SOE 2008-2009 Final Activity Report Narrative_Becker 051309

8/8/2019 SOE 2008-2009 Final Activity Report Narrative_Becker 051309

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2008-2009

Final Activity Report

Narrative

(Separate Word Document)

Name Jonathan D. Becker

TEACHING AND ADVISING

Fall 2008

EDUS 710: Educational Research Design EDUS 890: Dissertation Seminar

Spring 2009

TEDU 560: Instructional Strategies Using the Internet Ed.D.

Dissertation Advisement

Currently chairing 5 dissertationso Robin Franklin successfully defended prospectus, Spring 09o Troy Wright successfully defended prospectus, Spring 09o Mary Eckert will defend prospectus, May 18, 2009o Ann Nah working on prospectuso Naeemah Rodriguez completed EDUS 890, Spring 09

Currently serving on 8 dissertation committeeso Kristy Pittso Eric Armbrustero Jeffrey Duncano Tanya Roaneo David Rankino Rodney Berryo Nancy Hoovero Beth Teigen

Completed serving on 1 dissertation committeeo Beth Torres, defended dissertation, Spring 09


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Will be adding two new dissertation advisees this summer/fall.o Lee Naughtono John Andrews

I consider myself a lifelong learner as a learning facilitator. That is, I am alwaysstriving to improve my work as a teacher. Thus, I believe I am obligated to regularly

make changes to the content and the pedagogy of the courses I teach. The challenge

for me...has always been to cultivate student engagement through active, meaningful

learning. Active learning, according to Bonwell and Eison (1991), is defined as

instructional activities involving students in doing things and thinking about what they

are doing (p. 2). Meaningful learning is about relevance, both in terms of content and

form. In all, I take pride in the work I have done to this point as a teacher. The end-

of-semester course and teacher ratings I have received from my students have been

consistently positive, but there is also clear evidence of pedagogical improvement in

those data.

This year, I took a lot of leaps into new ways of facilitating learning withtechnology. In the Spring 2009 semester, I co-taught a fully online course. For that

course, I took a curriculum entirely focused on integrating Web-based technology into

the curriculum and made it a course aligned with the National Educational Technology

Standards for Administrators (NETS-A). The new course, to be titled Educational

Technology and School Leadership, is an important addition to our masters and post-

masters leadership programs. The students in the course are asked to discover new

applications of technology as they explore technology-related policy and leadership

issues. For example, the final project asks students to use a Web-based collaborative

authoring tool to collectively (in small groups) design a technology plan for a fictitious

school or district.Also as part of that course, I used Wimba Live Classroom to hold virtual

roundtables or webinars where I held conversations with experts from around the

world. Those conversations were synchronous and, in addition to the students in the

course, open to anyone to whom I can extend an invitation, including the hundreds of

educators who follow me on Twitter. The conversations were recorded and archived so

that students who could not attend the webinar could watch and listen on their own

time.

For our Ed.D. students, I really tried to push their own thinking about the

affordances of technology for learning. I did that by modeling the use of technology and

by leading discussions about leadership in and for educational technology. I asked them

to create a digital story of their vision of school leadership. I gave them the theme,

introduced them to some resources on digital storytelling, told them they were limited

only by a 5-minute time cap and the bounds of their creativity, and offered to be a

learning guide as needed. My hope is that I helped the doctoral students understand

the power of multimedia as a form of communication for educators and school leaders.


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RESEARCH AND SCHOLARLY ACTIVITY

For me, academic year 2008-09 was a tremendously productive year with

respect to scholarly activity. I worked on a couple of articles to be published in peer-

reviewed journals, but I focused most of my scholarly activity around grant writing,

presenting at professional conferences and completing an online multimedia resource

for the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP).

Presentations

I made it a point this year to branch out and to present at a number of new (for

me) conferences. Furthermore, I purposefully chose to present at practitioner-

oriented conferences. Increasingly, I find the scholar-practitioner dichotomy in

education to be a false one reinforced by conferences predominantly attended by either

professors or P-12 educators. For a number of years, I have been attending the UCEA

and AERA annual conferences which are gatherings of academics. I still attended those

conferences this year, but also presented at some extraordinary events such as Educon

and the CoSN annual conference. Table one lists the conferences at which I was

honored with an opportunity to present.

Table 1. Conference Presentations 2008-09

National/International Presentations

Presenter(s)

(Year,

Month)

Title of

Presentation Conference/Meeting City, State, Country

Becker, J.D. (2008,

October)

Facilitating

Technology

Integration: ASynthesis of

the Research

K12 Online

Conference

WWW

(http://k12onlineconference.org/)

Becker, J.D.

& Wolosoff,

R.

(2008,

November)

Leading

Difference:

Multiple Case

Studies of

Leaders of

Technologically

Innovative

Schools

University Council on

Educational

Administration

(UCEA) - Annual

Conference

Orlando, FL

Becker, J.D.,

Quinn, D. &

Bathon, J.

