Developing a Curriculum Timeline and Evaluation



My Technology Staff Development Curriculum is on trying to develop a common note taking procedure through a school, and ultimately the school district. The web-based software that I have chosen to implement is Microsoft OneNote 2013. I think that it would be a great idea for our school district to streamline the note taking experience, make it common among the courses offered, which I believe will ultimately give students a resource that can be with them throughout their academic and potentially their professional career.
Microsoft's OneNote 2013 is a note taking software that is used on all platforms. Whether a student or staff member has an iPhone, iPad, Android, Amazon, or Windows operating system on their device, a free application has already been designed to utilize the software and give access to resources.
There will be formative and summative assessments developed for this curriculum. For the formative assessments, there will be two survey type assessments that will be developed. This will give staff a chance to indicate what they have learned and are comfortable with meeting the objectives. There will also be a summative assessment constructed to examine whether participants have attained understanding of OneNote 2013 environment and the features it poses. Ultimately, the opportunity to take an exam that is offered through Microsoft will be the ideal summative exam which recognizes that the text taker has proven that they understand OneNote 2013 according to Microsoft’s standard (which would be the ideal benchmark). This exam is one of their many certification exams that the company has developed. It is certification exam number 77-421.
Curriculum Timeline
            Below is the timeline I have constructed that take approximately six (6) weeks to complete. A needs assessment will be administered before the workshop begins to engage participants in to evaluating the concept of having a uniformed note taking process.  The six week timeline will give participants or staff the ability to research and use at their convenience to explore and come up with any questions that might be generated:
Ø  Pre-Workshop: Needs Assessment
Ø  Week1: Teacher Basics
Ø  Week 2 and 3: Teacher Scenarios
Ø  Week 4 and 5: Administrator
Ø  Week 6: Additional Resources
Ø  Post-Workshop: Reflection
Formative Evaluation
Another way for checking for understanding is using formative assessments. In James Popham’s Seven Stepping Stones to Success, he describes formative assessments asa planned process that uses assessments to inform changes in instruction or learning.” While someone is being taught a concept, formative assessments lets an instructor or facilitator know whether the participants are grasping the concepts. If there needs to be any variance in the instruction, then it can be applied before it is too late and the audience is lost.
For this workshop, there will be two formative assessments developed for this technology professional development curriculum. It will focus on four objectives: Managing the OneNote 2013 Environment, Sharing and Collaborating with Other Users, Organizing and Finding Notes, and Editing and Linking Content in OneNote 2013. The two formative assessments will be administered online using the web site Quia. The assessments can be accessed through the links formative assessment #1 and formative assessment #2. The assessments will inquire from the workshop participant about their comfort level with features and tools in the software based off the objectives of the workshop.
Summative Evaluation
Summative assessments help teachers indicate who has mastered material presented in a lesson. In Rick DuFour and Rick Stiggins’s Maximizing the Power of Formative Assessments, they conclude that summative assessments are important because they “summarize what students have learned by a deadline.”
For this workshop, there will be one summative assessment for this technology professional development curriculum. It will assess whether participants are able to use the features of OneNote 2013 and apply it to use in the class room. If a student finds that this is not the right tool to use in their class room or that they want more professional development opportunities, then they indicate that here. The one summative assessments will be administered online using the web site Quia. The assessment can be accessed through the link summative assessment. The assessment will inquire from the workshop participant about their opinion on the technology and whether it is a useful digital technology and if it can be used in their class. The participant will also have the opportunity to suggest information on other technologies that might be more beneficial to the participants.
Reflection on Dispositions
            During the creation of this Application, I believe that I now better understand the process of creating a timeline and evaluations for a technology staff development workshop that would make me a more effective technology leader. While I was researching the technology, I found many resources and examples of workshops and curriculums that would help me in teaching this particular technology to a group of teachers. I think that other teachers, who gain the skill and knowledge that I have gained, would embrace this technology and understand why I think that students who use this will benefit from it. This new technology, which has enormous capabilities to reach different students from different backgrounds and learning styles, will bring both staff and students together and create opportunities for an improved learning environment. If we can stay current on the technologies that are available and we use in education, we will not only impress the people outside of the academic landscape, but we will also impress the students that we teach and give them the skills and knowledge to succeed.

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