Reflection

This course is the best I have had at Walden and the best I have had since I began my teacher education.  I think the biggest reason for this is that I was allowed to explore the content on my own--I used every tool in class--and that really helped me evaluate myself as a teacher.  The primary way this course helped me was in showing me some good ways to link all of the technology together.

Prior to this course, I had my own blog and my own Google Reader, but I never thought of combining the two into a tool that I could use to make my life easier as a teacher.  I love using blogs in class and in less than a month, students have grown to love it as well.  I like the convenience of the RSS feed--I can grade anywhere I can access the internet without lugging any papers around--and I have found that students work harder on the blogs than they did on ordinary papers.  I still have a few students who neglect to complete the assignments, but I no longer have any students who only go halfway.  If they take the time to log on, they finish the assignment completely.

The course showed me that tools like podcasts and wikis were available and potentially beneficial for the classroom.  I have yet to use them extensively, but they will definitely be in my mind when I'm coming up with new projects and activities.

I did not expect to emerge from this course more aware of my role as a teacher, yet my focus has shifted almost entirely from a teacher-centered approach to a student-centered approach.  I always wanted to give my students more responsibility for their own learning as opposed to me lecturing day in and day out, but I never found an approach that worked until I started incorporating more technology.  Now, through blogging and other tools I learned in this class, I'm getting a lot more production out of the students.  The best part is that it is not repetition but often new, independent thoughts!  I've been waiting over two years for this!

As I move forward from this class, I think it's important that I continue to utilize the methods from the course.  One that I found especially valuable, more so than the other courses I have taken so far, were the weekly discussions.  I learned something new--a website, a strategy, a lesson--every week.  I would like to try to replicate this experience at my school, perhaps not through a discussion board, but by finding like-minded teachers who have a passion for technology.  I also saw the value of education blogs have in recreating this experience.

With these thoughts in mind, I have prepared two goals for the near future:

Move towards a paperless classroom


If the world is indeed becoming paperless, I would like to prepare students for their role in that world.  I envision the individual blogs of the students becoming the hub for all of their classroom work.  I want students to utilize blogs to share their work with their classmates and to open up opportunities for collaborative research.  Of course, I don't want to go paperless just for the purpose of going paperless, so I want to continue to reflect upon why I am using technology and how it can benefit the students.

Incorporate 21st Century Skills


I had never heard of 21st Century Skills prior to this course and none of the colleagues I have talked to have either.  I really found them to be important for the students and I think it is important that my district shares in this foresight.  I would like to incorporate these skills into the classroom, but, perhaps more importantly, I would like to bring these skills, and technology in general, to my colleagues.  I've already set up a few professional development sessions to share blogging ideas with beginners.  My hope is that my school can be at the front end of technology in the district.