Effective Presentations

Slide Share is a Web 2.0 site for sharing presentations. It is a program that allows you to upload documents from Microsoft or PDF files. Professionals can use Slide Share to share and communicate information with colleagues. Slide Share is useful for many reasons. It has a feature that allows users to share presentations publicly or privately. This feature allows the author to limit the number of viewers for each uploaded presentation. Slide Share also allows you to embed slide shows into your website. This can be helpful in a situation where an administrator may want to share a presentation on their school’s website.

The home page for Slide Share is cluttered. It contains several pieces of information from other Web 2.0 sites such as; Facebook and Twitter. It also includes a list of the most recent and most popular Slide presentations. There is too much information on the page making it difficult to navigate.

Slide Share is a unique program. It can directly tie to Standard IV of the Maryland Technology Standards for School Administrators. Standard IV addresses Management and Operations for school administrators. It indicates that administrators must use technology for the management and operations of the school. Slide Share can be a valuable tool for administrators. Administrators can upload their presentations to Slide Share and send them to their staff. Then staff members can have a preview of the upcoming meeting or Slide Share can be used to reach staff members whom could not attend a meeting.

Utilizing Slide Share can also help administrators meet the needs of Standard V of the Maryland Technology Standards for School Administrators. Standard V addresses Professional Practice and Productivity. It requires that school administrators use technology to enhance professional practice. Administrators can use Slide Share to share their presentations. Then they could provide their staff with a training on using Slide Share. The administrator could require the staff to share their team meeting notes via Slide Share. The teams could create presentations and share them with the entire staff. Then the entire staff would be aware of topics being discussed throughout the school. This is a great way to encourage the staff to use technology for communication.

Reflection: Data Driven Instruction

Data is used to determine the school's strengths and weaknesses. Once the school collects and analyzes their data, they can determine school wide goals. The school's goals are compiled to create a School Improvement Plan (SIP) that is largely based on achievement scores on county assessments and state standardized assessments. Every staff member in the school is responsible for meeting the goals of the SIP. At times, this means providing students with direct instruction to the test.

The school that I teach at, New Hampshire Estates ES, is a primary school. It is a Title I school made up of a diverse population. It currently has one of the largest percentages of FARMS in Montgomery County. The majority of our students are ESOL. This population is challenging in terms of data. It is difficult for our students to meet the demands of standardized testing. We consistently struggle to match up with the data of our local schools. This struggle forces us to be completely data driven. Our teams hold a variety of data meetings several times monthly. We collect and share data from MClass, Word Study, CARS, Word Recognition, Oral Fluency and county Unit Math Assessments. We use our data to determine strategies for improving the data. We discuss Kids of Concern and we implement any interventions to assist them. For example, if a student is well below grade level in reading, we would put them in a reading intervention group. The student would be pulled from the classroom for extra reading support. Then they would still receive their guided reading support in the classroom. Basically they would receive a double dose of reading daily. In addition, we discuss teaching strategies to improve our overall data. In math, we create warm ups that are taken almost directly from the Unit Assessment. These warm ups allow our students to see the format of the test and provide them with a better opportunity to score points. In the past we have found both of these strategies to be helpful in improving our school data.

My school uses the MClass data collection tool to keep track of reading data. We have an IDA who uses a county database to compile the data that we collect for spelling, reading comprehension and math. Other than MClass, I personally do not use any sophisticated technology for data collection. It has never been an option at my school. I simply create an Excel spreadsheet or chart for my records. I keep record of a variety of assessments (not limited to what the team shares). Collecting such a great variety of data allows me to see a complete picture of the strengths and weaknesses of my students. Then I can plan whole group and small group instruction accordingly.

Data driven instruction is necessary to meet the goals of the SIP. The data analysis allows staff members to find strengths and weaknesses in their instruction. In many ways it is the best way to show school wide improvement overall.

Reflection: Visionary Administrators

As an MCPS teacher, I have a full understanding that the demands for education continue to grow each year. It is my responsibility to meet the needs of my students and to be aware of the constant changes being made to the VSC. I have strive to reach the goals of the Technology Standards however; I always seem to fall short of meeting them. My failure is usually due to the lack of technological resources available in my school building. The article, The New Visionary Leader, made me realize that the administrators at my school are responsible for developing a vision for meeting the technology standards for our students. As a teacher, I have not seen or felt any move toward enhancing the integration of technology within the daily curriculum of instruction at my school. We have a minimum amount of technological equipment to use for instruction and we have not received any trainings on how to use the equipment that we do have.
This article taught me that a visionary leader is one who understands the constant development of technology and includes those technological practices in their schools. A visionary leader prioritizes the integration of technology within the daily curriculum of instruction. She strives to provide her school with any digital equipment necessary to enhance the education of her students. Basically, reading this article helped me understand that the administrators of today need to embrace technology and implement it wherever possible within the daily curriculum.