My first goal is to increase my use of professional resources for continued professional development (NETS-T Outcome G5). My action plan is to subscribe to the web logs of my fellow professionals, and to monitor my RSS readers to these blogs. I will monitor my progress by keeping a log of when I monitor updates to these logs, and how many I comment on. I will evaluate my activities by tallying the number of times I look at bloglines per week, and how many blogs I leave comments on per week. After I have habituated myself to reading these blogs I will eventually extend my monitoring process to include brief descriptors of my comments, and those of the professionals whose blogs I subscribe to, as to value, applicability, depth, and usefulness.
As a second goal in getting familiar with the NETS-T Outcomes I will increase my knowledge of technology—specifically the use of DesignCAD (NETS-T Outcome S2) in order to bring extremely relevant technology into my physics unit on statics, which is built into a project in which students design a skyscraper. My action plan will be to acquire DesignCAD and begin tutorials in order to gain confidence and proficiency in the software. I will monitor my progress by keeping a log of my skills as I gain them, and the number of hours I have spent learning them. I will evaluate my learning by determining if I can design a complex 3D rendering of a skyscraper to scale, designed within the limits I will impose on my students. I will extend my learning to determine how to shade, how to adjust the lighting, how to walk and fly around the finished design, and how to add environmental “frills” to the rendering. This will not be required of my students, but some may want to extend their own knowledge, so I should at least be able to give them some guidance.
Reference:
ISTE_NETS·S. (2007). The International Society for Technology in Education - National Educational Technology Standards for Students. Retrieved January 12, 2009, from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForStudents/2007Standard
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Using educational blogs is a great way to communicate with colleagues. I am planning on using blogs as a way to collaborate with teachers from different cultures. I like your idea of using a log to keep track of updates and comments made. This could help develop a routine of keeping up with and adding to the blogs.
ReplyDeleteTim,
ReplyDeleteI love the DesignCAD program idea, I have used AutoCAD and Rhino3D before and really like the tools the provide to enhance students learning of these programs.
When students who have used the traditional pencil/paper/drafting board and straight edge type of drafting get used to the AutoCAD drafting, they are blown away by the increased precision they are able to achieve.
Also, with the Rhino3D they can design in 3D and see what they are building as it is being drawn.
I wish they had this stuff when I was a kid learning mechanical drawing, and even when I was working for various architectural and engineering firms back in "the day" before teaching.
Good work.
Rob Zingg
Tim,
ReplyDeleteI like that you've included the professional development part into your game plan. While I feel that maintaining a blog is sometimes "one more thing on my plate," I agree with you that reading one another's posts can continue to help in keeping us current.