(2008,

November)

Leadership 2.0 University Council on

Educational

Administration

(UCEA) - Annual

Conference

Orlando, FL

Becker, J.D. (2009,

January)

Leadership 2.0:

Transforming

Schooling in

and for the

21st Century

Educon 2.1 Philadelphia, PA


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Becker, J.D. (2009,

March)

The Digital

Horserace: An

Analysis of

differences in

student

computer use

across thestates and

across the

years

COSN Annual

Conference

Austin, TX

Sundberg, E.

& Becker,

J.D.

(2009,

April)

Deliberative

Civic Education

and Student

Civic

Engagement

American

Educational

Research Association

(AERA) Annual

Conference

San Diego, CA

Bathon, J.,

Becker, J.D.,

& McLeod, S.

(2009,

April)

Expression and

Association

Rights of

School

Employees in

Electronic

Environments

American

Educational

Research Association

(AERA) Annual

Conference

San Diego, CA

Regional/State Presentations

Presenter(s)

(Year,

Month)

Title of

Presentation Conference/Meeting City, State, Country

Becker, J.D. (2009,

February)

Leadership 2.0:

Transforming

Schooling in

and for the

21st Century

Educational

Technology

Leadership Institute

(VSTE)

Virginia Beach, VA

Becker, J.D. (2009,

March)

Web 2.0 and

Professional

Learning

Virginia Association

of Independent

Schools - Technology

Retreat

Richmond, VA

Becker, J.D. (2009,

April)

Expression and

Association

Rights of

School

Employees in

Electronic

Environments

VCU School of

Education Research

Colloquium

Richmond, VA

In the remainder of this subsection, for each of the conferences listed in TableOne, I will provide a brief description of the conference and the presentation along with

the abstract of the presentation.


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K12Online

Far and away, this is the presentation of which I am most proud this year. The

K12Online Conference is a truly unique and amazing event organized by fourextraordinary educators from around the globe. I firmly believe that this online

conference, with its blend of asynchronous and synchronous elements, represents the

future of conferences. I was honored to be accepted as a presenter, and had to really

stretch myself as a learner and a presenter in preparing the 20-minute video that served

as the core of my presentation. The presentation along with its accompanying

comments (both the text comments and those facilitated by Voicethread) are located at

the following URL: http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=305

UCEA

I was part of two presentations at UCEA this year. First, I co-presented the

results of the dissertation research done by Dr. Rochelle Wolosoff, one of my former

advisees at Hofstra University. This presentation was well received and Rochelle and I

will be submitting the manuscript for publishing consideration this summer. Also, I was

asked to co-lead the dedicated session of the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of

Technology and Leadership in Education (CASTLE). In that session, I got to demonstrate

the power of various social media applications for making learning connections.

Facilitating Technology Integration: A Synthesis of the Research

ABSTRACT

There is a very small but growing body of empirical research on facilitating technologyintegration in schools. This presentation brings together that research in the form of a critical

synthesis. Dr. Jonathan D. Becker, a professor of educational leadership at Virginia

Commonwealth University (VCU), will discuss the major themes that have emerged from the

research and place them within the context of his own research with technology integration

specialists in the state of West Virginia. The major goals for this presentation are to make the

research accessible and to provide educational technology practitioners relevant research-

based data to inform their practice.

Leading Difference: Multiple Case Studies of Leaders of Technologically Innovative SchoolsABSTRACT

The main purpose of this multiple case study research is to describe the leadership of three

technologically innovative schools located in western and eastern United States. Data

collection includes in-depth interviews, direct field visits, an online questionnaire, group

emails, and archival data.This study reveals personal and professional attributes held in

common by these leaders. The findings of this study have important implications for educators,

researchers, and practitioners.


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Educon 2.1

Educon is another extraordinary and relatively new conference. It is billed

uniquely: it is not a technology conference. It is an education conference. It is,hopefully, an innovation conference where we can come together, both in person and

virtually, to discuss the future of schools. Every session will be an opportunity to discuss

and debate ideas -- from the very practical to the big dreams. In its second year, the

conference lived up to its billing. Held at Science Leadership Academy (SLA), an

extraordinary high school in Philadelphia, this gathering was organized and run by the

faculty and students at SLA. There were presenters selected through a peer-review

Leadership 2.0

ABSTRACT

The world is flat, everything is miscellaneous and here comes everybody! If that sentence

means nothing to you, this session is for you. In this interactive session, sponsored by the UCEACenter for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE), participants

will gain insight into how blogs, social networking, streaming video and learning instruments

that you have probably never heard of are rapidly changing our world as the Internet

transitions from a static to an interactive media. Not only has the Web 2.0 revolution changed

learning for todays school children, it can also be used to benefit school leader learning and as

preparation program distance education technology. A panel of educational leadership

professors will demonstrate and discuss various Web 2.0 tools and their applications for school

leadership and the preparation of school leaders in the twenty-first century.

