Professional Development Plan

Here are two of my goals for my professional development plan. The one for standard 4 may seem a little silly but I will admit that it applies to me. Any suggestions that you could give would be great! Thanks!


Standard 4
Current Abilities: I have a smartphone that contains a Iot of information that is important for my social, personal, and work life. Sometimes I tend to rely on my cell phone too much.
Needs: I need to demonstrate proper use of checking my cell phone for emails, calls, and texts in front of my students. Hopefully this will impact them for their own cell phone use.
Goal: I will model proper etiquette with use of my cell phone.
Measure: I will assign a time for me to check my cell phone during the teaching day. I will also keep my cell phone kept out of sight so I will not be tempted to check it.
Short-term goal: I will not use my cell phone in front of the students to check or respond to emails and/or texts.
Long- term goal: I will not feel the need to check my cell phone during classroom time.
Self-Assessment: I will evaluate at the end of the week my cell phone usage in the classroom.



Standard 5
Current Abilities: I am aware of some resources and materials to inform myself about current technology.
Needs: Since technology is always changing, it is important to continue learning and sharing about new technologies.
Goal: I will learn a technology well enough to teach other fellow teachers about it.
Measure: I will ask myself and other teachers what they would like to know more about.
Short-term goal: I will find a new technology to learn about and find opportunities to use or implement it.
Long- term goal: When I learn the new technology I will teach it to a fellow colleague.
Self-Assessment: After teaching a fellow colleague I will evaluate the effectiveness of it. Questions to consider are: Did or can they use it in the classroom? How well did it work? I will also keep of log of who and what I taught to someone else. Handouts and information about the technology will also be created to distribute and remind myself of the information I have learned.

What is the hardest thing you face in your own professional development?

What is something that you think you need to learn to be a better educator, but you just cannot see how you might learn it.

The first thing that comes to mind is finding the time for me to engage in professional development. But I need to change my mindset from "finding" the time to "making" the time. It is so easy to get caught up in the hussle and bussle of teaching. There is so much to do and never enough time. This project for class has really made me think about how I want to improve as an educator, whether it pertains to technology or not. I am finding myself thinking of short and long term goals for myself as I drive down the highway. I have always known that I need to continue my professional development but it is easy to put that priority below others. I think that professional development needs to stay at the top. Or at least be assessed more often than I do in the first place. I am looking forward to writing my professional develoment plan to keep myself acccountable down the road. I think that will definitely mold me into a better teacher!

Cool Fun Site

http://www.benettonplay.com/toys/flipbookdeluxe/player.php?id=270260

Check out my flip book! So simple but so much fun!

Strategy for my target audience

For this reflection I chose to focus on gifted and talented students. In any classroom one can find a variety of learning styles. Since more instruction time is given in a regular classroom, it is important for the fine arts to present material in a variety of ways to encompass all learning types. This is particularly challenging due to the minimal time that we have to meet with our students. (At my previous position, I only had them once a week.) To ensure that all students understand and apply the concepts being taught, the pace is not always as fast as a gifted and talented student desires. Although, there are things that I can do to prevent any boredom or behavioral issues from occurring with these students. In "Technology and the Diverse Learner" it discusses "extension technologies" that help support these students. Instead of a "drill and practice" approach (which is needed for some learners) this strategy focuses on the creativity and exploration for the student. The world wide web is given as an example for this strategy. This tool can help those students guide their own exploration and make new connection to the subject matter. Multimedia technologies is also used as another example in the book. Instead of the student just watching a technological presentation they should be encouraged to create their own which will allow them to gain additional knowledge and connect content with the subject matter at hand. (This strategy is found on page 50-51 of "Technology and the Diverse Learner." ) In my classroom, I need to give more opportunities for those students to create more, whether it's a composition piece, rhythmic body percussion, or instrument playing. I need to be able to recognize those students and be prepared to let them explore their creativity in my music classroom.

MuseScore Reflection

I really enjoyed learning the software of MuseScore. I look forward to use it on future lessons in my teaching. I have always desired to know how to use notation software. Other software that I was aware of was only provided for a cost. So when I came across this free download I was very excited. At first the software was quite tricky to use. On the online website it does provide a manual for this program. That was very helpful in teaching myself how to use it. I also found a few video tutorials on youtube.com that helped in the learning of MuseScore. The person who created those tutorials is continuing to produce additional learning videos. So I will definitely keep checking back for more videos.
I found it fairly easy to create my instructions to start using MuseScore. From the beginning I tried to make my instructions very clear and as detailed as I could. From the peer reviews in class I received a couple suggestions that I later added to my instructions. They were minor wording additions that will eliminate any confusion. I also had my husband, who is not very musical, follow my instructions to create and use the program. He found the instructions to be very clear and in my opinion he rather enjoyed composing his own piece of music and hearing it played back to him.
So in conclusion I feel that I successfully created and completed this assignment with flying colors, and I am excited to share these instructions with others!

