As this course, Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society, draws to a close, I have taken some time to reflect on what I have learned in the last seven weeks. I have been considering how this course of study has impacted my growing technological aptitude, my knowledge of how to integrate technology in my classroom, as well as how I plan to become a “teacher leader” in the area of technology integration going forth.
This course has helped me to develop my own technology skills
as a professional teacher, and I have deepened my knowledge of a teaching and
learning approach that utilizes technology. I have learned how to create a
blog, such as this one. I can now incorporate a wiki into collaborative classroom
projects. I also learned how to record a podcast and incorporate podcasting
into classroom learning activities. These Web 2.0 tools have facilitated
powerful changes in my pedagogy and the content that I teach. This course
helped me understand the distinction between doing things differently and doing
different things with technology, which will dramatically help inform my
teaching practice. I am not just using these new forms of technology to teach
the same old things that I used to; Instead, as Dr. David Thornburg describes,
the power comes when I utilize technology to do different, creative things
(Laureate Education, 2010).
The learning resources in this course really emphasized
being less teacher-centered and becoming more learner-centered. I have always
preferred to use a learner-centered approach in my classroom because I feel
that it meets the individual needs of each student, improves a child’s
motivation to learn, and is more active, with students constantly engaged in
the learning process. I always try to
engage my students in learning through activities like role-playing,
discussing, researching, and collaborating on projects with one another and
their teacher. Now, with the knowledge
gained through this course, I can also integrate the use of blogs, wikis, and
podcasts into my teaching repertoire to create learner-centered activities that
integrate technology in meaningful ways. This course opened my eyes to the fact
that as technology advances, so must my instructional approaches. I must
constantly enhance my teaching repertoire and find new, creative, and inventive
ways to use technology to bring information to students in interactive and
engaging ways. I have found that using technology has made teaching more
interesting and stimulating for me, as the teacher, but also for my students.
It is very is gratifying to see the enjoyment and pride that students exhibit when
they have learned new things while using technology.
We
live in a digitally-driven society. Technology is everywhere, touching almost
every part of our lives in this modern day. Yet, I have experienced a profound
gap between the knowledge and skills learned in school and the skills required for
this 21st century global society. I teach in a poverty-stricken urban district where
our classrooms are frequently lacking in technology resources for student
learning. This challenge of inadequate technology resources for students is
what has motivated me to get my Master’s degree in technology integration at
Walden University. I am determined to
know the latest, greatest, and ultimately best practices that will help my
students acquire the 21st century skills that they will need to be
successful in the future. This course
has helped me understand the importance and necessity of technology usage in
the classroom to prepare students for the demands of the 21st
century workplace. After this course, I plan to continue to expand my knowledge
of learning, teaching, and leading with technology. I have made it my main
objective to design and develop a learning environment that integrates various
technology tools and applications to enrich students’ learning
experiences.
Continuing
education is the first component of my plan to address the challenges
associated with teaching 21st-century skills in today’s schools and in my
classroom. In addition to educating myself and completing this Master’s program
at Walden University, I have set two additional long-term goals that I feel will
help transform my classroom environment. My first goal is to introduce
podcasting to my entire elementary school as a means for students to
communicate information, enhance their technology skills, and develop their
speaking and listening abilities. According
to Tony Vincent (2009), author of Podcasting for Teachers
& Students, “Knowing that there is a real-world audience gives
students purpose and motivation to create a spectacular product. The process of
putting together an audio recording is extremely valuable and is certainly a
cross-curricular experience.” Although
we have the capability and components, podcasting is a technology tool that is
not being utilized in my school.
Teachers may not be informed of the many uses and benefits that
podcasting can bring to our educational setting. As a teacher leader, and our
science and technology area-specialist, I plan to accomplish this goal by educating
other teachers on ways to implement podcasting in the classroom. I will encourage teachers in my school to
begin using podcasting as a forum for documenting field trips, recording class
discussions, sharing book reviews, conducting interviews, or to review
curricular content (Vincent, 2009). Within
the next two years, I plan to develop a club that delivers the school news
through a weekly podcast. Instead of a
traditional newspaper club, this podcast club will allow students to work
collaboratively and with technology to report news stories and current events
with their classmates and with a potentially world-wide audience. Podcasts give students a new way to construct
learning artifacts, work collaboratively, and can empower them to be creative
and innovative. This course has shown me how technology, like podcasting,
can further facilitate the construction of knowledge, and I am so excited to
introduce my students to this tool to yield rich learning experiences.
As a kindergarten teacher, I have the pleasure and the
challenge of exposing my students to technology within their earliest school
experiences. My second goal is to create
a Kindergarten Blog for my classroom. My students are new to reading and
writing, and at first, this technology could be a little advanced for my five-
and six-year old students' capabilities, but I still think that it is very
important to expose them to this vital technology at an early age. I hope that
with continual exposure throughout the year, my students will become familiar
and comfortable with blogging, and by the end of the year, they will be to
publish their own writing to the blog. The great thing about blogs is that
students can work at their own pace and ability level. Some of my students may
be able to write only a sentence, while others can write a short story. This class blog will be a beneficial resource
to introduce my young students to the world of blogging.
My blog will also
be a resource to parents and families. I will also use the class blog to post
pertinent information like calendars, daily schedules, upcoming events,
homework assignments, and various home enrichment activities. It will be a
forum for caregivers to check-in for the latest updates, stay informed of
current kindergarten events, and ask any questions that they may have. I also
plan to use the blog as tool to point parents in the direction of free
resources and opportunities while linking them to learning websites that they
can use with their children to practice and reinforce language and math skills.
I also plan to use the space to share digital photographs of learning
experiences and publish examples of exemplary student work to showcase the
learning and growth that is occurring throughout the school year. I am excited
about the possibilities, and I cannot wait to employ a blog for use in my
classroom! It will be so much fun to discover all the new directions this
technology can take my instruction and my interactions with families.
In the first week of this
course, I was asked to complete a “Self-Assessment Technology Checklist”
to assist me in assessing my own skills and practices regarding integrating
technology in the classroom. Looking back on this
checklist, I have found that my answers have not drastically changed
after completing this course. I entered
this course with an open mind and an understanding of the importance of
incorporating technology in the classroom. If
anything has changed, it would be my proficiency in the usages of various forms
of technology and my enthusiasm for integrating technology. This
course has truly reenergized my approaches to instruction. I am so excited to construct a
classroom learning environment that infuses technology like wikis, blogs, and
podcasting. I know that these tools will help me foster the foundational
21st-century skills that my students will require for success in the
future. I plan to use the
technology-focused knowledge, strategies, and skills that I learned in this
course to create the most effective, motivational, and technologically advanced
learning environment possible. “Classrooms
in the 21st century need to be collaborative spaces where student-centered
knowledge development and risk taking are accepted as the norm and where an
ecology of learning develops and thrive” (Nussbaum-Beach, 2008).
References:
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010). The
emergence of educational technology. Baltimore, MD: David Thornburg, Ed.D.
Nussbaum-Beach, S. (2008). No limits. Technology &
Learning, 28(7), 14–18. Retrieved from http://www.techlearning.com/article/no-limits/44886
Vincent, T. (2009) Podcasting for teachers & students. Retrieved from http://learninginhand.com/storage/podcasting_images/Podcasting_Booklet.pdf