Leadership 2.0: Transforming Schooling in and for the 21st Century

ABSTRACT

A 2003 Department of Commerce study ranked 55 industries with respect to information

technology (IT)-intensity; education ranked dead last. Furthermore, the amount or frequency of

computer use in schools is, on average, very low. Based on a survey of over 3,000 K-12 teachers,

Norris et al. (2003) wrote fully 14%...make no use whatsoever of computers for instructional

purposes, and nearly half (45%) use it with their students less than 15 minutes per week

equivalent to just 3 minutes per day! (pp. 17-18). These data about the limited access to anduse of technology in the schooling endeavor potentially render our public schools irrelevant to

the digitally-inclined youth they serve, and imperil our position in a flat world. Remedying this

problem is very much a leadership challenge. That is, decades of research point to the centrality

of leadership to school change/reform/improvement. Yet, increasing empirical evidence

suggests that leadership in and for technology in education is diffuse and ill-defined. This

presentation is designed as an opportunity to explore how school leaders can position

themselves to lead the change towards 21st Century teaching and learning.


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process, but the presenters were really facilitators. I learned with some extraordinary

educators at Educon 2.1.

VSTE/ETLI

It was with great pride that I accepted an invitation from members of the Boardof the Virginia Society for Technology in Education (VSTE) to be a presenter at the 2009

Educational Technology Leadership Institute. At this gathering of technology leaders in

education from across the Commonwealth of Virginia, I was able to offer the same

presentation as I had prepared for Educon 2.1 (with more detail since Educon was more

conversational). I was honored to be invited as one of a dozen speakers at this

important event which kicks off VSTEs annual conference.

CoSN

The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) is a national organization whose

members represent district, regional and state directors of educational technology. This

strong and important organization held its annual conference in Austin, TX in March

2009. I had never attended a CoSN conference, and I consider myself fortunate to have

been accepted as a presenter at this years event. Along with Kathy Boone of the West

Virginia Department of Education, I was one-half of a presentation that focused on

statewide technology policy. I presented the results of an analysis of NAEP data that

showed differences in student computer use across the states and across the year.

Since my results pointed to West Virginia as a leader in the educational technology

policy arena, Kathy followed my presentation with a discussion of West Virginias efforts

to measure 21st

Century skills in their students.

The Digital Horserace: An Analysis of differences in student computer use across the states and

across the years

ABSTRACT

Attend this presentation to discover how West Virginia integrated technology experiences to

drive innovative classroom practice in which students address core subject content in a 21st

century context and how that effort was assessed. Its been said that theway to affect systemic

change in education is to change what is assessed. The Federal mandate that student

technology proficiency be reported supports this premise as states and districts are nowmoving

quickly to secure equitable technology learning experiences and outcomes for their students. To

achieve the requisite change in classroom culture, practice, and student engagement,

employing the right balance of assessment methods is equally important. The authentic

application of skills increases validity by generating tangible evidence of information and

technology proficiencies which are recorded and reported through individual studenttechnology literacy profiles. This presentation reports the results of analyses of state-level data

using the NAEP Data Explorer on student computer use across multiple time periods.


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VAIS technology retreat

Through my growing Twitter network, I came in contact with Susan Morgan, an

incredible educator who works at the Fredricksburg Academy. After learning together

through Twitter for a while, she invited me to present at the annual technology retreat

of the Virginia Association of Independent Schools (VAIS). To a group of forward-

thinking independent school educators, I was able to demonstrate the power of the

web-enabled personal/professional learning network (PLN). I demonstrated the various

tools and applications that form the infrastructure of my PLN and we discussed the

many ways that one can embrace these technologies for informal professional

development.

AERA

Web 2.0 and Professional Learning

ABSTRACT

"Teachers who learn together improve together." The evidence supporting that statement

comes from decades of research, and teachers everywhere would support the statement

anecdotally as well. As a result, many schools have implemented some form of professional

learning community (PLC) to allow teachers to improve their pedagogy and, therefore, for

schooling organizations to grow. Those PLCs typically involve time set aside for team or full

faculty meetings to discuss a range of issues including instructional strategies and 21st century

teaching and learning. Today, with the proliferation of Web-based community building tools,

those professional communities can easily be extended beyond the schoolhouse doors. That is,

web-based technologies afford the possibility of teachers learning together and improving

together, even when they are not "together." This session mixes conversation and

demonstrations of these possi bilities for 21st century professional learning.

