3.7 Communication & Collaboration
Candidates utilize digital communication and collaboration tools to communicate locally and globally with students, parents, peers, and the larger community. (PSC 3.7/ISTE 3g)
Candidates utilize digital communication and collaboration tools to communicate locally and globally with students, parents, peers, and the larger community. (PSC 3.7/ISTE 3g)
For this artifact, I have hyperlinked my entire blog. I have maintained this blog over the course of the program as a way to reflection on the courses I have completed, share my interests and experiences as a student of instructional technology, and communicate the tech tools and topics I have learned. Furthermore, this blog communicates my current “hot topics” with students, parents, peers, and the larger community. Although most of the interactions on the blog are from people in the program, I have also had visitors from the global community, since posts are published in a public forum. While I am the sole creator of this publication, I frequently write about the conversations and insights I have gained from colleagues and friends, formally and informally, as a way of thinking through current topics in instructional technology.
This artifact shows mastery in Standard 3.7: Communication & Collaboration. Since my blog is a public publication, it communicates my ideas on instructional technology topics locally and globally. While parents and students are welcome to visit this site, it was created with teachers and technology coaches in mind. However, parents interested in technology for their high-school aged students might find the review of apps and content-creation tools useful. Additionally, I focus, in several posts, on collaborative learning tools—social media, Padlet, Google Sites—that are meant to increase a teacher’s interaction with their professional learning networks and/or a student’s engagement in the classroom. To communicate with parents and students, in a classroom setting, I use email, Remind, and announcements posted on my Learning Management System’s (LMS) course page. Additionally, my school sends home parent newsletters, so parents can stay up-to-date on school events and technology (this newsletter has been especially important during digital learning).
From completing this artifact, I learned the importance of interacting with and posting in public forums as a way to network with similar interests or studying similar fields. By participating in social media, I have learned new teaching strategies and new tech tools, in addition to receiving feedback on the lesson ideas and tools I have tried. Overall, the experience has been very positive, and I have gained more confidence in participating in public conversations about academic and hands-on classroom topics. If I were to do something differently to improve the quality of this artifact, I would include more multimedia. Additionally, I think more hyperlinking would help readers learn more from reading my posts.
The work that went into creating this artifact has impacted school improvement since I have redelivered several of the ideas I learned from professional networking as lessons in my classroom and as professional development ideas with groups of teachers. The impact of this redelivery can be assessed by measuring the extent which trying new technology tools or practices has improved student learning—either through monitoring grades, observations, or surveys. Additionally, the impact on teachers can be assessed through surveys to see which tools they have tried or use regularly in their classrooms.