Technology Reflections

Technology Reflections

What outcomes had you envisioned for this course? Did you achieve those outcomes? Did the actual course outcomes align with those that you envisioned?

Outcomes:
At the beginning of this course, I was excited about the new learning with technology. I had not had much experience with creating power point lessons, or blogs. As I began to watch the videos, I became aware of just how much of my life is affected by technology, and how little I really knew about it. Having taught and been very successful doing things the way I have always done them, I really never realized how much more I could be doing with technology applications even at the 5th grade level. I need to change my teaching strategies to keep up with the world my students are living in to make the learning more meaningful to them. I had not ever heard of Pod casting, blogging, and Wikis, or how they could be utilized effectively in the classroom. I also was not aware of all the ethics involved in technology use. I am excited about the knowledge gained in this course on the use of Blogs in the classroom and the power point skills I gained. I gained much more than I had envisioned.



To the extent that you achieved the outcomes, are they still relevant to the work that you do in your school? Why or why not?

Relevance:
I am a Language Arts and reading teacher at Alto Middle School. The new information from this course will be very relevant to my teaching. My students use Microsoft word weekly to type monthly reflections of their learning and activities. It would be very exciting for them to post these reflections in Blogs for others to view or for their family members to view. I would also like to create Blogs for them to ask questions about homework assignments or projects or to offer suggestions to their friends. I also feel that creating Pod cast or using the United Streaming videos or other educational videos to supplement the teaching would make the learning more exciting for my students. It would also provide experiences for things they know nothing about. I also learned that the more I use technology myself, the more I learn new things that are out there to use in my classroom. As a teacher, I need to make sure that I continue to be a life-long learner for my students. I must never get so “stuck” on doing the same things the same way day after day. This course taught me that I must use the same technology to keep the interest of my students that they are using at home. Otherwise, they will just tune out.




What outcomes did you not achieve? What prevented you from achieving them?


Outcomes not achieved:

While I enjoyed the new learning, I did not feel there was enough application of the new technologies learned. I learn best by doing rather than by just reading about things. I felt there needed to be more hands-on activities to actually utilize the new technology that was introduced. This would have made the video lectures more relevant and more applicable. I really did appreciate being introduced to the new uses for technology, but the depth to which we went into them was a little disappointing to me. I would like to have had more application training on how to actually take blogging into the classroom for a room full of students. Knowing how to create and set up one for myself is a lot different than setting one up for a whole class of students. I would really like to do that, but do not really know how to successfully accomplish that. I am from a very small school district. We just do not have the experiences with hands-on applications enough. I feel I need to be more confident in applying the new things I learned and there really isn’t anyone in my district who uses blogging to help me out. I will seek further training in this area though, so I can achieve the new ideas that were introduced.




Were you successful in carrying out the course assignments? If not, what prevented or discouraged you?

Success with Assignments:
I felt successful at carrying out the course assignments. The time period to do the lessons was adequate. I hated that it fell during spring break, because I was out of town one week with my family and had to spend the evenings working on the class, but that is just the way it goes sometimes. While I did have adequate time for the lessons, I struggled at times to understand clearly what the lesson wanted me to do specifically. Because the Blogging and Power points were such a new area for me, I just needed a few more basic instructions. I am sure that posting the Blog and creating the power point took me much more time that it should have. I had to keep re-reading the instructions and achieved the completion by trial and error. I did feel frustrated at times. I also felt participation in the web discussions was not easy. I did not have the web camera and other equipment to participate. I could not access these either from my home computer. I tried, but could not ever get it to work. The assignments did give me some wonderful ideas of new things I can do in my classroom with technology. I just needed a little more in-depth instruction on the implementation of the new things than was given.



What did you learn from this course…about yourself, your technology and leadership skills, and your attitudes?

