Teachers continuously improve their professional practice, model lifelong learning, and exhibit leadership in their school and professional community by promoting and demonstrating the effective use of digital tools and resources. Teachers:

a. participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative learning applications of technology to improve student learning.

I have presented several in-service presentations to share technology learning tools with colleagues on both the local level and national level. I enjoy WebQuest development, and I presented a program about creating WebQuests accompanied by handouts at the National Lutheran Schools Convocation in 2008. Attending webinars on Elluminate and involvement in online discussions at Learn Central keep me up to date on new learning technologies.

Voicethreads open new opportunities for student learning as they come together to express ideas they share and concepts new to them. Loading a voicethread so that students can voice their feelings about the school and National Lutheran School Week is a new technology we can incorporate in the future to the school curriculum.

b. exhibit leadership by demonstrating a vision of technology infusion, participating in shared decision making and community building, and developing the leadership and technology skills of others.

Video formats are an integral part of our face-to-face classroom instruction. To help other teachers view their effectiveness, I videotape them so they might see flaws or good practices in their instruction. Having these types of tools available means a better learning environment for students and using videos to share our Shurley Method language program allows for asynchronous in-service among the faculty.

Jing tutorials I video-taped and uploaded to Screencast are another valuable way to demonstrate new technologies to local teachers. These tutorials were created specifically for the Tour of MO website that teachers accessed prior to our city's hosting of the event. Using Jing helps to prepare me for instruction in the face-to-face, traditional classroom.

c. evaluate and reflect on current research and professional practice on a regular basis to make effective use of existing and emerging digital tools and resources in support of student learning

Learn Central's community, Technology and Learning, PC World and PC Magazine publications are online resources that keep me current of technology practices. I often reflect on a blog of a teaching resource website that I created, and I visit and post several web publications to evaluate technology integration for K-12 learning environments. Remaining current on emerging technologies is a necessity in the rapidly growing field of educational technology to stay abreast of digital tools as they become available.

d. contribute to the effectiveness, vitality, and self-renewal of the teaching profession and of their school and community

Perhaps my proudest achievement is helping students promote recycling in our community and supporting their research. In their preparations for CyberFair, my eighth grade class developed recycling practices within our school by helping students recycle. They then contracted to have a recycling container placed on the school grounds and took their knowledge and understanding to our city council. Persuading the council to build a facility, they contributed to the grant the city wrote for a recycling facility by designing the marketing graphics and text and by broadcasting advertisement on the local radio station and newspaper. Their efforts awarded them a CyberFair Gold award and our school continues to receive praise for the student work. It is the integration of technology as a tool to reach out beyond our school walls that gave these students confidence and supported the environmental issues we teach them in the classroom.

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