CPCP Reflection

1) What did you learn about yourself and from this collaborative experience?

The things that I learned about myself during this collaborative experience are, it is okay to take the initiative on things, even if you don't know everyone that is involved in the project. Tiffany, Shea and I were paired up with other members from other cohorts for this project. When we all got into the chat room to present, we all just took charge and we all felt very comfortable about sharing our information with the other group members. As for working collaboratively with everyone in my cohort, I think everyone did a great job on sharing their thoughts and pulled their own weight to get the project done. I would gladly work with anyone from this group again.


2) What did you learn about professional collaboration from this activity?

I learned that professional collaboration doesn't always happen like we plan or hope for it work. We had a one or two members from other cohorts that never showed up to our original meetings for the logic models. I also got the feeling that they were a little clueless on what the whole project was about. We tried to explain action learning/ research and the logic models and some understood it, but some did not. From our point of view we wanted some type of feedback about our logic models, but all they told us was that is looked good. I'm not sure if they knew what to tell us or how to give us constructive criticism on that topic!

3) What can you say about the process of collaboration with other professionals? What was most challenging about collaborating with others? What steps could groups take to facilitate the collaborative process?

Working with other professionals from other cohorts is okay. I would rather work with people that I can see and that I know personally. I think it would not be as hard if the people in the other cohorts were working on the same exact projects and we were all clear on what to do. I felt the guidelines were specifically laid out for us, but with so many people together in one virtual world causes too many technical difficulties. The most challenging thing with working with others on this particular project was not getting any feedback for our logic models. They really didn't know how to make it any better or I'm not sure if they understood it. I know this sounds crazy, but I think smaller groups would be easier. There were just way too many people involved for the collaborative project. It all seemed to work out okay in the end, but no one was able to hear our final product at our last class. It would be great if that could have been cleared up to see if my group saw how her final product came about.

Last Class and ALAR Project Reflection

During our last class we all shared our ALAR projects. I think my group did a great job with presenting everything that must be done to undertake the grant writing process. We realized that many people probably had not even looked at a grant, including ourselves, so we brought a blank grant from the Lowe's Hardware website. It seemed like the easiest to fill out and they offer $5000. We also had our classmates to take the needs assessment survey that Heather conducted with her staff at her elem. school. We took a few minutes at the end to look at the results. I really liked working with everyone in my group. We each pulled our weight and split up all the parts that we needed to work on and typed up our info then emailed to Heather to make our final powerpoint. We met a little early before class last night to go over the final product. I think this project was very helpful to everyone in the class, because I think most people would try to undertake writing a grant themselves. But it really is a group effort or a committee effort. A stronger result will come about, if there is a strong group helping to write the grants.

Group Meeting

Last class my ALAR group met at 4:30 before class and discussed what we want to do for our final product. We have divided up several parts to our project for each person to work on. They are to compile their information on a Word document and then email it Heather who will then put it on to a slide for a slide show. When it is our turn we will present our information. Our activity is having everyone fill out a blank grant and look at an actual grant. Before they do that they will take the survey that Heather had her staff to fill out. We were all a little unsure, but I think it's coming together nicely. I can't believe we're almost finish with this semester!

ALAR Meeting with Dr. Nita

Last Thursday, 11/12/09, My logic model group met with Dr. Nita to discuss our progress on our final product for the ALAR project. This meeting was very helpful b/c I don't think anyone had a clue of what we were suppose to do next. We created a few steps that needed to happen before actually writing a grant. None of us has ever written a grant, so we didn't know what should come first. Our ultimate goal is obtain technology. We decided we needed to make a needs assessment survey for Heather's school to see what kind of technology that they would like the most. Heather got on to that immediately and sent that out the next day to her staff. Someone else is looking up more grants. I am looking into resources for a technology workshop. I found some information on how to use the document cameras and interactive whiteboards. I also found lesson plans on how to incorporate these technology devices. Another goal is to see that teachers and students are doing more action research projects in their classes. I saw a need to have a workshop on letting teachers know what action research is. Jennifer is getting resources for that. We also felt that it was important that a MTAC committee should be formed at her school. So Kim was going to look into how to begin an MTAC committee and to see what should be done first. Overall I think we will be just fine with our final product! We are meeting on Tuesday before our class meeting at 4:30 to go over all of our findings.

Instructional Unit Plan

I have met with the teacher that I want to do my instructional unit plan. She is planning to do a unit on the book, "Blue" after Christmas, so she thought this would be a good opportunity to do some pre-planning. I told her that I had to incorporate some type of research strategy in one of the lessons somewhere. I have a few ideas, but I'm not settled just yet on which one that I want to do. I am going to look through all of the strategies again and find which one will work the best for me.


I have sooo many thing that are do within the next two weeks and I feel like there is not enough time!! I need to rearrange and prioritize what should come first!!

For the logic model...I compiled a list of grants that are available for my group, but we really don't know where else to go from here. I hope it will all come together. I don't think we're the only ones that have just left that project kind of hanging in the air for now. We'll see....

Online class

Last night we had our online class meeting in Qwaq. I only got signed out four times! At least the computer didn't go completely crazy. Anyways, we met and discussed the Standards for the 21st century Learner. We had to compare the standards to a previous lesson that we've done with a partner. My partner was Kim and we used her lesson on Wild Weather Patterns. We found that many of the standards automically go with and pair up with the lesson. If they didn't go with the lesson it allows you a chance to improve your lesson. We also talked about our instructional unit plan. The assignment for this is to get with a classroom teacher and plan a lesson around a common theme and it must involve the research process as part of the lesson. Before getting our instructions on this we were split up into groups again to research and discuss certain research strategies that are available for teachers to use with their students. My teacher that I chose wasn't aware of the Big 6. I can definitely see this as something that my media coordinator could use to teach other teachers in our school about. I'm not sure if she's even aware of this opportunity. My teacher that I'm working with is going to do a unit on Conflict using the novel Blue sometime after Christmas break. We are hoping to make a really good collaborative opportunity for my media coordinator as I plan this lesson ahead of time with her!

CPCP group

Tonight I had another meeting with my CPCP group. Shea, Tiffany, and I presented are logic models to the group. First we told them what a logic model is and how it's used for the school library media program. Tiffany pulled up a copy of our logic model and we all took turns explaining the model. Some had questions about the action learning project part of the model. One asked is it like action research. We told them yes, but actually putting the research into action. Seeing an area that needs to be changed, added to, or a problem in a library and trying to do all the actions that will help fix it! Shea and I explained the action learning project that we did for Dr. Rob's class. One person asked how this is implemented for students. We just said it's according to what area that needs changing and who it applies to the most. Shea and I had projects that dealt mostly with teachers. They all seem to understand the process and the steps that must be taken in order to achieve the ultimate goal of the logic model. We couldnt' get our worksheets to load, so Tiffany emailed those to everyone. NOt everyone showed up to our meeting. One girl hasn't been to any of our meetings and hasn't responded to any of the posts. But we chose to just keep moving on without them and to jsut keep them informed through the zone discussion boards. We're all a little unsure of what we are suppose to do next.