Future Page

My Personal Improvement Plan

On April 7, my learning in MSE 850 (TECHNOLOGY FOR ENGAGING ALL LEARNERS: IPADS, PHONES, APPS, AND MOBILE DEVICES)  will come to the end.

So what will be my personal improvement plan after the course?

What?~ What I have done?
As an educator, I am constantly looking for tools and methods that can help our students to learn better. Technological tools are one of such tools that educators should invest time in learning and design methods that can enrich the learning and the learning experience of the students.

In 2011, when I was promoting the use of technology, I chanced  upon a book :The Technology Toolbelt for Teaching by Susan Manning and Kevin E. Johnson.

I decided to adapt the content of the book to provide a guide for my teachers to let them decide what are the tools suitable for their teaching and helped them to understand the support available in school. You can view a copy of the guide by clicking here*. I also tasked the ICT department to test out all the tools and be ready to provide support for teachers whenever they need it. An example of the tool described in my guide  is shown below. *The information in the guide is quite old and might be irrelevant.

Tools	Camtasia Studio (AJC ICT)
Types	Screen Capture & Video Editing
Cost	$300 each
URL
Description	Camtasia gives you the tools you need to truly customize and edit your videos. Record on-screen activity, add imported media, create interactive content, and share high-quality, HD videos that your viewers can watch anytime, on nearly any device.
Platform	SSOE
Best use for	Screen Capture & Video Editing
Level of expertise	Beginner
Cautions	Only 100 licenses available
Overcoming Cautions	Please request for a license early
Special Equipment	Stylus Pen
Training and Resources	Training will be provided by ICT Specialist

To support the teachers in using the tools, I have conducted  training in my school yearly since 2006 and occasionally conducted sharings with the educators in other schools at AST. My last sharing slides at AST can be found here.

So what? ~ what are the challenges?

There are many challenges that educators needs to overcome in using ICT:

1) The perennial problems of using ICT tools is the fast pace of proliferation of the tools and advancement of the technology. Teachers and technical support are at times struggling to understand the tools and effectively using them to support teaching and learning.

2) Teachers also need to know how to design effective lesson using technologies. I am currently looking for models and framework to guide the design of an effective lesson. There are many models. 

3) The ICT support in schools are uneven.  A lot of efforts are needed to build up the ICT support and this very much depends on the school leadership.

Now What? ~ What I intend to do from now?

As a school leader now, I have less time to conduct sharing and explore the use of technology in the classroom. However, I am trying to continue the learning with my teacher leaders (HOD, LT and ST).

I decided therefore:

1) Conduct regular sharing with the teacher leaders so that they can promote the use of technology and help teachers to design better lesson. In my current school that I serve, we are exploring TPACK as a lesson design tools and the meaningful learning framework to conduct professional development for our teacher.

Source : https://www.google.com.sg/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwiC667U4eTLAhWCUY4KHSnIDE4QjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fictevangelist.com%2Ftechnological-pedagogical-and-content-knowledge%2F&bvm=bv.117868183,d.c2E&psig=AFQjCNGk5_rdDPySh3D7NwUK3DRdTd6D_Q&ust=1459301981313317

Source: http://technolgy-cheekfinalproject.wikispaces.com/file/view/MeaningfulLearning.JPG/279374106/MeaningfulLearning.JPG


2) Read regularly on the latest development in the use of ICT either from books or social media (such as Edutopia) and work with my HOD ICT to create a new guide for teachers in using technology that is suitable for our learners in our context,


3) Write regularly for this blog. Since I start this blog, I am also thinking of putting up post on tools that I am exploring and continue to share with educators who are interested in learning and technology and reading my blogs.

Thanks fot the learning experience. Glad to meet intelligent people and educators with the hearts for our students.