Course Reflection

My thoughts about teaching can be summarized in one statement. Teaching is about learning. Hopefully my students learn the content and about themselves as people, but that is only part of it. Teaching is about the teacher learning also. As a teacher, one of the things I learn about is the best ways to impart information to my students and prepare them for their adult lives and/or future education. The Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society course has helped to further my teaching and learning in a variety or ways.
Focusing on my own technology skills, the course allowed me to explore tools such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other Web 2.0 tool. A majority of those tools are new to me as I have never taught with them or learned through using them. While taxing at times, thinking about and using these devices has allowed me to see their potential educational value. I struggled with being new to using those tools which provided me with insight on to how best to facilitate their use with my students. I came into this course with a strong technological background, but left with a drive to make my students 21st century learners.
Throughout this course I have found several great blogs which provide a variety or ideas for technology integration. I have subscribed to these blogs and plan to continue to follow postings on those sites. Academically, I will continue to expand my knowledge by continuing this Walden masters program. Hopefully upon completion of this program, I will be able to spearhead for some technological professional development. As far as increasing student achievement, I strongly feel that as student engagement increases through the use of technology then so will student achievement. When using most technology in the classroom, students become more active participant in classroom activities. If a student is involved and excited about what they are learning, then their natural curiosity takes over and they retain so much.
Over the next two years, I hope to build a bank of 21st century lessons that actively engage my students. While it is a daunting task to make this transformation over night, allowing myself to focus on one topic at a time will have the best results for my students. Over that time frame and into the future, I plan to try new things in my classroom and then evaluate their effectiveness. I will also lobby heavily in my district to allow the use of Web 2.0 tools in the classroom. Currently we are not allowed to use any blogs, wikis, or teacher created websites. Technology is not going away and in order to prepare our students for the world we need to teach them how to properly use it.