Cycle Three Report Research Question: If I model and promote the use of additional technology tools, will my teaching

partner and I be able to create and sustain an online venue to help our collaborative efforts extend outside of the computer lab and into daily fifth grade lessons? Action: My first and second cycles were dedicated to finding a way to collaborate with my teaching partner in order to use the computer lab for all content areas and how this effort would affect our professional relationship. I found by taking these actions, this venue opened up the opportunity for more collaboration outside of just the computer lab. To build on this reflection, I decided that my third cycle would be an opportunity to expand on our progressive teamwork, especially as the year school is ending and we are thinking ahead to the next year. To begin this process, the following actions were taken: Discussions: To help determine our next steps for improving our collaborative efforts, my teaching partner and I had numerous casual discussions on our possibilities. It was the general consensus that organizing our digital resources would be a helpful way to see what we actually have when we pool everything together. Technology Search: We narrowed down the idea of finding bookmarking and drop-box type resources to fit the needs of our vision. Because there are so many resources online to chose from, I weighed the pros and cons of different tools. After searching I proposed the use of Box for a drop-box and Delicious for bookmarking. To help my teaching partner best see the potential of each site, I uploaded a few starting examples of each which included the use of adding tags on each file or link for easy searching down the road. Building on the Existing Platform: WikiSpace was our original collaborative tool of choice. We are not replacing this resource by any means, instead we are adding on to what we are already doing. To help stream everything in one place and give us visual reminders to use the resources, I attached links to the Box and Delicious on our home WikiSpace page. Evaluation: While at the end of my work school year and final semester in our masters program, I am still in the middle of this particular action cycle. As a teacher, my main focus at the end of the year is helping my students wrap up and share what they have been learning throughout the year. Because of that, instead of researching new lesson ideas, I am writing things like notes home for

presentations and rubrics for projects. Once my students are gone for the summer however, I use that time to start sorting through my years worth of activities to see what did and did not go well, as well as what resources could be altered. While doing this, it gives me a perfect opportunity to organize all of my resources digital and hard copies of tasks. Being the end of the school year, I have yet to have time to organize everything quite yet, and therefore my cycle is still in action. Nonetheless, if I evaluate what been accomplished to this point, I may be able to make some predictions of what might occur across the summer months. Examining our digital drop box storage account (Box), I see that at the end of the school year we had shared 78 documents. Out of those documents 34 were uploaded my teaching partner and 44 by myself. If you look at those files in regards to content, 62 of the 78 files (or just about 80%) pertain to both classes we teach, which opens the door to many new lessons and ideas for both of us. Table 1: Documents uploaded by fifth grade teachers and their ability to be shared. Uploads Made in our Drop Box Storage Account (Box) 50 Number of Uploads 38 25 13 0 5 My Files 11 My Teaching Partners Files 39 For Both For Self

23

Individual Uploading Files In contrast we have twelve websites bookmarked on Delicious, and all of those have been posted by me. Realistically, toward the end of the school year we are producing more than researching, so limited bookmarks at this point it does not seem unnatural or discouraging at this point in the cycle. It is my hope that as the cycle progresses, my teaching partner and I will utilize this tool as we start to organize our computers and plan for the upcoming year. Reflection: After reflecting on my second cycle, I was left with numerous directions for a third cycle. I had to weigh my options as I wrote a question for this cycle,. After thinking, I narrowed my options

down to looking at student success and expanding on collaborative opportunities through technology. While I thought looking at student success would be fascinating, because my research was rooted in technology tools, I thought it would be helpful to our collaborative efforts to add another resource. I came to this decision after reflecting on the question, why do I think it was necessary to have a place to share documents? I mentioned in my introduction to my research that having enough time to complete things is always an issue for teachers. Instead of dwelling on this problem however, I wanted to seek out a solution. While thinking about dividing work up among teachers, we were currently working on a piece of writing grade wide. In the midst of preparing the materials, I recognized that my teaching partner is stronger at writing details descriptions and directions for projects. I on the other hand feel more comfortable finding ways to assess learning. By addressing our abilities, we both shared responsibilities for the lesson planning and gave each other an example to learn from. I see now how sharing documents can be beneficial to my growth as a teacher. Instead of just copying what my teaching partner is doing, I am given an alternative venue to explore different teaching styles, challenge myself to think of my own students and what may need to be adapted to fit their needs, and gaining creative lesson ideas. With our writing paper, that started as a project when my teaching partner started teaching fifth grade five years ago. This was my first time doing this, and together we developed her idea and changed it to fit two different classes. As I started this cycle I predicted that we would be able to update and share resource that coincided with the content we were teaching during by the end of the school year. Both my teaching partner and self, are constantly on the go during the school year. We are creating and finding resources as needed, which means accessing old files as well as creating completely new ones. Being able to depend on time given in the summer, I believe we will be reflecting on what went well and where improvement is needed, as well as organize ourselves and materials. With that said, cleaning off our school and personal computers is part of that process and it is my hope these tools will come to serve our needs as the summer progresses. I am optimistic of additional resources being added to both of these, and this ideas has acquired an increase in my teaching participation versus what we did with WikiSpace. I personally like the drop box more because of this participation. Perhaps this is a better fit for both of us. Although this cycle is still in progress, I can look towards the future, sharing resources with other teachers. I constantly find resources for primary and middle school teachers because my grade is in the middle of the spectrum. I would be happy to share those resources as I found them in order to help other teachers who may be on the search for specific resources. Through a conversation, I was able to form my first cycle and make a lot of helpful progress this year with my teaching partner. If I had a similar conversation with teachers at my school, I wonder if I would see a similar pattern. For my next steps, I am going to share our Delicious account with teachers at my school. I have a feeling I will not be able to instantly appeal to everyone, but I could at least extend an invitation to see what opportunities would arrive from other staff members.