Action Research Plan V1.0

Field of Action

I am currently the Director of Educational Technology for the Alameda County Office of Education located in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. In my role as Director I am responsible for ensuring that my department provides leadership and guidance in the use of technology to support learning to 22 school districts consisting of 356 schools, 11, 143 full time teachers, 218,041 students, and countless site and district level administrators. My current staff consists of one administrative secretary, one media specialist, one student information systems analyst, and three credentialed educational technology specialists.

Problem

The Alameda County Office of Education is charged with providing leadership and guidance to the county’s educational community. In theory, the Educational Technology Support Services department is designed to address the need for proper technology planning as it relates to teaching and learning, provide professional development opportunities geared toward improving teaching and learning, and to provide a central repository for the collection and dissemination of best practices. Unfortunately the department has not been capable of carrying out this mission in the past due to a number of factors, including a lack of strong leadership, lack of a shared vision for the use of technology in education, a lack of expertise among the professional staff in the effective use of technology in education, and what could be perceived as either a lack of motivation or initiative to continue to learn and grow professionally.

The Objective

To create an environment that allows for the necessary growth of the professional staff in a manner that also fulfills the mission of supporting the educational community within Alameda County in the use of educational technology to support student learning.


The Dynamics at Play

Following a process similar to that illustrated in the diagram by Coghlan and Brannick (2001) this entire action research project will involve three to four independent research cycles intertwined, and influenced by, my own learning cycles. Each cycle is wholly dependent upon the content of the research, the process that takes place, and the premise from which the research is founded.


The Question

Will the development of an internal community of practice model translate into 1) an improved perception of the leadership and guidance of my department for which I am responsible, 2) increased knowledge and understanding of the relationship between learning theory, pedagogy, and technology, amongst staff members, and 3) improved student outcomes?


Possible Solution

The complexity of this issue dictates a multi-stepped approach whereby each successive treatment builds upon the experience, reflection, and interpretation of prior treatments as dictated by the outcomes of each cycle of action research. As such, for internal purposes, I will set up a learning circle of my professional staff and we will begin to explore various learning theories and how they relate to the use of technology in support of teaching and learning. We will accomplish this goal in a blended environment that will include face-to-face meetings, an online environment such as Tapped-in and Course Matrix (a competitor of BlackBoard), participation in key conferences and seminars, and through contact with the educational community. This will be the focus of this action research project for purposes of the OMAET program.

Externally, we will develop a similar structure for the District Educational Technology Directors/Coordinators in the hope that they will be able to replicate this across their respective school sites. The focus here, however, will be more on problem solving and the sharing of best practices as a pragmatic strategy for keeping these individuals involved. The lessons learned from the work done internally should lend themselves to the creation of a rich, supportive environment focused on the needs of districts.

In addition, my professional staff will replicate this environment with the sites in which they provide direct support. Ultimately I would like to see this lead to the implementation of action research projects that can benefit the entire educational community as well as improve individual capacity.

Outcomes

Through the establishment of the CoP and the use of a blended learning environment I hope to:

Increase my own expertise in the area of educational technology specifically as it relates to learning and school reform efforts

Develop a sense of community and professional competence within my staff that fosters their own professional growth

Develop a perception within the educational community that my department’s and organization’s leadership and guidance is essential to successful student learning

Begin to create a knowledge base of best practices to help the educational community participate in meaningful dialogue regarding effective uses of educational technology

Research Cycles

Cycle 1: The development and initial implementation of an environment conducive to establishing a community of practice (CoP)

More formalized learning will take place using a learning management platform similar to BlackBoard called CourseMatrix. I will serves as the “expert” that will help guide each of the other members in directions that help them begin to build upon their background knowledge in areas such as learning theories, technology and learning, etc.

Different technologies such as blogging, wikis, etc. will be explored by the community to determine the best methods for developing a collaborative work space where knowledge can be socially constructed and recorded.
Learning opportunities will be shadow work requirements to provide what I call “forced context” for those not necessarily motivated to learn as stated previously.

Each staff member will develop an initial statement of philosophy regarding education and the relationship of that philosophy to educational technology. These will serve as baselines for measuring professional growth through each cycle.

