Action Research: Final Reflection

This course has been one of the most interesting that I have taken during this master degree program. I need to admit that at the beginning, I was not motivated to take the course, but through the readings, assignments and lectures my thoughts towards the course changed. Week after week, my interest in the course started to developed. I see now the importance of this course for my career as an educational leader. The learning acquired through the experiences provided by this course and the professors will help me grow as a professional and as a leader.
The action research or administrator inquiry is a process that helps us develop and improve the instruction and leadership of our campus. Simply stated, administrator inquiry refers to the process of a principal engaging in systematic, intentional study of his/her own administrative practice and taking action for change based on what he/she learns as a result of the inquiry (Dana, 2009). The importance of this type of investigation for education is precisely the engagement in a research based on the interests or concerns of the inquirer. The level of engagement of the researcher in this type of project, will help him/her design, develop and improve an action research project that promotes the necessary and needed changes in his/her campus or district. The action research process helps improve and develop instructional strategies that engage our students into the education they deserve as the 21st century learner.
The outcomes or findings gained from an action research project give us a broad repertoire of benefits. One of these benefits is the sustained improvement we provide to our schools and districts through the findings on an action research project. As we mentioned before, the outcomes from an administrator inquiry process lead us to a change that can or will improve the students’ learning process at a campus or district level. This means that the findings in an action research project improve the teaching and learning strategies used by the educational professionals. However, not all of the implemented changes provide a constant improvement on the learning process. As educational leaders, we need to always monitor the established changes, project them into the future of education, and decide which ones are worth keeping and which ones need modifications in order to work. The changes we decide to keep are the ones that provide the sustained improvement, as Harris, S., Edmonson, S., & Combs, J. (2009) mentioned, schools improvements are most likely to be sustained when educators also look to the future to provide needed structures for these improvements to continue.
The assignments in this course helped us understand, design and developed an action research project that builds up to the outcomes mentioned before. By working cooperatively and collaboratively with our site mentor and peer students we have been able to design, develop and improve an action research project that will emulate the outcomes and benefits described by the course lectures and readings.

References:
Dana, N.F. (2009). Leading with passion and knowledge: The principal as action
researcher. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Page 2.

Harris, S., Edmonson, S., & Combs, J. (2009). Examining what we do to improve
our schools: 9 steps from analysis to action. Larchmont, N.Y.: Eye on Education. Page 100.

Revised Action Research Plan

Goal:
To improve, provide and guarantee a safe learning environment for the students, and prevent students of becoming cyber bullies’ victims.

Action Steps:
1. Acquire parents’ authorization to work with the students.
2. Identify prior knowledge of the term cyber bully, and identify cyber bullies victims.
3. Assess students’ behavior and academics.
4. Analyze students’ feelings and thoughts about cyber bullies and bullies in general.
5. Advise and provide students with the necessary skills to handle a cyber bully situation.
6. Examine improvements (if any) on students’ behavior and academics.
7. Document improvements or changes of the students towards cyber bulling.
8. Share the project findings with the faculty.

Person Responsible:
Joanaly Ramirez

Timeline:
January-May 2011

Needed Resources:
1. Permission letters
2. Survey Monkey
3. Students’ current teachers and students’ records
4. Small group of students
5. i-safe and NetSmartz web sites
6. Students’ teachers and grade reports
7. Power point

Evaluation:
1. Permission letters
2. Pre-assess Survey
3. Interview
4. Questions and answers, quizzes
5. Post- assess Survey
6. Group Discussion

Action Research Plan

Goal:
To improve, provide and guarantee a safe learning environment for the students, and prevent students of becoming cyber bullies’ victims.

Action Steps:

1. Identify prior knowledge of the term cyber bully, and identify cyber bullies victims.
2. Assess students’ behavior and academics.
3. Analyze students’ feelings and thoughts about cyber bullies and bullies in general.
4. Advise and provide students with the necessary skills to handle a cyber bully situation.
5. Examine improvements (if any) on students’ behavior and academics.
6. Document improvements or changes of the students towards cyber bulling.

Person Responsible:
Joanaly Ramirez

Time line:
January-April 2011

Needed Resources:

1. Survey Monkey
2. Students’ current teachers and students’ records
3. Small group of students
4. i-safe and NetSmartz web sites

Evaluation:

1. Pre-assess Survey
2. Interview
3. Questions and answer
4. Quizzes
5. Post- assess Survey

Action Research week 2

The lesson I have learned this week during this action research course is the importance of data in the decision making process. Successful decisions are based on the collection and analysis of data. As educational leaders, the use of these tools helps us to make an informed and effective decision that will contribute to the success of the students and the school. Another relevant learning I acquired this week is the importance of developing a practical action research. Conducting an action research based on or interests or needs will help us focus on the outcomes and apply them to the issues we are trying to solve.

Benefits of blogs for educational leaders

Today’s world is based on technology and its different tools. As an educational leader, the use of tools like blogs or wikis will help me reach and communicate effectively with my school community. Blogs will help any educational leader create awareness, gather ideas, or collaborate with faculty members efficiently and successfully to discuss, or solve a problem or concern.

