My Professional Learning Plan

I have always considered myself a pretty tech-savvy person and believed myself to be on the frontlines of technology in the classroom. It was not until I began my journey this past January in CEP810 and CEP811 that I began to realize that there was an entire world of technology being used in the classroom that I was not aware of. Now, as I finish CEP812 and look back over the last 16 weeks, I am amazed at how far I have come and now realize how far I have yet to go!

When I sat down to create my Professional Learning Plan I looked at where I was, where I am now, and thought about where I want to go. Through this reflection I began to form short term goals that I will use to ensure that I continue to stay abreast of current technology practices in the classroom and not fall behind in current instructional methods. I also formed long term goals that will keep me focused on the future and aid me in moving to where I want to be in the area of Educational Technology. In the short term, I want to complete my Masters of Arts in Educational Technology. I will continue to utilize what I have learned in this program to enhance my instructional practices and my students’ educational experience. I will begin organize all of the tools that I have learned into one Livebinder so that I do not forget about any of them and that they are easily accessible. Once I have found full time employment, I will implement my Wicked Problem Project into my classroom. I want to create a webpage that I can utilize for my classroom and my professional teaching career. And most importantly, I want to remain committed to building daily lesson plans that encompass technology and engage my students.

In the long term, I will focus on remaining a lifelong learner of technology and become proficient in the latest technologies as they become available. I will actively engage in professional organizations and online communities that will introduce me to new tools, new ideas, and new ways to use my existing tools. I am going to work to become an educational technology leader in my instructional community and one day hope to be a leader nationally in the area of Educational Technology. By biggest goal for the future is to earn my doctorate degree in curriculum and instruction. I am committed to one day becoming a full professor in an education department and to teach teachers; hopefully inspiring the next generation of educators the same way my professors have inspired me.

As My Friends From Across the Pond Would Say; "We've Got a Bloody Wicked Problem!"

We have a serious problem in the Social Studies classrooms throughout this country, a growing number of students cannot properly identify the majority of countries on a blank map of the world and few can even place countries in their proper regions. Furthermore, most students are not engaged in the events occurring throughout the world. In a growing global-community that is literally shrinking the social, religious, political, and economic world that we live in, it is imperative that students understand the geographical make-up of the world and how global events affect them as human beings. It is now, more than ever, vital for students to have a strong academic foundation of our geographical and geo-political make-up as a global-community.

The key to successfully solving this problem is to show students from the beginning why a deep understanding of world geography is relevant. This can be accomplished in several ways. First, by presenting real-world examples such as the geo-political reasons why American troops are deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and South Korea, or the global-economic factors contributing to a growing trade deficit with China and how it affects the American economic market, and the socio-economic effects of monetary and civil unrest in African nations students will begin to understand how our world is shrinking and how events around the planet affect them. As individuals influenced by the social, religious, political, and economic events of the world students need to have an understanding of what is happening globally, where it is happening, why it is happening, and how it shapes them. Second, by combining activities such as weekly discussions over current events, weekly reviews of the class RSS feed page covering national and global media and then writing a weekly two-paragraph summary of an event of their choice on their personal blog, and successfully completing on-line inter-active world map activities and games they begin to see how they can connect individually with events happening around the world. Mix knowledge of current events with on-line inter-active world map activities and the students begin to form a base of understanding of what events are occurring in the world and where they are happening. As students combine their newly gained knowledge of world geography with their knowledge of global current events they begin to understand why this knowledge is significant to their daily lives. This understanding then builds relevance to this activity in the student’s minds and they begin to take ownership of gaining this knowledge as a necessity of everyday life rather than just another memorization assignment. Finally, students will leave this class with the necessary knowledge to understand global events, know where in the world they are occurring, understand the regional and global effects of the events and as a result, they will be able to function better in their daily professional and personal lives as citizens.

