Running Head: CAPSTONE REPORT 1

Capstone Report: Using Microsoft Office 365 as a Collaborative PLC tool

Chasmine Harris

Kennesaw State University

June 2019

Stephan Rahn

January 2018
CAPSTONE REPORT

The process that I took to complete this capstone was an approach to build on each piece

to increase collaborative PLCs using Microsoft Office 365. First, I introduced Microsoft One

Drive, then Microsoft One Note and finally Microsoft Teams. Before designing a workshop, I

would send out a survey using Microsoft Forms to the entire staff to determine how much

background information they already knew about the particular program. and what they wanted

to focus on specifically in the workshop. I would use that survey to help me in designing my

workshop for each particular program. All of my workshops followed a similar format. First,

there was a brief introduction to the program and its overall uses and how it could be used in

PLCs to help different teams collaborate more effectively. After showing a few real-life

examples, I provided time for participants to develop something that they could take back to their

different PLC teams to use. A week after the workshop, I would send out a follow-up survey. In

that survey, I was interested to see how they decided to use the program in their PLC and how

the program helped their PLC to be more effective. These surveys helped me gauge just how

helpful my workshop was and if my goals were being reached or not.

Overall, my capstone did go as planned. I do think it could have been better if there was

more participation from the staff and if the administration advertised my workshops more. I

believe once the principal saw the value in my capstone, she advertised my last workshop a lot

but by then, schedules were packed, and they were unable to attend. One of the biggest obstacles

that I had to overcome while completing my capstone project was getting staff to participate in

the surveys and the workshops. A lot of times I would have more participation in the surveys

then I would have in the actual workshops. I combated that problem by creating a website that I

would email out to staff that gave them an in-depth understanding of the program that my
CAPSTONE REPORT

workshop was on. I believe staff that were not able to attend my workshops did utilize my

website and their understanding of the programs did still improve.

I had three project objectives that I wanted to accomplish throughout this capstone. I did

change one of the programs that I wanted to include in my capstone. This was due to discussion

with my colleagues and I realized that digging deeper into Microsoft Teams would be a better

help to collaboration then Microsoft Excel to make PLCs more collaborative. The use of

Microsoft Excel would have been useful for discussions regarding assessments within a PLC.

Even though Excel would have been a helpful program to use, I determined that Microsoft

Teams would be more useful to achieve my overall goal. Looking at the project outcomes, the

use of both Microsoft OneNote and OneDrive improved significantly from the start of my

capstone. At the end of my project, I learned that approximately 75% of the staff were using

both programs to help them collaborate with their PLCs. As far as Microsoft Teams, I did have

one PLC that created a team for themselves to use and other teams were interested in

implementing it for the 2019-2020 school year.

My principal was very impressed with my capstone project and the workshops that I

offered for the staff to attend. After completing my capstone, my principal has decided that she

would like to implement the use of Microsoft Teams school-wide to help make PLCs more

manageable and collaborative within our school. In the new school year, I will be working

alongside the administrators at my school to develop a Microsoft Team that will be used school-

wide to make PLCs more collaborative.

From completing this capstone, I learned how many members of different PLCs would

normally miss out on such important information because they were unable to attend the meeting

due to scheduling conflicts. Jeffs and Banister (2006) noted in their study that when teachers and
CAPSTONE REPORT

candidates had conflicting schedules throughout the day that prevented them from meeting face

to face collaboratively in PLCs, using online collaborative tools were effective forms of

communicating as a way to plan and have a dialogue. I also learned how important it is to allow

participants in workshops to practice using the new program while I am there to guide them and

help them if they were to run into a roadblock. Throughout this capstone project, I also learned

how to conduct an effective workshop that would be meaningful to any of the staff that attended

whether they were a classroom teacher or a specials teacher. At the end of each workshop, I

would have a survey for participants to complete which would help me to reflect on how well my

workshop went and what I could change for next time.

The learning that took place while completing this capstone related to the knowledge required

of a technology leader because I needed to have an understanding of the shared vision of the

school to implement it and a knowledge of the results of the needs assessments to inform my

delivery of the professional learning. To establish change within the school, I had to have the

skills of a technology leader to know how to develop professional learning for staff that would

help them be able to communicate with each other collaboratively. I had to have the skills to not

only use the programs that I would be introducing in my workshops, but I also needed to know

basic troubleshooting in case a teacher ran into a problem during the workshop or after the

workshop when trying to implement in the program within their PLC.

If someone wanted to address the same problem of using a program to make their PLCs more

collaborative, I would recommend getting support from all of the administrators in the beginning

and even getting input from them to see what they would like introduced to the staff. By

working alongside the administrative team, they can help get more participation from the staff

that will help get more staff members educated about the programs and how to use them
CAPSTONE REPORT

properly. I would also recommend not only creating a website with resources for staff to look at

but also recording the workshops as they are done so that people who were not in attendance can

watch the workshop at their leisure.

CAPSTONE REPORT

References

Jeffs, T. & Banister, S. (2006). Enhancing Collaboration and Skill Acquisition Through the Use

of Technology. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 14(2), 407-433.

Waynesville, NC USA: Society for Information Technology & Teacher

Education. Retrieved from https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/5578/.