Two reflection questions in one!!

How might technology enable a teacher or a person in rural Oklahoma to impact others in the world. Make a suggestion and explain how it might have global impact? Is this realistic here?

I think it is definitely realistic that one person can have a global impact. The ideas, suggestions, and actions of one person have the potential to be very contagious. Even though it may seem that a teacher in rural Oklahoma might not make a difference, the web as enabled us to expand our resources and share them with our students. I can't help but think of a commercial where Ellen Page is visiting her old elementary classroom and the students are so excited because they are going on field trip to China! Of course it's through the web and cameras that you find out this is possible. She then comments about her only field trips were to the local farm. My point in being that the web as enabled so many new technologies for us to expand our students' knowledge and experience.

Do we have too many things going on at once? Are there problems with overlap? Are we dividing our efforts? Will it get to the point that there are just too many things to use, and not different enough to make it worthwhile to learn?

Although there are so many technologies out there, I don't think that there are necessary too many going on at once. There are things out there that cover the same idea or material, but often they provide differences that work well with certain people. Everybody has different learning styles and preferences and the plethora of possibilities out there allows us to choose which one would work best for the individual. From all of the new technologies, new ideas will be spun and reinvented to make the web an even better place. I think that there is always room for improvement. And as the saying goes...what will they think of next? I'm so excited to find out!

My Wiki

Check out my wiki!! Feel free to join! Enjoy!!http://gerbermusic.wikispaces.com/

Writeboard.com

http://writeboard.com/ is a free product where your text revisions are never lost! You can go back to any version and even compare between two different edits by working alone or collaborating with others for personal or business use. The possibilities are endless! One can get to a writeboard from ANY computer because the text document is saved on the web. To share it all you have to do is invite others with their email address. They follow the link and BAM, they can now view and edit whatever you wrote. Every time one saves it a new version is saved so one can also go back to a previous edited version. One can send any version by email or export it to a text file. The down side is that if you have multiple writeboards you must bookmark the URL’s along with remembering passwords to access them. Although one can create a “Backpack” account and organize all of your writeboards there. Check it out and let me know what you think! What do you think you could use this site for?

The biggest problem with using technology with kids..

In my opinion a big problem with kids using technology, in particular the internet, is how they are not aware of appropriate behavior and/or ettiquette. I think they are very naive in their thinking and they need to be taught how to conduct themselves on the internet. Since social networking is a big trend in today's society, kids need to be educated how to present themselves. Also most do not realize the consequences of giving out information for all to see on the internet. I have seen some of my former students profiles on myspace and it makes me wonder if anyone has educated them on the dangers of the internet. I find the following websites that provide great information for young students and parents on various topics concerning the internet.

http://www.protectkids.com/index.html

http://www.fbi.gov/publications/pguide/pguidee.htm


When I find additional websites I will add them to this post. Check back for updates!

Engaging Students During Snow Days

I think that in order to engage students during snow days that there already needs to be an online resource in use that the students are aware of and using already. Such examples can be teacher websites, wikis, webquests, and/or blogs. I could see myself linking music educational websites for my students along with learning audio files of songs we have learned in class or are about to learn. For my students learning to play the recorder there would be music and audio files for them to practice with. It would also be interesting to have students record themselves playing or singing compositions at home and posting to a website for all to view.

WebQuest 1.0 or 2.0?

I think that WebQuest started as 1.0 and as developed 2.0 features. When I went to search for an actual webquest site I had trouble finding one. I had to enter several topics before one appeared. When I found a couple it looked like they had been created in 2003. Some of the 2.0 features that have been incorporated include the Forum section and WebQuest Dialog. The Dialog seems to be newer and more recent. I hope to explore this section of the website a little more.

About Me

Hello my name is Amanda Gerber! I will be graduating this summer with my Master of Music Education with Kodaly emphasis. I have taught 3 years as a public elementary music teacher but went back to school full time this year so that I could finish my degree. I am looking forward to going back into the teaching field this next school year. I married my wonderful husband last July and I am enjoying being a newlywed. In my spare time I sing in a Sweet Adelines chorus, OKCity chorus. I have been a member for about 3 1/2 years and I love every minute of it! In October we will travel to Seattle to compete in International Competition. I am looking forward to this class and all that I can implement into my classroom.