Kelly+Christopherson

In order to introduce my staff to these tools, I have done a number of short after-school sessions. These were attended by some staff but weren't as well attended as I would like. This year I plan on working with each teacher in planning a unit in which technology is used to achieve specific learning objectives. I will work with students and the teacher to use technology in their teaching and work with the teacher to facilitate teaching styles that will be best suited for the technology. My hope is to have teachers then pair together to help one another with different technologies. I will also be creating a page on the wiki where I will post videos that will demonstrate different technology uses so that, if teachers want to, they can boldly adventure on their own knowing that I will be there to assist if needed. In order for technology to become part of a teacher's skill set, they will need to become confident in its use and in their own knowledge. Many teachers are worried that something won't work and then they won't know what to do. This is where staff and students can learn very powerful problem solving strategies that will assist them in many other areas. In order to facilitate the use of these particular tools, I will make myself available during my administration time to assist teachers with their technology use. I will also help them as they strive to build these tools into their teaching strategies, using them when they are best suited to be used and discussing when they might not be the best choice for the situation. I believe that technology tools, like all the other tools that teachers develop over time, can have a positive impact when they are employed conscientiously in much the same way that using a 10 lb sledge hammer to drive a finishing nail is inappropriate use of the tool. By being available to work with teachers in the classroom and in the computer lab, I'm hoping that teachers will see that, like any other strategies they use, planning is important, not only for the use but for the assessment of the use and the outcome. In this way, I hope to alter the mindset of staff and get them to see technologies as more than surfing for information and typing skills.
 * __Name__:** Kelly Christopherson
 * __Website__:** [|http://kwhobbes.edublogs.org]
 * __Educational Institution__:** Eston Composite School - Sun West School Division #207
 * __Teaching Environment__:** K - 12 School
 * __Web 2.0 Focus__:** Administrative, introducing Web 2.0 and overseeing use
 * __Description__:** As an administrator, I have been working with various web2.0 tools this past year. I have been using many of the tools in my own teaching plus slowly introducing my staff to different tools in order to improve the communication within our school. Two of the main tools that I have been using to assist me administratively are a wiki and online surveying. The wiki service I use is [|pbwiki.com] because of the interface and the option for their wikis. The staff in the school uses the wiki for a variety of things including sharing events within the school, planning upcoming events, exchanging message and I use it to communicate information to all the staff instead of sending an email or handing out a memo. I find this last part to be very good because all the previous entries are listed and staff can review what I have written or check to see when something is coming up from a previous memo. We will also be using the wiki for our Professional Learning Teams in the future and for tracking student attendance specifically late arrivals.
 * __Teaching and Learning__:**
 * __Preferred Applications__:** Blogging - Edublogs, wiki