Reflection

I have learned a lot from the class I am currently in for Walden University. I have learned that really, I am not as good with technology as I thought I was. There are so many new programs that I have never even heard of. If it weren't for Walden, who would have shared these with me?

This course has shown me that there is more than PowerPoint out there to teach with. I love to use technology and have learned of so many new ways to use it in my classroom. I am able to now look at lessons and be able to incorporate different forms of technology into them. Some of these lessons call for me to use more technology and others have the students working with it.

My knowledge has been depended by the introduction of wikis, blogs, and pod casts. I had heard all of those words before but had never worked with any of those resources. In fact, they scared me! I thought that they items called for a lot of work and were not very useful in teaching. I think this is how many people think. I was wrong. All of these items can be incorporated into lessons that will help our students succeed.

I do not think that my perspective has changed when it comes to a teacher centered classroom compared to student centered classroom. I have always been the type of teacher who lets the students take control of their learning. There is no better way to lose a student than to stand up and lecture. I never ever do this. Even when I need to stand up and talk, the students are fully involved in this. I hate when students sit idly and watch me teach. No learning is done when this happens.

I think there are many ways to continue to expand my knowledge of learning, teaching and leading with technology. In order to do this, I must stay up to date with current technology. I would like to continue my masters program, which will hopefully continue to teach me new things. I would also like to take classes in technology resources that I am not familiar with. This will allow me to learn more which in return will allow me to share what I have learned with my students.

One of the long term goals that I have is to use blogs in my classroom. I would love to have students be able to send me questions through blogs. We could also complete entire lessons using blogs. Students can just sign in and get the directions and lesson without having to have me explain it first. This will take basic training to help the students understand how to get started, but I believe that after one time the students would be ready to go. I also think this would need to be allowed by my school system, which is one barrier I face very often.

Another goal that I have is to educate my students on all the new technology. Being a SS teacher, I am allowed a bit more flexibility then other teachers. I would like to take a day or two a month and explore what technology has to offer. In order to do this I would submit lesson plans to my administration and discuss with them the positive things that studying technology can do.

I don't think that much has changed in my checklist. I am not, or was not, as proficient at technology as I thought, but this is changing. I look forward to continuing the path I am on towards my masters and am excited to learn about all the technology that exists.

21st Century Skills

Well, I have started to look through this website and, while it may be because its after a full day of work and the gym and cooking and cleaning, well, its a bit confusing. I understand their mission is to help students learn the skills they need for success in the real world. I never spent much time thinking about the fact that we are not fully preparing our students for whats to come. True, I have spent some time wondering why the students need to know the government of random countries in Africa, or why students need to memorize the Chinese Dynasties, but I never thought about the stuff that was missing. This site shows me what we are lacking. I do feel like we focus a lot on problem solving, as it is an idea that lends itself to any subject and any topic, but what about the others? Communication skills could greatly help our students. How many of them miss out on jobs because no one has ever taught them to interview? Interpersonal skills...amazing! Students need to be able to self direct and that is something I find that they are not able to do.
I love the idea of getting business to work with our students. People who work in the business world are much better suited to teach about these skills then we are. I cannot teach how to communicate with professionals outside the education world as well as others can. How amazing is it to have a place to go to find these resources.
This website has worked to build 21st century skills into our everyday core subjects. What a great way to teach all of our students need. I feel that unless we think more about this and dive deeper into the idea of 21st century skills that we will be giving our students a disadvantage.

To blog or not...that is the question.

Today I spent some time with our LSTC discussing the ideas for using blogs in the classroom. The same problem kept arising. How do we allow our students to blog, and blog safely? She informed me that this has been a continuing problem at all the county meetings she attends. We want to use blogs, she says, but the county discourages us from doing so due to liability issues. She told me that there are certain blog sites that allow for an adminstrator to check all posts and comments before they are allowed to be posted on the blog, and that this is the only way we could possibly use this wondeful asset in the classroom. This is a bit discouraging because honestly, who has the time to check every posting and every comment that comes through the blogs of the 120 students I teach?
All that aside, I would really like to use blogs. I belive that we could incorporate them into the classroom in many ways. I could possibly make it an alternative way of communication between the students and myself. Maybe students would feel more comfortable asking questions when not faced with, well, face to face contact.
Perhaps we can use blogs in the classroom to allow students to show what they understand in a more creative way. They can post their comments and thoughts on subjects and other students can respond.
In my school, students are required to create a portfolio with artifacts from each subject along with rational about their material. I really think that a blog would be a great place to do this. At the moment, we have trouble maintaining the paper portfolios for each student because it winds up being a lot of material, along with a lot of work for the teachers having to shuffle folders between themselves. We do have the electronic option, but as computers do, we often have crashes and all of the students work is lost. On top of the frequent loss, maintaining 1000 students work can be overwhelming for both the system and the system maintainer. How wonderful would it be to blog this material?! Students could scan their material and then blog their responses. The reviewers could then make comments and post their ideas on that information. The more I talk about it, the more it totally seems to make sense!!! The blog would never "disappear" and could follow the student all the way to college! I love this idea and can't wait to share it with my administrators.

And the vacation is over...

How fast did Winter Break go this year? I feel like i just said good-bye to my students for the holidays and now here we are, less then 15 hours from being back at work!!! I am looking forward to seeing my kids. We start our new unit and I am busy thinking of all the different ways that I would like to share Africa with my students. But before I get into the units I am going to teach, I am going to take one last night to sit back with my husband and enjoy the quiet.

My first Blog

My name is Arielle Book and this is my first blog. I am currently working towards my masters degree at Walden University in Intergrating Technology into the Classroom. Blogging is new to me and I am excited to see what it allows me to do!!