FInal Project Reflection

My final project is to begin a series of professional development opportunities for my team, and eventually the full staff.

The subject of the professional development is the use of our schools Sharepoint Page . Our sharepoint software was recently upgraded, allowing teachers to create student sharepoint pages. These pages are virtually identical to wikipages. The main difference is the security involved. Students and teachers have access via the school website and from home with their network username and password. Teachers also set up permissions based upon how they want students to be able to edit content on the page. We are concurrently using Edline, which is extremely limiting in how in can be used by teachers. You are forced to use their format and page designs. Sharepoint allows the user to have multiple pages, dropboxes for students work, video, links, discussion boards, blogs, and wikis. I hope it becomes an invaluable tool in learning in the Gilford School District.

I met with our technology director and her technology assistant for 4 hours over a period of three weeks. They trained me in how to create the sharepoint pages. I worked on three of my classes before feeling confident enough to train the rest of my team.

We met for a 45 minute sessions and I taught the basics of the pages. We had myself, the computer teacher, one of our music teachers, two PE teachers, our modern language teacher, and drama teacher,  I asked everyone to create a greeting, change the picture, and set up a discussion (real or simulated) for their students. I also covered many of the basic features of the pages. One of the PE teachers has already been using his Health sharepoint page for posting video content, hosting discussions, and had students write responses and put into the dropbox. he was my 'model student' whom I was able to use as an example of what is possible for the pages.

I feel that the session went very well and have included course evaluations fro the participants. The computer teacher and I are now planning professional development for all the grade level teams for the fall. This session will become the model for how the sharepoint will be used by teachers in our middle school. After initial training, we hope to then develop weekly or monthly drop in sessions on specific topics pertaining to further developing the sharepoint site.

Session Objectives:

Participants will be introduced to the sharepoint page. Students will demonstrate their knowledge by creating an introduction, changing the picture, and posting a discussion topic for students.

Student SharePoint Page (SSP)

Topics covered:

• What is the SSP?
• Who has access?
• Setting up your page
• Navigate up
• Edit tab
• Format text
• Insert
• Page tab
• Clicking and Dragging
• Adding documents
• Adding discussion items
• Adding a page
• Discussions
•  Drop off library
• Blogs
• Wiki
• Calendar
• Homework
• Adding video
• Tags
• Site Actions
• Managing Permissions
• 
  

Questions:

Below is the session evaluation form, and responses by the participants.

The original course evaluation form that the participants filled out. This was posted as a discussion item that they filled out and saved onto the page.