Deliberative Civic Education and Student Civic Engagement

ABSTRACT

Deliberative democratic theory presupposes and research confirms that face-to-face

deliberation about controversial public issues can increase participants civic engagement. This

study examined the relationship between educational experiences purposefully focused on

deliberative skills and student civic engagement. Survey and interview data support the

argument that a school environment which promotes respectful discussion of controversialpolitical issues increases students political efficacy, trust in peers, desire for mutual

understanding, and deliberative habits. They also indicate that taking a Debate class was

correlated with increased internal efficacy, deliberative habits and attentiveness to public affairs.

Data also indicate that student civic engagement was sometimes influenced by race, sex, grade

level, and parental attentiveness to public affairs.


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I presented two papers at the annual conference of AERA this year. First, I co-

facilitated a roundtable discussion of the work done by Dr. Eric Sundberg, a former

dissertation advisee of mine at Hofstra. A small group of attendees joined the

roundtable, but the conversation around the ideas Eric surfaced in his research was rich

and immensely rewarding. Second, I co-presented a paper about the free speech rights

of public school employees in electronic environments. I believe the issues addressed inthis paper are hugely important and matters that have not been litigated yet. My co-

authors and I are enthusiastic about refining the manuscript based on feedback we

received at AERA so that we can submit it for publication consideration. A highlight of

this presentation for me was my maiden voyage with Prezi, a new web-based

presentation tool. I was able to repeat this presentation shortly after AERA at the VCU

School of Educations Spring research colloquium.

GrantsThe second major focus of my scholar activities for academic year 2008-09 was

grant writing. I co-wrote and submitted three major grant proposals, two to NSF and

one to IES. Two of those proposals were not funded, but I am very optimistic that one

of the NSF grants will be funded. NSF asked for a revised budget and is now asking us to

negotiate the various IRB processes. By all accounts, the funding decision is all but

finalized. For that grant, I would be a co-investigator with Dr. Yael Wyner at CUNY and

educators from the American Museum of Natural History.

What follows is a brief description of the three grant proposals I co-wrote.

Ecology Disrupted: Using real scientific data about daily life to link environmental

issues to ecological processes in secondary school science classrooms

The NSF proposal that is likely to be funded involves the development and

testing of unique curricular units to help kids understand ecological principles. My role

in the project is to lead the testing of the curriculum units. We proposed a quasi-

Expression and Association Rights of School Employees in Electronic Environments

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the application of post-Garcetti, teacher free expression legal precedents to

digital expression and association activities of school employees. The paper documents recent

efforts by school districts to limit outlets for teacher expression and analyzes how current legal

standards apply to blogging, social networking, podcasting, e-mailing and other expression

outlets that are being increasingly utilized by teachers. Finally, the paper presents alternatives

for clarifying school employee digital expression rights to alleviate some of the fear and

hesitation associated with these new communication tools.


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experimental study to test the efficacy of the units and I would be leading that effort

along with Dr. Wyner at CUNY and a research assistant based at CUNY.

PROJECT SUMMARY: The City College of New York and the American Museum of Natural History propose

to refine and develop four case study modules in order to research the question, Can curricular units

that incorporate the analysis of real data from published research on the consequences of everyday lifeactivities to link environmental issues to ecological principles improve student learning of ecological

principles, personal and human environmental impacts and the nature of scientific activity? The case

study modules will use real data from authentic scientific research to link daily life to environmental

issues and ecological principles. The modules will be built around engaging media about the scientists

and their research and designed using a strategy that joins together teacher implementers, educators,

researchers, and product developers in order to insure a product accessible to all learners. Controlled

efficacy studies of modules will be performed in randomized control trials of the classrooms of 60 ninth

grade Living Environment New York City public school teachers. Existing New York State Regents

assessment items will be examined and new assessment items will be developed, field tested, and

analyzed for validity and reliability. Students in the experimental and control classrooms will be pre- and

post-tested using the developed assessments. In addition, teachers and students will complete pre-post

surveys, and stratified samples of teachers will be observed and interviewed. To examine the effects of

the intervention on student achievement and on instructional practices, descriptive and inferentialstatistics, including analysis of variance procedures will be employed in addressing the core research

question dealing with student achievement. Analysis of variance techniques will also be used to examine

main effects and to measure interactions between the intervention and other variables as they relate to

student achievement score.

INTELLECTUAL MERIT: This project seeks to further our understanding of how to frame science concepts

and scientific research in a formal classroom setting by determining whether using everyday activities to

explicitly link environmental issues to ecological principles is an effective approach for helping students

to connect personal and human impacts to ecology. It also seeks to determine whether analysis of real

data and video profiles of scientists and their research will help students to learn about the nature of

scientific activity.

BROADER IMPACT: The focus of these modules on daily life has the potential to personally connect

urban students to environmental issues and ecological principles. Also, analysis of published research has

the potential to help young learners to begin to think scientifically. Through testing and dissemination,

these modules will by used by New York City public schools students that belong to underrepresented

groups. Also local New York City public school teachers and teachers nationally will use these modules

through in-person and online courses to explore their own connection to environmental issues and

ecology and to reflect upon the role of scientific inquiry in building understanding of the natural world.

