Setting my SMART Goals

One of our final assignments is to set some goals that incorporate the knowledge we've gained from our class.  I am writing my goal in SMART format, to help ensure that I can achieve the goal(s) I set for myself.

I've decided to focus my goals on using a couple several of technology tools we investigated and used during our class.  I believe that these tools will keep me connected to best practices and what is going on in the world of education, as well as provide me with new ideas that I can use in my classroom.  Additionally, these tools will help me form and express my opinions.

My SMART goals for 12/13 School Year:

S	Specific	I will continue to use Twitter and Google Reader to stay current on topics in education and technology.	I will keep my WIKI and Blog current.
M	Measureable	Garner 2-4 apps, links, or articles to re-tweet.	Minimum of 2 postings per month.  Incorporate items/knowledge culled from Twitter and my Reader.
A	Attainable	Set aside ½ hours one afternoon per week to read/explore Twitter/Reader.	Set aside ½ hours one morning per week to post to my WIKI and Blog.
R	Realistic	This is do-able, as long as I set aside the time.	This is do-able, as long as I set aside the time.
T	Timely	This is a weekly goal for the entire 12/13 school year. Assess at end of December.	This is a weekly goal for the entire 12/13 school year. Assess at end of December.

What it all means (week 5 reflection)

I really enjoyed reading the “What It All Means” chapter of Will Richardson’s book this week for class. It helped me wrap my head around a couple of things.  With the increasing amount of information available online and the collaborative nature of content creation, as educators we need to prepare students for their life after school, which includes more than just reading and writing literacy.   

What this means for students:

• Students need to be critical reviewers of the information that they sift through, no longer can they depend on the publishers and editors of the print world to validate the information.
• Students need to understand the ways that they can publish and share their ideas.
• Students need to learn how to manage the heaps of information that they consume everyday; they need to learn to do this safely, efficiently and effectively.
• In the end, if the education system is successful, students can learn how to use the internet’s connectivity to change the world or at least impact it in a positive way.

What this means for educators:

• As educators, we need to help connect students with the content they need, as well as connect them with other knowledgeable experts (and experts can take many, many forms).
• As educators, we need to model the skills that we want our students to learn; we have to coach them. This includes creating our own content and continuing to build our own PLN.
• As educators, we need to use the internet resources to be true collaborators, in order to grow ourselves and provide the best for our students.
• As educators, we need to be a part of the change we want to see.  Embrace technology and take responsibility for our own learning.  Isn’t this what we are preparing our students for?

So, what does that actually mean to me.....?  One of the things that I want to do is create a WIKI (which also happens to be an assignment of ours) to help me organize, collaborate and share the many tools that we’ve learned about in class.  For example, I played around with Voki, Yodio and Screen-o-matic tools to create podcasts/screencasts for the new student management software that our school staff uses.  I want to collect these useful “How To” items in one place and ask my fellow teachers to create their own pod/screencasts to add as they learn about a new feature of the student management software.

Off to create I go!

So many useful tools...(reflection week 4)

This week we've looked at so many awesome tools that will be useful to me, especially in my work life.  We looked at Twitter, Google+, Weebly, Diigo & Delicious and podcasting/screencasting tools.

A couple of weeks ago I setup my Twitter account (onegall) and begin following people.  I am following my fellow classmates and other educators that have great and interesting things to say.  I really like this tool for gathering and finding articles and resources to stay current on educational and technology tools/research/issues/topics.

Google+ is an evolving thing for me.  I recently began using just Google Chrome as my browser and am finding that using Google products does seem to make things more integrated and a little easier for me.  I just need to spend a little more time to see how I can use all these resources.

I recently started setup a Weebly site to gather great websites that I think can be beneficial to other teachers in my school.  I am working to organize them into logical groups, and add my notes about these resources.  I will keep adding resources as I learn about them through Twitter, blogs, etc.

Social bookmarking......I tried this with Delicious a couple of years ago, but it never amounted to too much. So, I decided to start over with Diigo.  I really like the sticky note feature and how I can find what others are bookmarking based on similar tags we both use.

I was excited to try my hand at a screencast.  At school we have a new student management tool and I wanted to create easy-to-follow instructions on some basic functionality that all teachers will need to become familiar with.  I used Yodio to create a short how-to screencast.  The cool part was that I added the audio via the phone!  This will be great for when I don't have access to a microphone.  I tried my hand at Screenr, but it does not appear that I can make the screencast private. Since I am using my account for the how-to, I didn't like that my picture/bio/login-name would be out there for all to see.  Some of the other tools (Vocaroo and JingProject) required me to download software to my laptop, which I'm not interested in doing.  If I were to use this with students, it would be too much s/w management to download the s/w and keep it current.  What tools have my classmates tried?  Which do you prefer?

So, the most fun and useful thing this week was the screencast tools.  This is something I've been meaning to investigate and having it as an assignment just popped it to the top of my list!  Creating how-to screencasts (screen shots + audio) is quick and easy and I hope the teachers will find them helpful!