Week 5 Action Research

Well I made it Week 5 of Action Research.  I have revised my plan one more time based on the readings in the Harris text.  In addition a meeting with my mentor revealed some areas of the plan that I wanted to tweak.  The most exciting information on my plan actually came from the TEA.  TEA is moving forward with it's committment to digitial portfolios.  The Education Service Center is sponsoring a day long workshop on site in Liberty Hill to present the plan and help the districts put plans to implement in place.  My bldg administrator has approved my attendance to be part of the team to help the rest of our staff and eventually our students to use digital portfolios.

Week 4 Final AR Plan

I have posted my final Action Research Plan to my WIKI - http://edtechlamarmasters.wikispaces.com/.

Week 4 Challenges

What challenges do you foresee in implementing your action research study?

After meeting with the principal on my campus and my site mentor several challenges emerged.   

1.      Is anyone else in the district exploring options for portfolios?

2.      What is the max size of documents and files allowed by the server space at Total Traffic Control?

3.      How big will the launch group be?

4.      Who will be good candidates for the target launch group?

5.      What kinds of questions will be adequate and appropriate to determine readiness of staff and students?

How do you plan to address these challenges?

I have determined that the district has been planning at the district level to get in alignment with the TEA Project Share.  Admin tech staff has been attending service center workshops to understand and prepare for district activation of the TEA project.  This will help facilitate the importance of the task but the readiness and needs of the staff still need to be determined. The size of documents and files will be ascertained by using the tech support facilities of Total Traffic Control.  The principal has met with me and we agreed that a systematic approach to presenting and launching the project is the best approach. He agreed that a small target group of students with advanced technical skills would be appropriate to help launch and test the project.  He also suggested that a target group of staff be approached following the readiness survey to see if they would be part of a power user group to launch and assist with the follow-up project to design portfolio rubrics and guidelines for submissions.