Action Research Plan

Goal: Effective Use Of Technology in the Classroom

Action Step 1: Identify existing technology available to our 5th grade teachers to be used in the classroom.
1. Meet with IT on campus to Inventory/list technology available to our 5th grade teachers
2. Create and Disseminate Survey to teachers regarding how technology is used in their classrooms
3. Identify reasons why teachers do not use certain technology in the classroom
Person Responsible: Brent Harrison
Timeline: September 2010
Resources Needed: List of campus technology, E-mail, Survey
Evaluation: Meet with site supervisor and 5th grade team

Action Step 2: Identify staff development(s) available to all district staff to train teachers how to use the technology that could be utilized in the classroom.
1. List technology based staff developments
2. Survey teachers regarding which technology trainings that have attended and what subjects have not been covered that are needed.
Person Responsible: Brent Harrison
Timeline: October 2010
Resources Needed: List of district technology staff trainings, E-mail, Survey
Evaluation: Meet with site supervisor and 5th grade team

Action Step 3: Create strategies for integrating technology into classroom lessons as well as homework and/or student projects.
1. Create and disseminate survey to 5th grade students to gain their insight and interest in having technology based lessons and projects
2. Work with 5th grade team of teachers to create strategies and share ideas of how to use technology in classroom lessons and/or student projects.
Person Responsible: Brent Harrison
Timeline: November-December 2010
Resources : Surveys, Internet, Staff development lessons
Evaluation: Meet with IT, Staff development committee, site supervisor and 5th grade team of teachers

Week 2 Reflection

This week as we studies more about action research, I learned that there are several areas that can be researched. It's not just about data and student scores, but also includes climate of the school, quality of your teachers, and leadership/management skills of your administrators. It appears to me that all of these areas should be researched simultaneously in order to get a true picture of your research outcomes.

How Educational Leaders Use Blogs

Educational leaders can find many uses for blogs. Districts, campuses, and even teachers can disseminate information through a blog. This information can include district policies, handbooks, forms; school procedures, calendars and announcements and even classroom assignments and announcements from a teacher. Educational leaders must develop new and interesting ways to post information on websites and blogs as our schools become more and more technology based. This year in our department we had a team blog for our students. Teachers would post questions and students would go online and post answers. This was a great cooperative learning tool for students to learn from their peers and incorporate technology into our assignment.

Action Research

Administrative inquiry or action research is the process an administrator goes through to evaluate his/her own methods of leadership and then use the information gathered to create any necessary change. Information and data is gathered and personal reflection takes place as administrators focus on what works and what doesn’t and what needs to be changed. By reflecting on personal and professional changes that my need to be made, administrators have the potential for growth and their schools have potential for improvement. Action research is a method of professional evaluation that allows educators to reflect upon his or her own skills, techniques and actions that are being used and how to improve upon them. It is completed with purpose by leaders who take ownership of their own growth. It is self-driven professional development that affects the administrators, teachers, parents and students and has the potential to create positive change on their campus. Action research is intended to bring about change or improvement of some kind. Traditional educational research has been conducted by universities and the outcomes are used for academic purposes but the research is not being conducted by the educators themselves. This type or research does not gather information from the very people who work within the education system.