Action Plan Word Press Saint Andrew School Newtown, PA

Team Members Mary Beth Di Renzo - Computer Teacher for Grade 1 – 8 Jen Binni - Grade 5 Teacher Becky Eliason - Grade 4 Teacher Sue Juhas - Grade 2 Teacher Dawn Parker - Science and Math Teacher for grades 6, 7, 8

Problem or Question. Teach our faculty how to maneuver and utilize Word Press Change the way the teachers at our school inform parents and the community about school and classroom happenings, through the use of technology Have teachers update their “blog” daily and include pictures and videos of students engaged in the learning process

Objectives and Assessment For teachers to design their web-pages To use the blog for students and parents To add pages to their site To add pictures and links Mastery will be evident through appealing and informative web-pages that stay current Teachers will encourage the students to blog/comment/question on their teacher website

Networked Design Design project so that participants will share knowledge of Word Press features such as changing themes, inserting photos, text and links, and adding and editing pages. Ask participants to connect as a group during a PLP led workshop. Participants can practice collaborating with each other to make their blogs more visually appealing and user friendly. Teachers will be given administrative status in order to implement these changes in some way.

Set the Context Word Press blogs were added to the Saint Andrew website for educators at the beginning of the school year Educators were given a brief tutorial on how to access and minimally utilize these blogs PLP team spent time researching Word Press tutorials and investigating Word Press blogs PLP team updated and improved their Word Press blogs

Proposal Goal of our project is to increase the facility of Word Press use among the 40 educators in our building Require all educators to use Word Press blogs to create a situation in which parents and students can easily access information while allowing for individuality Investing in Word Press provides us with more readily available technical support

Evaluation PLP team will evaluate the effectiveness of this project by polling faculty immediately following the instructional seminar and then again three weeks later Initial poll questions will focus on intended changes and how well the team presented information Follow-up poll questions will focus on actual changes achieved and positive responses of faculty members and students

Timeline February, 2011: PLP team meets to become familiar with Word Press features April, 2011: PLP team provides workshop to faculty and collects initial poll and video May, 2011: Follow-up poll is distributed and collected Data is analyzed

Survey

What information was most helpful today? “Most helpful was learning how to change the appearance and themes on our blog page.” “The information on how to insert media, websites and change themes.” “The information I found most helpful was learning how to add pictures and links to the blog and how to change the look of the pages.”

What changes do you intend to implement by next Friday? “I plan to change the look of my home page.” “I have changed the colors and header already and will be working on changing the theme.” “I hope to add pictures and links as well as update the look of the blog.”

Share experience working with Word Press before Workshop “It's getting easier as I learn more.” “Entering information into Word Press is easy. However, I wish that the window to type into was actually larger. Also, I frequently enter homework info in table form. I have difficulty erasing previous tables after a number of weeks.” “I knew very little.”

Have you received parent feedback? “The parents that use it have given positive feedback!” “I have not received parent feedback.” “The parents are happy to see homework and notes posted.”

Is there anything further that you would like to learn about Word Press? “I hope to further enhance my talents with practice.” “I would like to learn more about videos.” “I would like to spend more time practicing what I learned today in a classroom environment.”

Video

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