I
was really excited to be taking this course.
Coming into the course I felt like I had a strong grip in regards to incorporating
technology into my classroom. However,
over the course of this class my eyes were open to some amazing ways to incorporate
technology more into my classroom.
There were two skills that I learned that I have never used before. I discovered how great wikis can be! This is a great collaborative tool that I
think my students will enjoy using. I
also created my first podcast. I think
this is a process that my students would enjoy learning from, but also creating
on their own.
During
this class I learned that students learn differently today than I did. My students respond better to one teaching
style over another. My students have grown
up in a technology saturated world. It
makes sense that they are drawn to doing tasks that incorporate
technology. As a teacher I need to use
this to influence my instruction. I need
to create lessons that will teach my students to be creators of media not just
consumers. I also need to set my
students up to be successful in this Web 2.0 world.
My
perspective has not shifted that much in regards to being learner-centered. I am very fortunate to work with some
incredible teachers. As a team we have
strived to create activities that are empowering our students to do the
learning, and place us in the role of facilitator and supporter. I did walk away from this course having
learned how to better integrate technology into our instruction.
The
biggest hurdle of growing in my use of technology in the classroom is
twofold. First, I need to continue to
experiment and try new skills with technology.
This will help me to gain confidence and comfort so that I can better
teach these skills to my students.
Second, I need to be persistent with my district technology
director. She is hesitant about allowing
students to publish their work on the web.
I need to find ways to show her the benefit of how using things like
wikis could improve classroom instruction and better set our students up for
their future.
Two
long term goals that I have set for myself are, implementing the use of wikis
regularly in my classroom instruction, and creating projects that encourage my
students to create videos or podcasts. As mentioned earlier, the first goal
will require me to convince the district office to see the benefit of using
this form of technology. In order to
achieve my second goal I need to be willing to put in the extra time to create
lessons, projects, examples, and rubrics.
In order to make this attainable, I think that if I were to aim for one
new project per trimester that would be three new projects per year. This should be a manageable goal to attain.
Looking
back at the survey from week one, my answers have not changed very much. If I were to take the survey knowing what I’ve
learned over these past seven weeks I would have answered the questions
differently the first time around.
During this class I have learned that I need to encourage my students to
problem solve more and to push critical thinking. Technology is an incredible tool to help me
accomplish that. At the beginning of
the course I was not tapped in to the educational resources available in the
blogosphere. Moving forward, I need to
continue to check my RSS feed to help keep up with the trends in education, and
I should be contributing to the blogosphere by creating on my own.
