This year I am a Stride Connector for our elementary school, a member of our iTeam,

and a member of our Tech PLC. All three involve content knowledge, technology
implementation vocabulary, and knowledge of visual, multimedia integration to enhance
instructional design. Being involved in all three has encouraged me to continue to develop the
above communication styles/skills.

To be specific, I am going to use being a Stride Connector for Stride Academy at my

school as my example. Stride Academy is a program used by our district. All students have
access at school and at home and the program adapts to where the student is at according to
the answers the students give in Math, Reading, and ELA. Students earn badges and coins to
play games so it is very motivating for many students. As a school, especially this year, we are
focusing on using Stride to assess where students are at and what skills/concepts need to be
retaught/focused on again. Educators can create specific quizzes for certain concepts and after
the students finish the assessments, there is a plethora of data that the educator receives and
even suggestions of problems the students should be working on in certain areas. This is a
wonderful program/technology tool, but there are a lot of technicalities and bits of information
about the program that many teachers do not receive/don’t take the time to investigate. My role
is to go to various meetings/professional developments to gain content knowledge as well as
learn how to enhance instruction in the classroom. Then I head back to my elementary school
and communicate the key points/ideas for enhancing instruction in the best way for the
classroom using Stride Academy. Normally, I become the “communication bridge.” I know how
to communicate (although still greatly learning) on a slightly more technical side with the Stride
developers using vocabulary that others might not know/have not developed yet. Then I take
back what is communicated with me to my fellow teachers and use vocabulary that makes more
sense and visuals that make a little more sense. Teachers are on different levels with Stride
Academy and I try to meet them where they are at to the best of my abilities. I know that I am a
very visual person when it comes to showing others how to use technology effectively.
Sometimes, sending out a Google Doc with links and visuals/step-by-step directions is the best
way to communicate with other teachers at my school and it is most time effective. At other
points, the best communication happens when someone else and I meet up and I can show
them specifically how to solve a problem or enhance instruction on Stride.

To close, I am developing everyday in communicating and I know I have a lot to learn!

Being a part of the teams listed above helps me to intentionally build my
communicating/communication skills!