These resources will also be incorporated as links in Holt, Rinehart and Winston textbooks. Finally, we

intend to use technology to develop an innovative approach for online delivery of these curricular

resources. We plan to design an online module maker using a kit of parts of module components in

order for teachers to create a module suitable for implementation into their particular classroom.


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CANLEAD: Leading the Advancement of Science Teachers Technological Pedagogical

Content Knowledge

This proposal, which was not funded by NSF, was for a research and

development grant around science teaching and teachers technological pedagogical

content knowledge (TPACK). I was written in as the co-investigator and Dr. Sara Dexter

at the University of Virginia would have been the principal investigator.

PROJECT SUMMARY: This proposal is for a research and development grant for a study that will address

the challenge of enhancing the ability of educators to provide STEM education. Working with technology

integration specialists and middle school principals, this research will investigate leadership for

technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK), which we define as practices that guide and develop

educators and school organizations in the effective use of technology for teaching and learning. The

purpose of this project is to improve teachers use of technology to enhance their instruction of STEM

subjects by developing the leadership skills and practices of instructional leaders in the schools, principally

technology integration specialists and principals. Its primary goals are to (1) create the Cognitive

Assistance Network, Learning Environment, and Database (CANLEAD) cyberlearning resource, (2) employit in a leadership institute created to develop the participants leadership capacity to advance science

teachers' technological pedagogical content knowledge, and (3) analyze the data gathered by conducting

the institute to deepen our understanding of effective leadership in this area.

The project will explore feasible ways to develop capacity for the distributed leadership of TPCK by means

of participation in a face-to-face and online leadership institute within the CANLEAD system that will be

developed as a part of this project. This system will combine courseware employing social computing

principles with the responsive dissemination of data to create the organizational and interpersonal

elements of effective professional learning environments for leaders and, in turn, their work with science

teachers. Instructional support personnel in middle schools with primary responsibilities for supporting

educational technology integration will participate in a 15-month leadership institute (one week face-to-

face, and then primarily online using CANLEAD), during which the technology specialists will work with

their principals and other key members of their schools instructional leadership teams. The appliednature of this leadership institute will involve school leaders engaging their science teachers in learning

about technology-supported pedagogy, both through the CANLEAD system and the school-based activities

they initiate.

INTELLECTUAL MERIT: The intellectual merits of this project include its contribution to the evolving

research in the areas of (a) instructional and distributed leadership, (b) pedagogical content knowledge

and its technological dimensions, (c) organizational and interpersonal elements of effective professional

learning environments, and (d) cyberlearning. The study will develop a new learning tool for technology

leaders, investigate a feasible way to use it in developing leadership for TPCK in science teaching, closely

track how technology specialists and principals grow in their understanding of this concept, and measure

the impact of that learning on science teachers knowledge and skill in technology-supported instruction.

BROADER IMPACT: The broader impact of this study will be an increased understanding of distributed

instructional leadership and its development, which in turn will improve the development of leadership

capacity, STEM instructional quality, and ultimately student achievement. The proposed research will

provide direction and models for professional educational leadership organizations as well as school

leaders daily work. It will also advance the use of cyberlearning resources as learning and feedback

systems for school leadership.


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Professional Development 2.0: An Investigation of the professional learning conditions

that promote the use of technology-supported, research-based literacy practices

This proposal, which was not funded by IES, was for a research grant focused on

teacher quality in the areas of reading and writing. Specifically, the proposal was aimed

at exploring the professional learning conditions that promote the use of technology-supported, research-based literacy practices. I was to be the principal investigator for

this grant.

PROJECT SUMMARY

How do teachers learn new ways to teach students how to read and write better? Efforts to

promote teacher learning are usually conceived as formal professional development activities, which

might range from one-on-one mentoring with a staff development professional to attending large

national conferences. Often, corresponding focus is placed on how professional community among

teachers facilitates teacher learning (Elmore, Peterson & McCarthey, 1996; Frank & Zhao 2004; Lee &

Smith 1996; Louis, Marks & Kruse, 1996; Louis & Marks, 1998; Newmann, King & Youngs, 2000).

Increasingly, attention is being paid to how teachers access pedagogical expertise in their professional

communities which has been studied as an exchange of social capital (Coburn & Russell, 2008; Penuel,

Riel, Krause & Frank, in press).

The increasing ubiquity of technology use in the schooling environment and society raises new

questions about facilitating learning, including how teachers learn to integrate technology to teach

students how to read and write better. Such teacher learning must encompass identifying which

technologies are best suited for teaching and learning particular subject matter and how to integrate

these into their instruction in support of student learning. The outcome of efforts to promote teachers

learning to integrate technology in support of their instruction and students learning is increasingly

referred to as technological pedagogical content knowledge (Koehler & Mishra, 2006).