Each staff member will develop a professional growth statement detailing where they would like to be in 1 year, 5 years, and 10 years. This will be revisited at the end of cycle 3 to determine how learning has affected each person’s career path.

Surveys will be sent out to members of the educational community (parents, teachers, administrators, students) to determine perceptions about the organization, and in particular, ETSS.

We will begin to create a common vision for the department with the goal of having one in place in time for the 2nd cycle of research. See my ARP blog for specifics on this.

Question: If I provide the necessary resources, information, and direction to my staff will I be able to develop a learning community that doubles as a community of practice that facilitates the attainment of personal, professional and organizational goals for all members of the community?


Cycles 2 and 3: These are dependent upon the outcomes of cycle 1 and will be determined at the appropriate time.

A Renewed Focus!

The Problem

The Alameda County Office of Education is charged with providing leadership and guidance to the county’s educational community. In theory, the Educational Technology Support Services department is designed to address the need for proper technology planning as it relates to teaching and learning, provide professional development opportunities geared toward improving teaching and learning, and to provide a central repository for the collection and dissemination of best practices. Unfortunately the department has not been capable of carrying out this mission in the past due to a number of factors, including a lack of strong leadership, lack of a shared vision for the use of technology in education, and a lack of expertise among the professional staff in the effective use of technology in education.

The Objective

To create an environment that allows for the necessary growth of the professional staff in a manner that also fulfills the mission of supporting the educational community within Alameda County.

The Methods

Internally, I will set up a learning circle of my professional staff and we will begin to explore various learning theories and how they relate to the use of technology in support of teaching and learning. We will accomplish this goal in a blended environment that will include face-to-face meetings, an online environment such as Tapped-in and Course Matrix (a competitor of BlackBoard), participation in key conferences and seminars, and through contact with the educational community.

Externally, we will develop a similar structure for the District Educational Technology Directors/Coordinators in the hope that they will be able to replicate this across their respective school sites. The focus here, however, will be more on problem solving and the sharing of best practices as a pragmatic strategy for keeping these individuals involved.

In addition, my professional staff will replicate this environment with the sites in which they provide direct support. Ultimately I would like to see this lead to the implementation of action research projects that can benefit the entire educational community as well as improve individual capacity.

The Question

Will the development and implementation of this blended learning environment translate into 1) an improved perception of the leadership and guidance of my department for which I am responsible, 2) increased knowledge and understanding of the relationship between learning theory, pedagogy, and technology, and 3) improved student outcomes?

My Field of Action

I am currently the Director of Educational Technology for the Alameda County Office of Education located in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. In my role as director I am responsible for ensuring that my staff provides leadership and guidance in the use of technology in support of learning to 22 school districts consisting of 356 schools, 11,143 full time teachers, 218,041 students, and countless site and district level administrators. My staff consists of one administrative secretary, one media specialist, one student information systems analyst, and three credentialed educational technology specialists.

Over the past two years we have seen a dramatic drop in participation for the professional development (PD) opportunities we provide at our facility and have been under increasing pressure from school sites and districts to provide on-site PD activities in addition to just-in-time resources and reference material.

While I feel that on-site training is optimal I do not have the personnel resources to provide the type of PD activities and support that will lead to dramatic and positive systemic change in the use of technologies to support student learning across the entire county. As such I would like to investigate the potential impact of digital video-on-demand in the area of best practices to augment onsite training and provide a way of allowing teachers and administrators the opportunity to view on-demand established best practices in a consistent and ubiquitous manner which leads to systemic change in the use of technology to support learning.

On a more personal note, I would like to study the impact that such a system will have on my ability to effectively support the educational community within Alameda County and how this effort reflects my ability to provide the leadership and guidance I am charged with.

Following the complex dynamics of action research as presented by Coghlan and Brannick (2001) my action research cycle will consist of the diagnosis, planning of action, taking of action, and evaluation of action across three separate and distinct cycles and that I will be able to engage in my own learning cycle activities of experiencing, reflecting, interpreting, and taking action around each of the four parts of the action research cycle.



Coghlan, d, Brannick, T. (2001) Doing Action research in your organization. London: Sage Publications.