Sunday, June 28, 2009

Reflection

Taking this technology course has been amazing. I always thought I was okay with technology and teaching it. It wasn't until now that I realized how much I'd been missing. Being forced to dive right in has helped develop my skills in ways simply reading a book would never have done. Also, the mere fact that I was forced to dive in showed me the best way in which to teach technology to my students. Although I realize I will need to model every new step, I also now realize that the teaching and learning process is best cemented by doing...not simply watching. I saw this first hand with the few lessons I was able to do with my students this year before summer break. They were so excited to learn new technology and could barely wait to dig right in. They had a hard time focusing on the entire modeling lesson because in their heads they had already jumped right into the "doing" part. Through blogging and creating wikis with my class this year I was clearly able to see how the shift is taking place from teacher centered to learner-centered. We all were learning from each other. I'm sure this is how technology will be. While I can introduce it to my students, I know that they will soon be teaching me new aspects of each tool as they are more fearless in their quest to "know it all" and "try it all." It's an exciting time to be sure!

I know my learning will not stop with just this class. There are many more classes to come. I think the best way to expand my knowledge and learning is to keep myself on this path of moving forward and bringing as many students along with me as possible. I will have to shift my thinking and my planning of many lessons in order to incorporate these tools. I am sure there will be a lot of learning what works and what does not work. Many things I will need to learn and finesse will be the management of it all and making sure that the technology is a means to improve the lesson, not just add technology for technology's sake.

The long term goals I set will be two fold. First, I will do what I can with what I have. I will not focus on what I don't have, but instead work with what is available to me now and find ways to make this work with my students. In two years I want my students to know what it is like to blog and to create wikis. I will replace written reports (some, not all) with wikis in which groups collaborate together. I feel it will probably take two years to get this process to run smoothly, with lots of trial and error, I'm sure. Another goal would be to deal with the institutional and systemic obstacles. Fortunately, there are four of us taking this program together and we are now all at the same school. I think that will truly increase our ability to overcome some institutional barriers simply because there is power in numbers. We four are spread out amongst grade levels and will be able to help bring others into the fold of technology. We are also blessed with a principal who seems willing and excited to make the shift along with us. In two years I would hope that we would have most grade levels on board with the use of technology to increase our lessons and bring our school and our students into the skills necessary for the 21st century.
Tonya

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Podcast of Technology Through the Ages

I recently created a podcast using my own children. I have a child in elementary school, middle school and high school. It was interesting to see the differences in technology use. Interestingly enough, the high schooler was probably the one who uses technology the least actually at school, yet she is the one who uses it the most for school assignments at home. In fact, if the high school server is down it creates panic because assignments cannot be seen. In many ways they are oblivious as to how much their life is ruled by technology because it is simply what they've always known. Enjoy the podcast and try to ignore the middle part of my oldest laughing so hard she could not talk. Thank you dead air! Technology or not, teenage girls will never change.

http://tborns.podomatic.com/entry/2009-06-03T19_54_45-07_00