I realize this seems like enormous undertaking; however, with planning, organization, the evolution of Web2.0 tools, and the fact that technology is increasing at an exponential rate this problem can be addressed and solved with little effect on your normal curriculum. In the implementation of this plan, the instructor will use several different activities to accomplish the set objectives. First, through lecture, video, on-line information, and other sources the instructor will show current world events and demonstrate how they have relevance to our daily lives. Second, the instructor will create and maintain a class RSS Page for world news and information, as well as a class Blog. Through these two sources, the students will review current global events a few times a week and then write a weekly two paragraph summary defining the facts of a given event and how it is relevant to each of us. Third, the instructor will lead a weekly classroom discussion of current events and allow the students to share their views and opinions in a safe and educationally conducive environment. Fourth, the students will meet in the computer lab three times a month to utilize inter-active on-line world map activities and games that are structured to teach them the proper geographic location of every country in the world. Through this exercise, it is expected that 100% of the students will successfully identify all countries of the world in their proper location on a blank world map at the end of the semester. Finally, each student will complete a capstone multi-media project where they will present their knowledge and understanding of a current “hot-bed” topic in the world and demonstrate its relevance to our lives. By completing each of these goals, the students will exit this class with a thorough knowledge of world geography and the importance of understanding world events and analyzing how they affect each of us in our daily lives.

When reviewing this proposal and comparing it to the TPACK model, I believe that this is a well-developed and comprehensive plan that extends throughout the entire semester and encompasses a variety of technologies and instructional strategies. I am sure that when this project is implemented I will find areas of improvement and that it will evolve over time, but I have made great efforts to assure that all areas of TPACK are properly represented. When looking at this plan the area of Technological Pedagological Knowledge is addressed in a variety of ways. Class lectures and discussions are enhanced with the use of videos, multimedia presentations, on-line tools, and interactive webinars and fieldtrips. The creations of class and student RSS Feeds and Blogs will also allow students to remain engaged with ever changing current events and have the ability to communicate and share their opinions both in the classroom and outside of school through their personal blog and the class blog. The inclusion of social media sights such as Twitter also allows students the ability to share their opinions on various topics and comment on the ideas of their classmates. To address the need for knowledge of world geography, students will meet in the computer lab three times a month. During this lab time, students will use various online inter-active map and geography sources to learn and practice identifying countries throughout the world. These sites will also be available to the students outside of school. By implementing varied technology tools to implement this plan, students will have opportunities to learn the curriculum in a variety of methods and allow them to find ways that best suit their needs to communicate and practice modeling their newly gained knowledge.

In regards to Technicological Content Knowledge, by incorporating these various teaching methods and resources students will be given a much broader and more comprehensive exposure to World Geography and Global Current Events. By creating a class RSS Feed, I can assure that my students are getting factual and relevant information and knowledge delivered directly to their computers. However, by allowing them to create their own RSS Feed pages, they can also incorporate news and information sources that are both relevant and trustworthy but also personal to them. By utilizing technology tools that can be accessed online, students can work from virtually anywhere and have access to their projects and assignments both in the classroom and outside of school. Through blogs and social media such as Twitter, students can communicate and share ideas with ease. Finally, by utilizing online tools, I can have greater access to my students beyond our normal class time an parents can be more involved in their students’ academic life.

The final TPACK Phase is Pedagogical Content Knowledge. Both World Geography and Current World Events are curriculum standards for Social Studies and are often areas that are missed or slightly touched upon. With the growing online global community and development of a more global society, it is more important than ever that our students understand the world they live in and what is going on. Where only events in one’s own state or region once carried a profound effect on their day to day lives, world events now affect each and every person daily. In order to prepare our students for life, this knowledge is extremely important. I believe that this plan will work towards better preparing our students for what lies ahead of them over the coming years and decades.


I invite you to watch this short presentation on my Wicked Problem Project and see how all of this comes together!

Mobile Learning

I was excited to explore Classroom 2.0! This resource is amazing...seriously...AMAZING!!! I know that it sounds like I am just "buttering-up" for the class. But, I am a pretty straight shooter (as you will see in a minute...LOL) and I typically call it like I see it no matter what the situation. So, when I rave about something, it's because I really like it. This page is full of people just like my me who love to use technology in their classroom and teaching practices and we are all constantly looking for new and exciting ideas. I have already added this page to my tool bar for quick access and will spend way too much time this summer exploring what everyone else is up to!

The first thing I notices was that I am already building lessons using allot of the tools being dicussed on this page (i.e., blogs, online calendars, Google Docs, podcasts, RSS, and social bookmarking) However, I found tons of new ideas on how to incorporate these tools into my classroom and my daily life. I also found some news tools that I have not tried and will spend time over the summer checking them out to see if they are something I am interested in.

