Relevant Standards

North Carolina Professional Technology Facilitator Standards

Standard 1.1: Instructional Technology Facilitators demonstrate 21st century leadership in the school.

Standard 1.2: Instructional Technology Facilitators lead an instructional technology program that supports 21st century teaching and learning.

Standard 1.3: Instructional Technology Facilitators advocate for effective instructional technology programs.

Standard 2.2: Instructional Technology Facilitators know the content appropriate to their teaching specialty.

Standard 4.1: Instructional Technology Facilitators establish a participatory learning environment that facilitates collaboration among all members of the learning community and honors diversity.

Standard 5.3: Instructional Technology Facilitators function effectively in a complex, dynamic environment.

(NC Board of Education, 2012)

Requirements of the Artifact

    EDTC 6037 focused primarily on the connections to integrating technology into the curriculum of math, science, and healthful living courses.  As such, this artifact details the creation of a staff development project, with an emphasis on teaching the use of technology to educators.  In particular, this project taught the basics of how teachers should maintain their school websites (Bullock, 2018).  A quick guide was also created and shared within the artifact to go along with the staff development session.

Connecting the Artifact and Standards

    The role of an instructional technology facilitator (ITF) in a K-12 school system will include training faculty and staff on the use of technological resources, as they apply to educational purposes.  Demonstrating to teachers the use of their school websites not only enhances the perception of the school system, the school, and the teacher, but also fulfills one of these expectations of the ITF.

    Seeing as I expected a varied array of background knowledge from the participants, the learner analysis was used to help me select strategies and specific information that needed to be included in this staff development project.  One of the strategies built-in to this particular PD session involved the use of Plickers for teachers to give feedback on already-created websites and bounce reflections off of each other to enhance perceptions (Bullock, 2018).  This fostered quite the collaborative atmosphere and allowed for more critical thinking, leading to more active, rather than passive, engagement.  Inclusion of dedicated time to allow learners to apply the new information to their own websites was designed with Merrill’s First Principles of Instruction in mind (Merrill, 2002).

Potential Improvements to the Artifact

    There is one very specific improvement I would make, based on the evaluative information specified in the artifact (Bullock, 2018).  Although I did include the guide on website expectations, I failed to include a job aid on how to navigate the technical functions of the school’s website platform.  Instead of fielding so many follow-up questions on how to get back to certain areas of their website, I could have created an aid to assist the participants in self-guiding themselves through the navigation, and prevent them from trying to memorize the directions (Brown & Green, 2016).

Career Goals and the Artifact

    Having the opportunities to design staff development for EDTC 6020, EDTC 6025, and EDTC 6037 (as I have to this point) has been extremely useful to allow me to refine instructional design skills.  The shift in mindset from this particular project, however, allowed me to focus more on a topic that was more technical in nature.  Although not information technology, a future role as an ITF will require the ability to explain at least general technical knowledge to colleagues.  This artifact has allowed me to practice this, as well as having me create a hard-copy guide to learning.  Although I could have offered more in this arena, it did give me a chance to reflect on the importance of including various job aids (instead of just one).

References

Brown, A. H., & Green, T. D. (2016). The Essentials of Instructional Design: Connecting Fundamental Principles with Process and Practice (3rd ed.). Retrieved from Amazon Kindle store.

Bullock, D. W. (2018). Staff Development Project. Unpublished manuscript, East Carolina University.

Merrill, M. D. (2002). First Principles of Instruction [PDF].

NC Board of Education. (2012). North Carolina Professional Technology Facilitator Standards. Retrieved from http://www.ncpublicschools.org/docs/effectiveness-model/ncees/standards/prof-tech-facilitate-standards.pdf