Assignment B
After a couple hours of searching, I found that there isn't a lot of specific information about how Learning Assistance teachers (or other student support services) can use technology to assist collaboration or co-planning with teachers. I found many articles on collaboration and many on using technology but nothing that really fit what I was looking for. Instead of researching topics on something I am not as interested in, I decide to get a bit creative with my research. I really wanted to stay within my district so that if I found something that could work for me, I would be able to connect with that school or person and, more importantly, understand the context in which they are used.
1. I started searching the library websites of schools that I know have maintained a high level of collaboration, co-planning, and co-teaching. And, since I am interested in how technology can be used to overcome the lack of time we all suffer from in order to encourage and maintain co-planning and collaboration, I thought these websites might offer practical solutions to this issue. The KSS website offers what I think is the best example of this. Here is a screenshot from http://ksslearningcommons.weebly.com/
The TLs have incorporated a "By Teacher" top tab and on that page they have archived all of the links, worksheets, stories, articles, etc. they used while co-planning and co-teaching with teachers. It is even sorted by teacher for easy access. This means that students can go to the site and have immediate and around the clock access the information; as well, other teachers can peruse what type of co-planning and co-teaching is possible when working with the TL. It supports learning and acts as promotion at the same time.
2. As I got more and more creative on how to find technology to help with collaboration and co-planning, I got to thinking about the Instructional Leadership Team in our district. It is a team of 6 teachers who are not classroom teachers but they are teachers from a variety of backgrounds that offer in house professional development to any SD23 teacher who is interested. Any teacher, group of teachers, or school can request them to come in and collaboratively plan a lesson or unit. Since, the ILT's mandate is work collaboratively and because they are constantly bridging the gap between the district office they work out of and all the schools in the district for parts of their planning, I thought their website would utilize technology to assist with this. Check them out at http://www.instructionalleadershipteam.com/
They do a similar thing to KSS and archive the work they have collaborated on but give teachers access to it through Google drive. Here is a quick video demonstrating how easy the ILT has made it for teachers. One thing I forgot to show in this screencast was that even though I work at one school, I am able to access any of the school drives at the secondary, middle or elementary level.
The other thing they have done is create strategy stickers for each strategy they have ever used while collaborating with teachers in our district. Some teachers keep journals with all the strategy stickers in it to use as a reference for when they are planning. Though stickers and journals are fairly low tech, the ILT does offer access to these stickers through their website that automatically links to a Google drive archive so teachers can print them out on their own time. Here is a screenshot. I included the scrolling bar on the side so you can see how many more there are!
3. My third resource
So far, the best solutions to using technology to support collaboration with student support services when time is in short supply is to archive material from past collaboration, allow broad access through websites, and use the 24 hour access to this information be the promotion for future collaborations.
After a couple hours of searching, I found that there isn't a lot of specific information about how Learning Assistance teachers (or other student support services) can use technology to assist collaboration or co-planning with teachers. I found many articles on collaboration and many on using technology but nothing that really fit what I was looking for. Instead of researching topics on something I am not as interested in, I decide to get a bit creative with my research. I really wanted to stay within my district so that if I found something that could work for me, I would be able to connect with that school or person and, more importantly, understand the context in which they are used.
1. I started searching the library websites of schools that I know have maintained a high level of collaboration, co-planning, and co-teaching. And, since I am interested in how technology can be used to overcome the lack of time we all suffer from in order to encourage and maintain co-planning and collaboration, I thought these websites might offer practical solutions to this issue. The KSS website offers what I think is the best example of this. Here is a screenshot from http://ksslearningcommons.weebly.com/
The TLs have incorporated a "By Teacher" top tab and on that page they have archived all of the links, worksheets, stories, articles, etc. they used while co-planning and co-teaching with teachers. It is even sorted by teacher for easy access. This means that students can go to the site and have immediate and around the clock access the information; as well, other teachers can peruse what type of co-planning and co-teaching is possible when working with the TL. It supports learning and acts as promotion at the same time.
2. As I got more and more creative on how to find technology to help with collaboration and co-planning, I got to thinking about the Instructional Leadership Team in our district. It is a team of 6 teachers who are not classroom teachers but they are teachers from a variety of backgrounds that offer in house professional development to any SD23 teacher who is interested. Any teacher, group of teachers, or school can request them to come in and collaboratively plan a lesson or unit. Since, the ILT's mandate is work collaboratively and because they are constantly bridging the gap between the district office they work out of and all the schools in the district for parts of their planning, I thought their website would utilize technology to assist with this. Check them out at http://www.instructionalleadershipteam.com/
They do a similar thing to KSS and archive the work they have collaborated on but give teachers access to it through Google drive. Here is a quick video demonstrating how easy the ILT has made it for teachers. One thing I forgot to show in this screencast was that even though I work at one school, I am able to access any of the school drives at the secondary, middle or elementary level.
The other thing they have done is create strategy stickers for each strategy they have ever used while collaborating with teachers in our district. Some teachers keep journals with all the strategy stickers in it to use as a reference for when they are planning. Though stickers and journals are fairly low tech, the ILT does offer access to these stickers through their website that automatically links to a Google drive archive so teachers can print them out on their own time. Here is a screenshot. I included the scrolling bar on the side so you can see how many more there are!
3. My third resource
Barnett Berry's article, The dynamic duo of professional learning =
collaboration and technology, did not exactly fit my area of interest but
it did briefly touch upon the rise of networks and online communities that are
helping teachers find different forms of professional development. Berry
specifically points to Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook as platforms
that are supporting the development of teachers. What I appreciated about this
article was the statistic that "nearly 6 in 10 teachers are now using
technology to work with teaching colleagues they “would not otherwise know”
(Scholastic, 2015)." I wanted to include it with this assignment as a
reminder to me that technological formats can effectively connect teachers
whether we are in the same building or across the country. Focusing back on my
particular context, I know the teachers at my small school are not big users of
Instagram or Facebook for professional purposes; therefore, I am not keen at
this stage to pursue it as a means of collaboration. However, I know several of
our teachers actively use Pinterest or Instagram for teaching ideas with Pinterest being the more popular. My
thinking now is that maybe I can find ways to use these two platforms that are
rather familiar for the majority of my staff to collaborate with in order to
adapt lessons, differentiate lessons, or co-plan units to benefit of our students
with learning disabilities.
What I noticed is that the KSS library website and the ILT website function a bit like Pinterest in that they have gathered similar info together with the ability to search, look, save, or link into resources.
Berry, B. (2015) The dynamic duo of professional learning = collaboration and technology. Phi Delta Kappan, 97 (4), 51-55.
So far, the best solutions to using technology to support collaboration with student support services when time is in short supply is to archive material from past collaboration, allow broad access through websites, and use the 24 hour access to this information be the promotion for future collaborations.
I really appreciate how you have made this assignment your own. You have connected some relevant resources to your practice and your inquiry. I like the inclusion of live links and images. Great video! Regarding your citations, websites are usually cited formally according to a citation standard. I usually use an online citation generator, such as EasyBib, as it makes the process easier.
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