Efforts to develop teachers technological pedagogical content knowledge face all the challenges

identified in the professional development and community literature plus a few more. First, instructional

technology support personnel typically either (a) have a lot of experience as teachers (but usually only

within a single content area) and took on this specialist role because of their bent towards technology or(b) are extremely technology-proficient but have little experience with or understanding of curriculum

and instruction within a content area. Second, and perhaps more problematic, little empirical evidence is

currently available on how technological knowledge is best transferred. In their recent review of

technology professional development research, Lawless and Pellegrino (2007) write that The paucity of

empirical research examining the area of technology professional development for teachers is

astonishing (p. 584). They note that few studies of technology professional development focus on what

teachers learned rather than their learning experience in the professional development offerings and

were unable to identify any studies that linked teacher learning to classroom instructional behaviors and

then to student learning.

To help fill this gap in the research, the proposed study considers professional learning broadly

and aims to uncover conditions within schooling organizations that are associated with teachers

successful development of new teaching practices in the areas of reading and writing. In particular, this

study is a multi-phase examination of how professional learning conditions predict teachers use of

technology-supported literacy instruction practices (TSLIPs) that are associated with higher student

achievement. We begin by asking teachers about their use of literacy instructional behaviors that have

been identified in the literature as promoting positive student outcomes and the degree to which they

support those instructional practices with technology. Those data will be analyzed with student outcome

data to assess the moderating effect of technology integration within research-based literacy practices on

student achievement. In addition to addressing important correlational research questions and

contributing to the research on the relationship between technology integration and student


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achievement, these initial analyses will also provide us with a foundation for selecting schools that have

been successful in developing teachers key technology-supported literacy instructional practices so as to

investigate the professional learning conditions at those sites. To gain further insight into key aspects of

interventions that are effective in developing teachers technological pedagogical content knowledge, we

will select a small sub-sample of schools whose teachers will then be the focus of case studies examining

how their professional learning conditions helped develop their TSLIPs.

NASSP Online School Law Guide

I am thrilled that the online school law guide that I jointly developed with Dr.

Justin Bathon of the University of Kentucky exclusively for the National Association of

Secondary School Principals (NASSP) went live in Fall 2008. Taking advantage of exciting

technologies and the interactive nature of the Internet, Dr. Bathon and I took the school

law textbooks out of the print realm and into the digital age. Organized around modules

that allow the learner to read and/or download the material and that also include audio-

visual flash movies for the learner to watch and hear, the online school law guide is live

and available to all NASSP members. The modules also include links to published

opinions of major cases, links to relevant online resources and a test yourself

interactive quiz. The FAQ sections of each module will grow organically as inquiries

arrive from principals/learners. Dr. Bathon and I have an agreement to maintain the

online school law guide in perpetuity and we have plans to incorporate ideas such as

archived webinars with experts in school law. We have already received positive

feedback about the guide, including from noted school law scholars such as Perry Zirkel.

Journal Articles

At AERA 2008 in New York, NY, I presented a paper I had been working on for

almost two years. The Digital Horserace: An Analysis Of Differences in Student

Computer Use Across the States and Across the Years uses the NAEP Data Explorer

(NDE), a wonderful Web-based data analysis tool, to document differences in student

computer use across the states and the years. The NDE can be used to run descriptive

and inferential statistics on NAEP data, including numerous statistical tests of difference

on any of the instructional experience or school environment factor items. Those tests

of difference can be run across years or, for example, within years and between

demographic subgroups or any number of participating jurisdictions. For the

manuscript, I did an analysis of the various items on student computer use across the

years; specifically, I tested for differences in student computer use by states at differentpoints in time. In addition to the tests of difference, the NDE produces incredible

graphics that Ive incorporated into the manuscript. I submitted this manuscript to the

Journal of Educational Computing Research on April 23, 2008. The manuscript was

accepted for publication and after slight revisions and much back and forth with the

publishers, the article was finally published in Volume 39, number 3.


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I had a second article accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal this

year. Entitled Beyond Self-Report: Using Technology to Evaluate the Use of Technology

in Schools the manuscript is a critical review of novel methods used to collect data in a

statewide evaluation of a technology integration support program in West Virginia. I

submitted the manuscript to Practical Assessment, Research and Evaluation, an

electronic peer-reviewed journal accessed at http://pareonline.net. The editor of thejournal was enthusiastic about the manuscript and suggested only that I re-work the

introduction a bit before he sends it off to the reviewers. I will complete that process by

the first week in June.

I have FIVE (5) manuscripts, each of which is nearly complete, that will be

submitted for publication consideration over the course of the summer (2009). The first

three are based on papers that were presented either at UCEA or AERA. The fourth is

based on a manuscript that was rejected from a peer-reviewed journal. The last is

based on a paper that was proposed for presentation at UCEA 2009.

