One of the activities was to identify what makes a great leader and to choose someone that exudes these qualities. I chose Gandhdi, as he is such an inspiration to me with the qualities of honesty and humility being at the top of my list for leadership. I also like how he gained follower after follower by leading by example and started a revolution of conflict resolution through peace.
GAFE (Google Apps For Education) was the next activity that we were to explore. I have a bit of a foundation with Google apps, but limited for the time being. I hope to explore Google forms, hangouts, surveys and other apps within the platform and I have identified becoming Google Certified as one of my goals over the next 18 months or so. I think the GAFE options are awesome and love the live editing features of a document with the ability to chat with the person or persons that have access to the document in real time.
Bloom's Taxonomy is definitely something I had heard about, but never ventured into reading about. It is a great way to integrate technology in all the levels of learning and helps make the learner more independent and a higher thinker. Like the SAMR model, it is definitely a tool that I am going to use going forward in my lesson planning and delivery.
How to handle change is a big part of becoming a leader and adapting to the ever-evolving world of technology, especially! The circumstances that happen in a school demonstrate how each community has its own issues and challenges. Some of my colleagues have described circumstances where change was dealt with very well, others where change was not handled or communicated properly. Change is often initiated by administration without any choice, too!
Following the standards of practice helps me give every situation a clearer picture and allows me to realize how committed I am, as well as my colleagues, to professional growth; handling change is an important part of that!
Some of the changes that happen during the school year, demonstrates how flexible as educators we need to be. Being committed to our students and finding new ways or better ways to engage them, falls right into the reason why we take AQs and how we adapt our practices using our professional knowledge.
The discussions that we are having during this LE1 section of my course, makes me realize that collaboration is the best way to communicate both positive and negative challenges that face us. I am still amazed, even after part 1 and 2 of the course, how much I am learning from the discussions about our individual circumstances in our schools. I look back after each e-activity that I finish and it still excites me how much I am learning! The new pedagogy of research used to scare me, but now it excites me and I no longer have that reflex of being skeptical.
I am willing to 'try everything' now, which is a huge improvement in my attitude. Experience, research, collaboration and research are a fundamental part of our discussions in this AQ and I am happy to both give and take any great ideas from my colleagues. I aim to pass on all this knowledge to my colleagues that I communicate with on an ongoing basis.
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