Reflections & New Beginnings...

This week began our first week back to school for Cameron ISD.  We have initiated our "technology integration" process by beginning a new round of training for all teachers in the areas of interactive websites and networking basics.  This is a huge breath of fresh air for many of us that have been looking forward to more training in technology and interactive white board assistance. 

As we come to the conclusion of our research class, I am pleased with what I have learned.  I am very glad the class was much more than the "process" of research like many classes I completed in my undergraduate work.  Instead this class was enlightening and I felt like we had an opportunity to plan our research and become more educated in our particular field of interest.  As the school year begins I am honestly excited about conducting my research and I look forward to hearing about my classmates work in their particular field.

Interactive White Boards...

I am very interested in determining if and how interactive white board technology impacts student engagement, knowledge acquisition, and knowledge retention.  These are factors I will attempt to study over the next eighteen months, and have gained administrator approval to do so.  First I will survey students and teachers in an effort to find initial thoughts about technology in the classroom.  After the survey, I hope to interview students and teachers about their experiences with technology in the classroom.  Classroom observation will follow as I try to watch engagment and teacher practices.  My research will conclude as I attempt to find correlations between student test scores and teacher usage of interactive white boards.  I look forward to hearing comments and recommendations.  Thanks for your help!