How Have I Grown?

I have learned so many new technologies over the past couple of months and I am sad that EDU 554 is over. This course has helped me to force myself to learn about these new technologies. I always felt like I could improve the classes that I was teaching and incorporate more technology, but I didn’t know what to use. Now, I can add WebQuests, Skype, Podcasts, Blogs, Social Networking, etc. into my classroom. I think I have grown the most in just making myself sit down and research these new items. I have figured out how to actually use them in my classroom and I have shared the ideas with other teachers. Because I have learned these new tools, I truly believe that my teaching is going to change for the better. I feel that I am going to help prepare my students for their futures in a better way. They already use technology in all aspects of their lives and I am going to be incorporating it more into their educational lives as well. I think it will make my classes more interesting and help prepare my students for the 21st century. My goal is to use the technology to teach the students my curriculum and also to allow the students to use the technology as much as possible in my classroom. I’m excited and can not wait to continue to bring new ideas into my classroom each and every day!

Teacher Leader

I can be a teacher leader for technology integration in my school in several ways. First of all I am part of the Business Department and many of the teachers come to us for help with technology already. I am going to start to include more of the technologies that I have learned about into my classroom. I want to have my students start a blog and use that on a weekly basis in my Careers and Digital Tools classes. I am going to invite professionals to Skype with my Careers class about their careers, education, and skills needed to be successful. I am also going to work on getting email or another form of communication like Twitter allowed for our students in school because it is not allowed at this time. I think if I can successfully implement these technologies into my classroom and students are learning, having fun, and being prepared for the 21st century word will spread to other teachers. I would be willing to help other teachers learn about these new technologies in a one-on-one environment or in a group setting. Just today the question came up in the lunch room – what are your thoughts on letting students have their cell phones in class? The immediate response by almost every teacher in the room was – that’s crazy, why would we want to allow that? So they can openly text each other? Allowing students to have access to their cell phones in class could open up so many possibilities with these technologies. I am willing to be the trial classroom and pass my findings on to other teachers in the building. I just want to best prepare my students for the future and I feel that exposing them to technology in school is a great way to do that.

Concerns About Technology

While completing my Technology in Education course I am learning many new technologies to incorporate into my classroom. I am getting more comfortable with these new technologies, but I do still have concerns about using Internet technologies in my classroom. The biggest issue would be that it won’t work. We have a lot of websites at my school that are blocked for the students and teachers. I can not work on Internet assignments at home because the sites that I can access at home are different than the sites that I have access to at school. Some things at school are blocked for students only. I really have a problem with that because I could try out a Website on my computer at school and then make up a really great lesson. The students then go to access the sites and they are blocked from them. This is very frustrating because of the amount of time that I spend planning and then the lesson doesn’t work. The other issue that I might have with using new Internet technologies is that sometimes our server goes down, it doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. I then have a room full of students and a lesson that isn’t going to work. I always have to have a backup plan.

I think I could alleviate some of these concerns by being prepared. I will make sure I try the web sites out prior to presenting the lesson and also have a student try the site out to ensure that they will have access to it. If a site is blocked for the students I can talk to my technology coordinator at school to get it off of the blocked list. I just have to send him an email with the URL and why I want to use the site and he will usually take it off of the blocked list. I will also have a lesson that I can use in case the Internet does go down, this will help alleviate my concerns of a class full of students and no access to the computers.