Action Research

This week reading has been motivating. I had the opportunity to learn about action research. Action research is an investigation process based on the concerns and interest of the researcher. This type of inquiry, also called practitioner inquiry, has a high level of motivation, and engagement on the researcher. This research approach has engage teachers and administrators, to investigate, design and develop different plans to improve and focus their work on preventing or solving the different issues that affect their campus. Action research is used for staff development that is pertinent to the educational world, others administrators and teachers use this approach to understand their own practices, become life-long learners, and lead by example. Through the employ of action research, school communities are able to create a plan that promote faculty collaboration, and systematically address the students’ need in order to improve the campus performance. This approach to an investigation, as an educator, will help me expand my understanding of the different concerns or problems that affect my school. Participating on a research based on my concerns as a teacher, will motivate and engage me to continue learning, exploring and become an example of a life-long learner for my students.

PSA Reflection

The experience of creating a Public Service Announcement has been rewarding and exciting. This is the first time I get involved in a project of this magnitude, although some people might not find it that important. The assignment process from pre-production to post-production has been just fascinating. As a team, we consulted, analyze and visualize each shot and created the perfect vision for our project. This planning process set the foundation for the whole assignment, and ends it up giving us more material and footage that we actually needed. This was an excellent thing when it came to the editing and publication process. The collaboration and interaction of the team was excellent, and the integration of technology tools, like Google site, e-mails, and web cams assist us in reaching our goals. Some of the improvements our announcement needs are better quality in sound, and images, but I believe that with our experience and the time available, we did a great job.

My second Web Conference

Last Friday, September 17, 2010, I had the opportunity to participate in a web conference with my classmates for the Multimedia and Video Technology class. These conferences have been interesting, because you have the chance to interact with others and clarify your understanding of the class process and assignments. The assignment for the week was to start the production of our PSA project. I have enjoyed this work; it is exciting to learn about the production process of a video project. I did not imagine the amount of work and time a project like this consumes, and we are only creating a 60 seconds video, now I understand why a two hour movie take so many months to do. The most motivating aspect of this course has been the different guidelines we have discovered to improve and learn new approaches to the video recording process.

Web Conference

Today I had the opportunity to participate on a very interesting web conference for the course EDLD 5363. It was a good experience and I clarify most of my questions regarding the course and assignments. The integration of web conferences in this course, or any other online course, helps the students and professors to come closer and get to know each other, no matter where they really are. The significance of this resource in today’s classroom is very powerful; we can teach, learn or communicate anywhere in the world at anytime, breaking the restrictions of place and time. These types of experiences enrich our teaching styles and open our world to flexibility in learning never known before. As educators of the future, we need to continue to expands our horizons and integrate everything we learn and experience in our courses.

Open Source Editing Software

This week I had the opportunity to read about the different editing software programs available as open source. The editing process is very interesting, and I had always thought it was only pertinent to big productions, and not necessary for home-created videos. How lost I was with this assumption. It is completely true that big and important productions relay on advanced and sophisticated editing processes, but it is beneficial for us, regular people to create nice and enjoyable memories out of our homemade videos. I believe that as teachers, we should get familiarize with these technologies, as a way to engage our students and make their education pertinent to them. Most of today’s learners have already experiences with these technologies and enjoy their integration in the classroom, however to be successful the students need to be active participant. This means that we need to give them the opportunity to develop their technology skills through active projects and not passive presentations. In order to really take advantage of these resources the students become the active creators, while teachers become passive guides, and in some cases even the learners. There is no shame in us, educators, to learn from our students, about technology, after all it is their natural environment.
Today we have the advantage to search through the Internet, for open source editing software that fulfills our needs, for those homemade projects. I explored two of these open sources editing software, Wax and Windows Movie Maker. Through my investigations of the different software, I found that Windows Movie Maker is more user friendly, especially for beginners like me than Wax, and it is available for any PC, and is already install in new computers running on Windows operating system (Desktop-Video-Guide, 2009). Windows Movie Maker offers a wide variety of features that makes your editing process one enjoyable. It also includes different file extensions to save your project, like .asf, .wma, .wav, .mp3, .wmv, .mpeg, .mpg, and .wm, among others. One of the most important user friendly features I found in Windows Movie Maker is that has drag and drop features to make creating and editing your movie easier (Desktop-Video-Guide, 2009). The Wax editing software is not as user friendly as the Windows Movie Maker, and it does not have the same variety of file extensions, the ones available are .avi, .wav, .mpeg. While exploring the Wax software I found necessary to have some technical knowledge, and editing experience. Now, one good thing about Wax is that can work as an add on with Windows Movie Maker. Now as a totally beginner in the editing world I have decided to use Windows Movie Maker as my editing tool.


Reference:
Desktop-Video-Guide. (n.d.). Top 5 free video editing software programs. Retrieved on April 12, 2009, from http://www.desktop-video-guide.com/top-5-free-video-editing-software-review.html

Digital Storytelling

Digital storytelling is a great educational technology tool. The integration of this tool in our classroom instruction is completely necessary to deliver the education our 21st century learners’ demands. I have just created my first project using this technology and I really enjoy it. The digital storytelling empowers you to be creative and express yourself. With this educational tool students will be able to create a concrete project and express who they are using their native language, technology. Not only you are becoming an author of a story, you are a designer, and the editor of your work. One of the aspect that I enjoyed the most, was the liberty of personalizing my story with my own photos and been able to select the background music. If I had so much fun in the creation of this project, I cannot wait to see my students create and expand their imagination to accomplish things that are even more wonderful.