PART 1

PART 1.A
Rebecca Glatz
HPL 790 Digital Environments Symposium Project
PART 1.B (Context)
The educational context in which I will incorporate my project-based professional
development plan is at a small, private school. As a High Performance Leader, I will be
serving the role as principal. The same teachers have served the school for many years,
and it is in need of some innovation, technology use, and a reminder of the importance of
high performance learning. I would like to help the teachers in my school to become
educational leaders so that our school is continually improving for the benefit of our
students.
PART 1.C (Audience)
The individuals in this context for whom my project-based professional
development plan is intended for the teachers, staff, parents, and ultimately the students
of my school. It will be important that all stakeholders are involved and invested in
making our school a better learning environment as we work through my project-based
professional development plan. As the leader of the school, it is important that I create
this plan to motivate the audience, to work together to bring positive changes to our
school and to better serve our students through the use of innovation and technology.
PART 1.D (Description of the Project Based Professional Development Plan)
This plan involves communication, cooperation, technology, projects, innovation,
student-centered learning, and professional development. It begins by the teachers
coming together to discuss the need for technology as a vehicle for learning. We will

involve everyone in the project of creating a Wordle that represents our goals. After the
discussion, teachers will research technologies that they would like to use, or have used,
in the classroom as a vehicle for learning and share it with the rest of the staff. Staff will
interact and create a discussion forum to share ideas. Throughout the following school
year, the staff will interact and create the main project of this plan: a Squarespace website
that shows the effective use of technology in their classrooms.
PART 1.E (Technologies) (Received full credit, minimal changes were made)
First, Wordle will be used to initiate this project-based professional learning project.
Wordle is a presentation technology that allows for ideas to be organized. As an HPL
leader, I will use this technology as a vehicle to create our shared vision and goals for our
school. Through this experience, teachers will gain experience with Wordle, and be
comfortable using it in their own classrooms. Wordles can be completed and then
compared, or they can be completed together. Either way, using Wordle to initiate this
project allows for communication and will bring people together for our common goal.
This technology helps to create a High-Performance Learning environment because it
promotes reflection and teacher communication prior to our project.
Throughout the project, Edmodo will be used mainly to facilitate the project-based
professional leading project as described in my HPL 770 Symposium Project. Edmodo is
a place where stakeholders, such as teachers and myself, can meet to collaborate. An
important aspect of my project is that teachers collaborate to share ideas. This technology
will be a place for them to do that in order to gain insight on what worked for someone
else or to offer support to another teacher in need. As the HPL leader, I will work through

this technology to facilitate discussions, ideas, and provide feedback. I will encourage all
teachers to participate in these discussions. This technology will also help to sustain our
learning throughout the year. Edmondo will allow for a high-performance learning
environment because it puts the students at the center as teachers discuss their best
practices of serving their learning through technology. In addition, it encourages two-way
communications between the teachers, and between the teachers and myself throughout
the year.
Finally, teachers will use the social media platform of Twitter to sustain the projectbased professional learning project. Each teacher will be provided a Twitter account that
represents his or her role in the school. Through the Twitter account, teachers can
showcase what they have been doing to promote and share what we are doing with
technology in our schools. It will be a great way to communicate with parents and other
teachers. Teachers will use the Twitter feeds regularly to communicate and share ideas in
order to sustain our project. This technology helps to sustain a High Performance
Learning environment because it serves the students by communicating with parents and
involving parents with learning. It encourages two-way communication because parents
are able to respond to teachers through Twitter.
PART 1.F (Framework for Digital Pedagogy) (Received full credit, minimal changes
were made)
Within the monological form of teaching, the teacher is the expert communicator
of knowledge. It is important how a teacher relays the learning goals and expectations.
The Couros book mentions how integrating tools is particularly relevant in this form of

teaching. I believe that expressing the goal within my project-based professional

development plan prior to the start of the project relates to the monological form of
teaching. In addition, using various technological tools relates to the monological form of
teaching.
The dialogical form of teaching refers to the idea that the learner will interact with
the outside world and by solving problems. I believe that the part where learners research
different ways to incorporate technology and use it as a vehicle for learning aligns most
closely with a dialogical form of teaching. I believe that as the learners work with
established technology in the outside world they will learn how to better use it within
their own context.
The polyphonic form of teaching refers to the idea that the learner has basis of
knowledge that can be developed through interactions with others. The learner takes
relevant parts of information to help find a solution to a problem. I believe that the
discussion board within my project-based professional development plan relates to
polyphonic form of teaching. The discussion board format allows learners to share ideas
and learn from each other. Learners can share information, and use what others have
shared to build upon their understanding and ideas.
PART 11: PowerPoint and Articulate
Please see additional documents.

Part 111: Reflection on Learning

This course encouraged me to think about the need for a digital environment in all
classrooms. As technology becomes a standard in everyday life, it is important that we
use it to educate students so that they can be successful. As a learner in this course, I was
able to gain insight on why technology is important, how I can implement it usefully and
effectively, and that it should be used as a vehicle for learning. As a future high
performance-learning leader, I was able to use this course to give me insight on how to
guide others to appreciate the importance of technology and using it as a vehicle for
learning.
When analyzing what I have learned about myself as a learner throughout this
semester in HPL 790, I believe that I have gained an appreciation for using technology in
the classroom. As someone who has grown up using technology as a tool for learning, I
took it for granted. Now, as an educator and future leader, I see how technology should be
thoughtfully placed within a learning environment so that it can be used as a vehicle for
learning. My understanding went from allowing technology to exist in my educational
environment to proactively using it to promote learning.
While creating my project-based professional development plan I was able grow
in many areas. As a scholar practitioner, I was able to gain knowledge about the
importance of technology, how technology can be used in an educational setting, and
understand research that supports the use of technology. As a future leader, I think that it
is crucial to understand and provide research to support the future goals I will have for
my school. I was able to use research to support the information I provided in my project-

based professional development plan. Through being an educational leader in HPL, I now
have the skills and knowledge to help educate teacher to help create the new learning
environment that focuses on learner centrality.
As I continue learning about High Performance Learning I am also growing as a
leader. Previously, I thought of a leader as someone who took charge of situations, but
now I have a different understanding. I now view being a leader as someone who can
motivate others positively, and help others to become leaders through instruction,
example, and encouragement. It is important to positively motivate others to be
educational leaders. With many leaders working on the same goal, more can be
accomplished.
I believe that the project-based professional development plan provides systemic
and sustainable goals. It is a project that can be on going and allows for opportunities of
reflection and feedback. In addition, it provides an opportunity for teacher to
communicate and work towards a common goal. As an HPL educational leader, I believe
this project-based professional development plan will play a key role in allowing me to
create, shape, and sustain an HPL environment in a future school.
This assignment as helped me to reflect on my job as a leader in HPL, and the
importance of innovation. As we work towards a shift in education, we will need many
people who are willing to take the extra step when helping student learn. It is clear that
technology will be forever a part of our lives, so it is important that we incorporate a
digital environment within the school context. This assignment helped me understand
why and how this can be done, specifically referencing The Innovators Mindset.