Table 2. Manuscripts to be submitted for publication consideration, Summer 2009

Research or Scholarly Work Intended Product Anticipated Completion Date Stage of Activity

Leading Difference: Multiple

Case Studies of Leaders of

Technologically Innovative

Schools

Co-authored

journal article

Will be sent off for publishing

consideration to International

Journal of Educational Policy &

Leadership in early July.

First draft

complete

Expression and Association

Rights of School Employees in

Electronic Environments

Co-authored

journal article

Will be sent off for publishing

consideration to Journal of Law

& Technology in early June

2009.

First draft

complete

FOIA, FERPA and Other

Acronyms Not NecessarilyBeginning with F: A Review

of Information Privacy Issues

in Public Education in the

Information AgeCo-authored

journal article

Was reviewed and rejected

once before; will berepurposed for another journal

to be submitted by end of

August 2009.

First draft

complete

Deliberative Civic Education

and Student Civic

Engagement

Co-authored

journal article Will be sent off for publishing

consideration to International

Journal of Educational Policy &

Leadership in late June 2009.

First draft

complete

Parent and adolescent

internet use, perception, andregulation: A Dyadic analysis

Co-authored

journal article

Will be presented at UCEA

2009. Before that, will bedrafted and sent off for

publication in peer-reviewed

journal TBD by end of August

2009.

Needs to be

pared down fromEagen

dissertation.


15/19

Digital Scholarship

I continue to engage in multiple forms of digital scholarship. In addition to

publishing to my blog Educational Insanity (http://edinsanity.com), I participate in a

semi-regular podcasting series with academic colleagues from around the country.

Educational Insanity Blog

This continues to be a place where I can publish my ideas about education,

technology and school leadership. It is also a space where I can interact around those

ideas with peers from around the world. From September 1, 2008 through May 15,

2009, 3,813 absolute unique visitors came to my blog 5,082 times and viewed 7,751

pages. Figure One shows the breakdown of visitors by country.

Figure 1. Visitors to Educational Insanity by Country (Sept. 1, 2008 May 15, 2009)

From September 1, 2008 through May 15, 2009, the top 3 blog posts on Educational

Insanity were:

Conferences, Presentation, Etc. (December 4, 2008) 300 unique visitors(http://edinsanity.com/2008/12/04/conferences-presentations-etc/)

The Limits of Technology? (December 27, 2008) 127 unique visitors(http://edinsanity.com/2008/12/27/the-limits-of-technology/)

Reflections from the CoSN Conference (March 14, 2009) 114 unique visitors(http://edinsanity.com/2009/03/14/reflections-from-cosn-conference/)


16/19

Four Guys Talking (4GT) Podcast Series

Beginning in February 2009, I engaged in a new form (for me) of digital

scholarship. On a semi-monthly basis, I have an hour-long conversation with three

other professors of educational leadership: Dr. Scott McLeod (Iowa State University), Dr.

David Quinn (University of Florida) and Dr. Jayson Richardson (University of North

Carolina-Wilmington). Those conversations are recorded and archived as podcasts andmade available to anyone who is interested. Nominally sponsored by the UCEA Center

for the Advanced Study of Technology and Leadership in Education (CASTLE), this

podcast series is an opportunity for four scholars/educators to talk about topics at the

intersection of educational technology, leadership and reform. We have general topics

for each podcast, and for our two most recent podcasts, we interviewed a guest. For

example, for episode four, we interviewed Jeff Mao from the Maine Department of

Education. Jeff is the lead policymaker for Maines statewide laptop program (MLTI).

All of the podcasts are accessible at the following URL:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/uceacastle


17/19

SERVICE

Having settled in to VCU during my first year, I spent much of my second year

expanding my service horizons. Specifically, I joined two university committees and

began participating in service activities in the greater Richmond area.

Research and Professional Development Committee (RPDC)

In my second year serving the VCU School of Education on the Research and

Professional Development Committee (RPDC), I became the committees chairperson.

That role, as always, became more of a commitment than I had imagined, but the

committee work was important and a valuable learning experience for me. I organized

and facilitated monthly meetings of the committee where we discussed ways to

promote a research culture in the School of Education. The culminating activity for this

committee was the Spring research colloquium which was organized with zero budget.

Instructional Technology Advisory Group (ITAG)

I was honored to be invited by Jeff Nugent from the Center for Teaching

Excellence to join ITAG. The VCU Instructional Technology Advisory Group (ITAG) is a

University committee tasked with addressing issues related to faculty use of

instructional technology, and providing related recommendations to the Vice Provost

for Instruction, Dr. Joe Marolla. In his invitation, Jeff wrote: Given your work in

educational leadership and instructional technology I think you are an ideal candidate

for the work of this group, and believe that your contributions would serve to

strengthen what the group as a whole might achieve. I am one of only four tenure-

eligible faculty on this committee.This working group met regularly during academic year 2008-09 and is working

on developing a vision statement that will hopefully be shared with the incoming

President of VCU, Dr. Michael Rao. I am leading the development of that vision

statement by facilitating a collaborative writing exercise using Google Docs. That

statement should be completed over the summer.

