My Influencer Strategy
For the past 5 years, students in the Lake Worth Independent School District have benefited greatly and have gained valuable learning experiences in digital citizenship through our 1:1 iPad initiative and the 1:1 Chromebook initiative. More and more schools are now understanding the valuable role technology has in education, and we strive to stay current on advances and trends that will benefit our students in the classroom. Now, it’s now time to take things a step further.
When it comes to bringing about change in an organization, I’ve learned that shouting out statistics and information is simply not enough. I’ve learned that in addition to influencing the mind, we’ve got to also influence the heart. Once we have had an influence on people of an organization, there are still a multitude of steps and strategies that come into play in order to get change initiatives off the floor. I’ve gotten a lot of valuable information from the book, Influencer, in terms of what the next steps are for me in our eportfolio program. My desired results and how they will be measured need to be made clear, those involved in the change effort need to be identified, and important vital behaviors must take place in order for the desired results to be achieved. All of this information must be clearly outlined so that effective change can begin to take place.
Beginning in the Fall of 2021, I will begin piloting a student eportfolio program at Collins Middle School for all learners enrolled in English 1. What I’d like to see happen with this pilot program is to start with five lead teachers and five lead students. The teachers will consist of two teachers that are familiar with eportfolios. The other three teachers will be teachers that are not as experienced but maybe have heard of the term. The students will all be in complete learning mode with no prior knowledge of eportfolios. This overall process should take no more than a half of a semester to learn and no more than a six weeks time period to implement. Eventually I would like to have all English 1 students and teachers create their own eportfolio to use during their time at Collins Middle school. In order for our students to get to that point, there needs to be considerable change among ourselves, the teachers, first. How Will My Results be Measured?
Results will be measured by how often teachers are having students upload new work and personal reflections onto their eportfolios. This will come from the students weekly personal reflections. There will also be eportfolios spotlighted throughout the week as an encouragement to the students that are showing exemplary work. The teacher will also visit the students eportfolios weekly to make sure students are participating in thought provoking conversations and commenting and supporting each other’s thoughts and ideas on blog posts. There should be no fewer than two projects per semester for each subject. At the end of each quarter, students will be asked to complete a course evaluation to get feedback on the eportfolio implementation process so that teachers can continually and effectively improve our digital lessons and projects. In addition, successes will be shared in all faculty and/or division meetings to serve as recognition and inspiration on the usages of the eportfolios in the classroom.
There are many people that will be involved in helping make this implementation possible. This, by all means, isn’t a little project, and in order for us to be able to do this successfully, it involves the help of all of our staff members. No one will be seen as being more important than the other. We will all need to work together as a team in a collective manner.
Noticing the Obvious
Collins Middle School has been a 1:1 iPad school for students in the 7th and 8th grades for the past 5 years. The addition of the iPads have eliminated unnecessary paperwork, worksheets, and with the help of eBackpack, time spent on grading and assessment by teachers has reduced substantially. However, there are other facets in which the iPads can be used. The technology tools that the district has been provided have been heavily underutilized. With the eportfolio program beginning in August of 2021, teachers will need to be educated on the purposes of the eportfolio and what it entails. We already have the necessary tool (iPads) to create and build the site, we just need to be sure that they are continuously being used to upload new content regularly to further our initiative.
Looking for those Crucial Moments
I can already envision the students’ excitement at the opportunity to create a personalized eportfolio website, however, I am also expecting that excitement to taper off after a few weeks. For the same reasons that researchers wonder why people do not continue to use their eportfolios after the class or school requires them to, I believe that it’s important to model the use of the eportfolios from the instructor’s standpoint. Students will “forget about it” and let laziness set in, if not actively encouraged to utilize the online portfolios. In an effort to avoid this, I feel it is necessary to hold all teachers accountable for modeling the uses and advantages of the eportfolio by integrating their own site as a go-to for examples, advice and reflections throughout the course with their students.
To read my full reflection please click the link below:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BgAUQv7zHrQtvj9-mM9LYB6wIZtYxXFVHxeNIrWhKp0/