On-Line Grade Books for all Teachers

Recently, every classroom in my school has been equipped with a computer and cable-internet connection. The availability of computers in the classroom has encouraged more teachers to initiate an on-line gradebook; however, not every teacher utilizes this on-line gradebook system which has become an efficient way for parents to get feedback about their students progress in a timely manner. One teacher commented that her students said "teacherease.com" is their parents' favorite site.

Now to the Instructional Problem: because we have the computer and internet connection in our classroom, the administration, faculty, and staff should work together to encourage the use of one on-line gradebook system, namely, www.teacherease.com. In addition to student progress reports and report cards, lesson plan and standards availability to parents 24 hours a day, the site also offers other perks:

• Easy data entry by office staff
  Since data entry is a concern to the office staff, special attention has been paid to allow easy entry and retrieval. The time saved will allow office staff to pay more attention to their many other important tasks.
  
  
• Staff can access student data
  Authorized staff (principals, counselors, teachers, etc) can access student data and collaborate on student issues. This frees the office staff from being constantly interrupted for basic student info (phone numbers, parent names, bus route, etc).

One of the Catholic high schools on Guam uses teacherease.com across the board. Their faculty and staff brought their studies of other on-line gradebooks together at a meeting. After they evaluated each on-line gradebook, teacherease.com was chosen.

Chapter 11: New Steps for Research (b)

This last chapter reminded me of the accreditation process which I have experienced at my school. The Western Association of Schools and Colleges’ Focus on Learning is somewhat similar to the research presented in this last chapter.

One of the focus groups at my school focuses on the effectiveness of the present curriculum and what improvements can be made. The individuals in this focus group are comprised of faculty, staff, a student representative, and a parent representative. In the past, this focus group has surveyed students and teachers about the effectiveness of the curriculum. This year as my school goes through its mid-year visit, I hear more discussions about technology integration into the curriculum than I have during the last accreditation term.

One new research program that I am hoping for involves more faculties expressing interest in this “emerging area” of technology. More faculty need to provide input as it is changing the way we deliver lessons to our students and the way we communicate with parents and most especially, other faculty.

Chapter 11: Next Steps for Research (a)

RESEARCH ON PRE-SERVICE AND IN-SERVICE EDUCATION

Develop Tools for Effective Communication of the Principles of Learning to Teacher Education

14. Examine the efficacy of professional development activities.

The recommended research above is a factor in “promoting teacher learning.” Educators must take advantage of the “evaluations” that are asked of them after a professional development activity. Also, administrators need to gain feedback from the teachers to find out if the in-service training was effective or not. If teachers did not gain any knowledge or new insight from a particular in-service training, it does not make sense to implore such an activity the following year. When professional development is ineffective, the administration should look into revising the program so that time and money is not wasted on ineffective training.

Chapter 10: Conclusions (b)

LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

Tools of Technology

Last semester, I organized my first Web Quest and launched it in December. Although I revised it many times, the revisions paid off because my students were able to take off with the Web Quest. I anticipated them asking me many questions: how do we do this? Or how do we do that?

My Web Quest was geared towards the “History of Christmas Carols”. I decided to gear my Web Quest to celebrate the season that we were celebrating at the time-Christmas. My Chorus students were enlightened and appreciative of the lesson I gave them about the history of Christmas carols. Many of them mentioned that they became more knowledgeable about the songs that are sung throughout the Christmas season. This Web Quest tapped on Bloom’s Taxonomy-Levels of Higher Order Thinking Skills.

Web Quests are forms of technology which “provide ‘scaffolding’ support to augment what learners can do and reason about on their path to understanding (243).”

Chapter 10: Conclusions (a)

“Learning with understanding is more likely to promote transfer than simply memorizing information from a text or a lecture (236).”

This factor (I quoted above) of “people’s ability to transfer what they have learned” reminded me of my Composition II class. In addition to assisting them with how to write a research paper, I give them 15-20 words a week to practice them for the verbal portion of the SATs when they take it next school year. Rather than stressing the importance of memorizing the definitions, I ask them to write a sentence for each word. I have each student write a sentence on the board and I review each sentence for clarity with the entire class. In this regard, I am able to tap on subject-verb agreements, identifying parts of speech, comprehension, and applying the vocabulary words to current life situations.

Chapter 9: Technology to Support Learning (b)

Teacher Learning (226)

Introducing new technologies into the classroom has been a challenging experience for me. Last semester when I created my first website, the task became extremely time-consuming. Throughout the process of putting it together, I always asked myself if my students would really visit my site or wondered if they would find it interesting or challenging at all. After the first month I launched my site, I became addicted to it. I updated it constantly and tried to link other sites that would keep my students coming back for more.

I was fortunate enough to use the computer lab for one of my Composition II classes. Fifth block was lucky that the computer lab was not used for another class. During this block, my students were able to access my website, complete class work, and tap into the links for other resources that would help them improve their grammar skills. Additionally, I was happy to have been there physically throughout the whole class period to help them navigate through the Internet.

While it is exciting to incorporate technology in the classroom, educators must ensure that they guide students throughout the process. Technology has helped me become more creative when organizing my lesson plans and engaging my students into the subject matter. And like Chapter 9 mentioned, “(Teachers) gain new insights on teaching by watching their students learn (226).” I can definitely relate to this statement.

In light of what Chapter 9 stated, “Technology is used in preservice seminars for teachers (228),” I believe that the educational system on Guam is still far behind in this regard. More opportunities, in-service training, and technological staff development needs to be a part of the educational system. Perhaps during monthly or bi-monthly faculty/staff meetings, the administrator should devote 15-20 minutes to introducing or sharing classroom websites with the rest of the faculty and staff. Also, a teacher may share his experiences with an online gradebook or another teacher can explain a Webquest that she has incorporated into her classroom activities. While 15 minutes may be a very short time to discuss the use of technology into the classroom, it is better than getting no time at all for a technology boost.

Chapter 9: Technology to Support Learning (a)

Connecting Classrooms to Community

As stated in Chapter 9, “the Internet can also help link parents with their children’s schools.” I agree. Ever since I began using www.teacherease.com, I have noticed that my communication with parents is stronger than before. Many of my parents are informed of their child’s test scores even before their child receives the corrected test. My students’ parents appreciate the immediate feedback. More so, they are most appreciative of the immediate replies via email. I feel that I am more connected with my parents because it seemed as if I could never reach them via telephone communication. Most of the time, my scheduled prep time which is used to contact parents about their child’s progress (if necessary) did not coincide with the parents’ schedules; they were either out of the office or out to lunch. And maybe some of you will agree with me that it is at times, impossible to contact parents in the evening because of all our family and household responsibilities that need our attention after working hours. And I forgot to mention that the stacks of papers which need to be corrected scream for our attention as well.

Technology has made my life easier in regards to keeping parents and students abreast of grades, activities, or lessons. Last semester, I created my first website. Creating the site was very time consuming but I received positive feedback from my students and parents, and thus realized my classroom website was helpful. Many parents were informed of tests and deadlines from my classroom website because I included a simple outline of my test schedules and assignments.

Their feedback is what keeps me updated. At times I felt that no one was logging into my online gradebook or that no one was viewing my classroom website until a student approached me about having blank grades in his student account. I knew that I had to be on top of my grading and inputting students’ grades on a timely fashion.