University Graduate Council (UGC)

This year, I accepted a nomination to serve as a School of Education

representative to the University Graduate Council (UGC). This was a valuable

experience as I was able to meet professors from other schools and campuses withinVCU. The UGC met as a whole a few times during the year and I chose to be a part of

the Policy and Procedures Sub-Committee. As a member of the Policy and Procedures

Sub-Committee, I was able to lend my voice to a number of important issues ranging

from electronic theses and dissertations to honors code issues. I look forward to

continuing to serve VCU and the School of Education as a representative to the UGC.


18/19

Ph.D. Program Educational Leadership Track Coordinator

My work as the educational leadership track coordinator for the Ph.D. program

occupied a lot of my time this academic year. I attended monthly Ph.D. advisory board

meetings, and served on the appeals subcommittee of that advisory board. Also, for the

first time, the Department of Educational Leadership began recruiting for the new 48-

hour Ph.D. program on our own. I developed the recruiting pitch and took that showon the road a few times. Additionally, I was one of only three faculty members regularly

tasked with grading the new qualifying exams and the research portions of the

comprehensive exams. Finally, I facilitated department-level discussions about

curriculum changes and exam formats.

Most time-consuming of all was the work I continue to do to communicate with

and advise continuing and new doctoral students. Our systems for communicating with

these students are cumbersome and I plan to spend a considerable amount of time

doing two things to improve communication with doctoral students. First, I plan to

develop listservs for various groups of doctoral students. Second, and more

importantly, I will design and launch an online community where students, faculty andalumni can communicate, share and learn together.

UCEA SIG

I continue to serve as the co-chair of the Technology and Leadership special

interest group (SIG) of the University Council on Educational Administration (UCEA). For

the last two years, this SIG has held a business meeting at the annual meeting of UCEA.

Attendance has been terribly low, partly due to the 7:00 a.m. time slot reserved for

UCEA SIG business meetings. However, the lack of attendance is mostly due to the fact

that, as far as my colleagues and I can tell, there are literally a handful of professors of

educational leadership in UCEA institutions (and probably elsewhere) who areconcerned with technology leadership. Thus, the major goal of the SIG is to increase

awareness among educational leadership faculty of the importance of leadership for

21st

Century, technology-infused schooling. To that end, my co-chair (Dr. David Quinn,

U. of Florida) and I have created an online network through NING.(see

http://edtechleader.ning.com). This space will be used as a storehouse of technology-

related resources for school leaders and will host several electronic forums and

conversations. Those are the initial goals for the networking site, but, truthfully, the

limits are seemingly boundless for what we can do with the Ning space.

Chesterfield Public Engagement Session

I was invited as an expert to a public engagement session held by the Growth

Task Force commissioned by the School Board of the Chesterfield County Public Schools.

As part of their efforts to contend with the growth occurring within the county (and,

therefore, the schools), one consideration is alternatives to bricks-and-mortar schools.

On May 12, 2009, I attended a public engagement session where I was able to share and

discuss my understanding about the value of distance learning options.


19/19

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Ubiquitous computing affords ubiquitous learning, and for me this has become

my mode of lifelong learning. Cormier (2008) writes about Rhizomatic Education,

offering the rhizome as a metaphor for knowledge.

the rhizomatic plant has no center and no defined boundary; rather, it is made

up of a number of semi-independent nodes, each of which is capable of growing

and spreading on its own, bounded only by the limits of its habitat. In the

rhizomatic view, knowledge can only be negotiated, and the contextual,

collaborative learning experience shared by constructivist and connectivist

pedagogies is a social as well as a personal knowledge-creation process with

mutable goals and constantly negotiated premises. (Cormier, p. 1, 2008).

Ubiquitous computing has eliminated any limits of any habitats for learning for

me. As a result, I feel very much like a rhizome at this point in my career. I have a

number of semi-independent nodes, each of which is capable of growing and spreading

on its own. I do that by constantly pruning and tuning my professional learning

network, which is supported by Web-based social media applications and other Web 2.0

technologies. In other words, I am constantly connected to other learners and learning

opportunities.

More formally, as I wrote previously, I attended many more professional

conferences this year than in the past. Each of those was a tremendous learning

opportunity. Also, I had the tremendous opportunity to be a part of a Tablet PC Faculty

Learning Community (FLC) through the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE). That FLC

allowed me to explore the affordances of tablet computing for my own teaching and

learning.

SOE 2008-2009 Final Activity Report Narrative_Becker 051309

Documents

Transcript of SOE 2008-2009 Final Activity Report Narrative_Becker 051309