One tool that I reviewed for this assignment was the cell phones in education. I did not like this idea. I am a very open and forward thinking guy when it comes to most things and especially using technology in education. However, cell phones are a huge "pet-peeve" of mine in school. The issue with cell phones is control of use. I am all for technology when it enhances or adds to a students learning potential. In my opinion, cell phones are not successfull in this area. Too often, when cell phones come out the texting and tweeting begins. I have personally caught students taking inappropriate or embarrassing pictures and videos of classmates via their cell phone. This is unacceptable and why strict rules have been put in place for cell phone use in schools. To me, the best thing you can do is keep the cell phones put away. I can find tons of ways to add technology to my lessons that is fun, new, and beneficial without having to turn to cell phones. For these reasons, I do not see myself using cell phones in my classroom.

We were also asked to create a Poll Everywhere activity for students to complete via text message. First, I am not currently teaching this semester and I did not have my own students to apply this activity to. Second, with my views on cell phone use in school I could not in good faith ask a colleague or friend to allow me to complete this task with their students. I would not want to put them in an awkward position of doing me a favor that would probably go against their districts "phone-use" policy. I did however explore this site and I think the idea is exceptional in the proper setting. I would use this source in a college classroom or in a professional setting without hesitation. I would also use this tool to get feedback from parents on dates for activities, fieldtrip ideas, etc. I see alot of potential with using Poll Everywhere, just not in the classroom with students.

Wicked Problem Project: Part D - Findings and Implications

As previously stated in prior posts, I am not currently teaching this semester. So, the implementation of this project is more of a relative term. The size and scope of this project is rather large since it encompasses several different ideas and uses a multitude of tools and lessons. So, with that being said...let's take a look at how things have come together!

I have completed a unit timeline for this project; looking at my goals for these activities, factoring in that we will be covering other curriculum throughout the semester, and the activities necessary for success. I feel that I have successfully created a plan that will allow me to implement this project quickly on the front end, have the students "buy-in" to the idea, and then allow this project to run in the background more as a "participation points" activity throughout the semester. The end result of this project looks much like I have envisioned from the beginning. I did have to narrow the focus and scope of the RSS feeds due to the fact that it was just becoming too large and time consuming for the students. I also reduced the frequency of the students reviewing the feeds to three times a week instead of everyday. When looking at the fact that this project is a semester long project, the fact that we will be focusing on other curriculum in the class, understanding student’s workloads in other classes could be heavy at times, extra-curricular activities, and life...I felt that every day may be a bit much. I believe that three times a week is a fair expectation. I have maintained the required weekly blog post because I feel that writing across curriculum is extremely important. I have also reviewed several sights on the internet and found an exceptional tutorial that shows how to link all of my student’s blogs together on Netvibes at one time! This tutorial will save me an unbelievable amount of time; I can now use one lab day to have each of my students create their own personal blog in Blogger and then I can simply link all of our blogs to the class page in Netvibes. This was a key element to the success of this project. My students and I will now simply log into Netvibes and instantly see and have access to all of the blog posts as they are submitted. From this, we can watch and respond to each other’s posts without having to visit each blog individually. I believe by having these blogs linked and the ease of access will facilitate a more open discussion platform between my students. I have also had allot of success in finding online and interactive tools for my students to work with the World Geography portion of this project. By combining the geography tools with the current events portion of the project using Blogger and Netvibes I have had great success in implementing this project. I am now in the phase where I am developing individual lesson plans that I will insert throughout the semester to constantly remain connected to this project and the assignments while still allowing for the other curriculum areas we will cover throughout the semester. Once I find a permanent teaching job and know what subject area I will be teaching, I will simply plug this project into that class's semester outline and build the curriculum for the class around this project's time frame. I believe this will be a relatively simple task now that I have completed this project, built the necessary tools for implementation, and finished the unit outline.

In using this experience to plan for future projects of this nature I believe the greatest lesson I will take with me is that the key to success is in the planning. If you want to successfully implement something into your class, you have to plan for it upfront and assure that you will dedicate the time and resources necessary for it to be successful. Also, if I was to tackle something like this again or if I was to give advice to a colleague looking at a similar project, I would stress the need for it to be accessible and easy to use. If my students were required to go out onto the internet and visit lots of websites to find news sources or if they were required to visit one another's blogs individually on a weekly basis, this project would be finished before it ever started. However, by adding Netvibes to the mix and having everything updated and accessible in one location, this project has an excellent chance of not only being successful, but being duplicated by my friends and colleagues in their classrooms.

