principal we decided to offer training workshops to the teachers to teach them how to integrate the iPads into their curriculum.  I held a series of training workshops for our teachers last spring and a couple of refresher workshops in August.  I again observed the ALA classes to see how students were using the iPads and was pleased to see mush more integration of the iPads into the daily classes. 

The next thing I did was pull the MAP testing data from May, September, and January for the ALA students in Math and Reading.  I then pulled the MAP testing data from May, September, and January for students in non ALA sections of honors math, honors English, and AP Human Geography.  When I compared the data on student achievement I noticed that the two groups of students had very similar scores for the May and September MAP administration; however the ALA group of students had scores that were an average of 11% higher than the non ALA group for the January MAP administration.

EDLD 5363 Weeks Four and Five Web Conference Reflection

I have attended all the Sunday and Monday night web conferences for this course because I enjoy the interaction amongst the students and Dr. Abernathy. Attending the conferences helps me feel more connected to the program and helps to keep me on track with my work.  Dr. Abernathy is always so helpful in answering questions, addressing student concerns, and explaining assignment components.  This week has been no different.  She spent a good bit of time explaining all of the week five assignments and correcting a few errors that were discovered in the 5.4  and 5.9 assignment documents.  It appears that my cohort (ET8041) has an incorrect 5.9 assignment document and Dr. Abernathy was very helpful in clarifying exactly what needed to be completed for assignment 5.9.

Dr. Abernathy was also helpful in clarifying the progression of courses throughout our degree program and provided information on the testing we will have to take for our administrators certification.

EDLD 5363 Week Two Web Conference Reflection

During the June 17th web conference we discussed the week’s assignments.  Dr. Abernathy stressed that she is checking our work and talking to our IA’s about grading.   This weeks assignment was to create a podcast tutorial of a video editing software.  This has been a very valuable assignment because I feel that it is closely related to what we might do with video in our classrooms and for professional development for teachers and staff.  Dr. Abernathy related that she wants us to transfer to our students what we learn as her students.

Dr. Abernathy let us know that as we think ahead to weeks three through five, we should be curriculum oriented.  She said that, in the past, she had students create a public service announcement.  Now we are to create a core content, student-centered video project of ninety seconds to two minutes in length.  She mentioned that we needed to keep the video to two minutes or less so that we could work easily with the files.  File size could become an issue as we share it between ourselves.  She suggested we design our video in the style of a flipped classroom.  She also stressed that if we had assignment documents that mention the PSA then we have old documents and need to email her to get the correct assignment files.  

As always I enjoyed this weeks web conference and I will also attend the conference tomorrow night.  I enjoy the interaction with the other students in the course and I enjoy learning from their questions and information posted during the web conferences.

EDLD 5363 Week One Web Conference Reflection

The first web conference I attended for EDLD 5363 was on June 4, 2012.  This web conference was extremely helpful because we discovered that the assignment documents that were in EPIC were old and outdated and that the EPIC courseware was incorrect.  Dr. Abernathy instructed us to follow the directions that were on the syllabus each week and not what was posted in EPIC.  This was very important because there were huge differences in the syllabus and the courseware.

I also attended the web conference on June 5, 2012 because I was able to obtain and review the correct week one assignments after the previous web conference. This web conference was beneficial because I was able to get clarification on several aspects of the week one assignments.  After this conference I was really looking forward to creating my first video for this class.

EDLD 5363 Week 2 Reflection

This weeks assignment was to create a podcast or vodcast of a video editing software.  I was excited to begin this assignment because it sounded like so much fun.  I completed all the readings/tutorials and decided that I really wanted to use a free program that was not real mainstream.  Windows Movie Maker and iTunes are great programs but I felt that everyone would be doing those.  I Googled free video editing software and spent several days downloading and trying to learn new programs.  Some of what I downloaded worked great but would not create videos with easy to use file extensions.  A lot of the programs only allowed you to upload the videos to their websites and you had to view them from there.   Some of the programs I downloaded would not work at all or they downloaded a bunch of junk with the program that required a lot of time to delete from my computer.

After a lot of frustration and wasted time I ended up using Camtasia to record my screen while creating a video in Windows Movie Maker.  Once I had the video completed I used Camtasia to add my voice narration for the vodcast.  It was easy to do and a lot of fun.

EDLD 5363 Week 2 Vodcast

Microsoft Movie Maker Tutorial

EDLD 5363 Week One Assignment Reflection

This week our assignment was to create a personal digital story.  We were given the options of selecting whatever topic we wanted and the ability to use whatever software we wanted to create the video.  I did not know where to start at first because there were just to many possibilities.  I finally decided to create my video from all of the pictures I have taken on my trips to Sicily.  I also decided to use iMovie to make the video because I do not have very much experience with iMovie but I was very familiar with other options such as Photo Story, Movie Maker and Audacity.  I thought this would be a great opportunity to learn something new.  The process was easy enough and iMovie was very easy to work with.  The hardest thing was the narration.  I kept having an echo type effect on everything I recorded.  It took a little time but I was finally able to get rid of it by turning off the voice over enhancement option the was selected by default.

Between looking through all of my photos, finding the right Sicilian folk music, and having a good reason to learn iMovie; I really enjoyed creating the video for this weeks assignment