Technology Learning Contracts

Technology is embedded in the three strands of the Team program. It's the focus of the Technology strand. Collaborations are built around using technology to meet educational needs. Professional Growth and Leadership focuses on pedagogy and issues related to integrating technology in k-12 education.

In order to address the diverse skill sets, interests, and needs of Team members we'll take an individualized approach to technology skill development this semester. Some students are opting to focus on applications from Adobe's CS4 suite. For those students we'll start with web site and page development with Dreamweaver and probably start image creation and manipulation with Photoshop. Other students will select specific tools and technologies, based on their individual needs and goals, that will extend and add to their current skill set. Each student will create a contract that specifies how they will develop their technology skills over the course of the semester.

As you develop your contract, ask yourself the following questions:

• What are you going to learn?
  • Identify the technology content that you would most like to learn this semester.
  • List specific objectives, knowledge, and skills that you want to focus on.
• How are you going to learn it?
  • What resources and strategies will you use?
  • What actions will you take to acquire you learning?
• What are your target date(s) for completing tasks?
• How are you going to know that you learned it?
  • What evidence / artifacts will you have that demonstrates your learning?
• How are you going to prove (verify) what you learned?
  • Grades, mentor/peer/student feedback, performance/ability, etc.

Using Google Docs, create a draft of you contract by January. 28th. Invite Jim (jdunne.liu/gmail.com) Christina (Abreu.Support@gmail.com) and David (DPerkins05@gmail.com) to share the document. Jim, Cristina, or David will meet with each student during class on Janurary 29th to review their contract.

Questions that we may ask before we finalize the document are:

• Are the learning objectives clear, understandable, and realistic? Do they describe what you propose to learn?
• Can we think of other objectives you might consider?
• Do the learning strategies and resources seem reasonable, appropriate, and efficient?
• Can we think of other resources and strategies you might consider?
• Does the evidence seem relevant to the various objectives, and would it convince me?
• Can we suggest other evidence you might consider?
• Are the criteria and means for validating the evidence clear, relevant, and convincing?
• Can we think of other ways to validate the evidence that you might consider?

Atomic Learning
Through the Half Hallow Hills license, we're able to offer HHH team members access to Atomic Learning's library of software tutorials.

"Atomic Learning provides web-based software training and curriculum resources for more than 110 applications students and educators use every day... Atomic Learning provides thousands of short, easy-to-understand tutorial movies and a library of curriculum resources..."

To access Atomic Learning tutorials go to: http://movies.atomiclearning.com/k12/home
Username: hhh
Password: hhh123