Overall, I am extremely happy with the outcome of this project and cannot wait to use it in the classroom. However, I also could not wait to see how high school students would react to this project. So, I contacted high school ages kids of family and friends and ran the project by them to see what their initial reaction is. If teenagers are one thing, they are brutally honest. I was excited to see that out of the 9 students I talked to, 8 saw this as a really cool idea and something they wish their own teachers would do. While this is a very small sampling, and they haven't had to do the work yet (LOL!!!), I am energized by their response!

Wicked Problem Project: Part C - Implementation

I have begun to implement my Wicked Project. Since I do not have a classroom or students at the present time, I am defining my implementation process as the creation of a complete unit plan. This plan encompasses a Unit Plan, Unit Timeline, Lesson Plans, technical resources, a class Blog, a class RSS Feed Page, and world geography interactive tools. My intention is to have the entire project ready to use from day one when I have my own classroom.

Here is a link to a podcast describing this implementation process: Brumbelow's Wicked Podcast

Here is a screen capture of my Class RSS Feed Page:

Here is a screen capture of the National Geographic's Education Page discussing Geo Literacy:

Here is a screen capture of one of the interactive geography games I will use in this project:

Group Leadership Project

My group agreed to create our project in Camtasia for several reasons. Camtasia came highly recommended from our professors, it works well with PowerPoint and Audacity which we were all familiar with, it's is free and easy to use, and no one in the group had ever used it before and we wanted to learn a new tool. We agreed that each of us would create a section of the final project in PowerPoint, record our audio track's in Audacity, and combine them together for a final Camtasia product. This seemed like an easy solution to the group project requirements and gave us the freedom to complete the project over the internet.

I was assigned the "Best Practices" section of our presentation and the conclusion. I used Jing to capture screen shots of multiple LiveBinders from the website that I thought illustrated several great uses for this tool. I then used these screenshots to create my section of the PowerPoint slide show. Finally, I recorded my audio portion using the script I had written and created the MP3 file using Audacity. Everything went smooth and I was able to complete my portion with relative ease. The biggest issue I had was in recording the audio track. It helps a great deal to have a detailed script in front of you outlining what you want to say with each slide and I strongly recommend that you have a headset with a built in microphone for your recordings. I found that a headset with a microphone gives you a better recording and cuts down on the background noise on your track. Jeannine was assigned the intro for our presentation and was to give a brief overview of LiveBinders and explain what you can do with this tool. She completed her portion of the project in Camtasia quickly and was ready to send it to me about 10 days before our project was due. However, we had an issue with her being able to send the file to me due to its size. After trying several things, Jeannine sent me her PowerPoint slides with her embedded audio track. This worked well and I had no problems combining her work into the final project. Molly was assigned the "meat" of our presentation. She was to demonstrate how LiveBinders works. Her PowerPoint presentation was well constructed and you can tell she put a lot of time into creating a quality presentation. However; we had problems when Molly went to add her audio track into her slide show. She tried several times to send me her portion of the project but the audio file would not transfer with the PowerPoint slides. We tried everything we could think of and Molly sought the assistance of Jeannine and Dr Plair. Eventually, Molly sent me her Audacity file separate from her PowerPoint presentation and I embedded it into the Groups slide show and set the timing of her slides to the audio track. Once I had all three PowerPoint presentations combined and the audio tracks embedded, it was simple to finish the project in Camtasia. Camtasia allowed me to upload
the slides and audio into the software with no issues. I was then able to blend the audio of all three of us so that the volume was relatively even. Once I had everything set, I was able to publish our final presentation so that it can be accessed on the internet. I love this concept! I will continue to use Camtasia and I intend on uploading a lot of my PowerPoint presentations and publishing them to the web so that I can access them anytime anywhere. I strongly recommend everyone giving Camtasia a look!

The most important issue when dealing with a project of this type is timing. When you are working alone on a project, you can wait until the last minute and still pull things together to meet deadlines most of the time. However, when you are working in a group atmosphere and you have multiple pieces, it is important to get everything done early so that you can put out the fires that always seem to arise and still complete the project by the set deadline. I would have liked to have spent more time editing our audio tracks with Camtasia; however, due to time constraints this was not possible. Overall, this was a positive experience and I was fortunate to have great group members to work with. I believe that we were able to collaborate and work well together to create a good project.

Here is a link to Group 2's Leadership Project