Learning from the course:
I gained much new knowledge about technology. One thing I learned was that I discovered how computer illiterate I really am. There are just so many things out there now that could enhance my instruction that I am not aware of or knowledgeable about. Technology can be such a wonderful asset in the classroom. I learned that as a future administrator, I need to make sure that I provide training for my veteran teachers who grew up like I did, not in the computer age. It’s not that my generation doesn’t want to use technology, it’s just that we lack the understanding and knowledge to do so. I also know that if I am to be a successful administrator, I must become more literate with technology applications in education. I know that I am respected as a leader and looked to for advice. I need to show that learning never needs to stop and that it is ok not to know how to do something as long as you are open-minded about trying it out. I also feel that if I am an administrator in a small district, I need to seek ways to help the minority students reduce the learning gap with technology. Just like the quote from this week’s reading stated, “Failure to provide adequate technological resources for all translates into failure to provide quality education, creating an even greater divide between affluent and poor school districts.” We just can’t afford to widen the learning gap just because of socio-economic or cultural differences our students can’t help or change. Administrators must seek out grants or others strategies to lessen the gap and create equal access for all students.
Mason, C.Y., & Dodds, R. (2005). Bridge the digital divide for educational equity. The Educational Digest, 70(9), 25-27.

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National Educational Technology Plan: Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology

Technology now impacts every thing we do daily. We must bring the advances made in technology to the classroom. Teachers must teach in new ways. We need to focus on what our students need to know, how they can best learn it, and where and when they will learn. Never before have schools had the resources availalble to them that they have today. They can network with other teacher's other school's or other professionals and bring the world into the classroom. Yet this is not what is happening. We are so afraid of bringing the wrong things in that we bring nothing and ignore the millions of resources right at our fingertips. The largest hindrance according to the study, is that we do not have an integrated web system available showing or networking all of the student data and resources the way health services, telecommunications, or financial systems have done. Ideally curriculum would be integrated with web resources to literally bring the world to the students. This would help all students regardless of socio-economic status to truly be on equal playing fields with the experiences they could have and the learning process. So many students never leave their home towns. With the WEB, all students can travel anywhere they need to. They can also have experts in their fields share first hand knowledge. We just need to work on the technology integration to make this a reality for future educators and students.

Long Range Plan for Technology

After reading and summarizing the Long Range Plan for technology, I realized that our nation has become totally dependent on technology. In order to survive in the future, and to live happily in today's society, we are going to have to be able to adapt to the use of technology and become better users of it ourselves. As a future administrator, I must not only insist that technology be utilized daily in instruction for my students, but I must also become more knowledgeable of it myself and model its use in my daily dealings with students, parents, and staff. Teaching in the future is going to become more technology based and less and less pencil and paper based. We as educators must turn to the future and embrace the changes in order to make our lives as educators easier and more proficient. Access to our students and their needs will be much more quickly available. We must use the technology to develop individualized instruction plans to help every student reach his/her potential. As a leader it will be essential to integrate as much new technology into our district, so that we can give the students the best opportunities to survive and compete in a world that relies solely on technology.

Texas Long Range Plan for Technology, 2006-2020: Teaching and Learning

The goal of the plan for teaching and learning is to make sure all students are totally actively engaged in the learning process, and to give them the opportunity to use basic skills at home and in the community. We can no longer allow the old way of teaching. Students must have an individualized plan that fits their individual needs, not a one size fits all theory. One major new change that has helped greatly is distance learning. It empowers schools to overcome the potential limitations of their local resources. It also provides schools the resources to offer each student opportunities to learn things that formerly just could not be offered due to the cost. Learners of today have access to relevant technologies, tools, and services for individualized instruction anytime daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly. They can also use information and communicate instantly and easily with groups of peers, and in a variety of ways. Learners of the 21st century must realize that wanting to learn more about a topic than what is taught is a valuable part of learning.
The development of this area is crucial to the success of the whole program. The development of new ways to teach, but even more importantly, providing the most up-to-date equipment has made this area strong. My district in particular, continues to give us the equipment and access to resources which will continue to develop the area of Teaching and Learning. New computers and opportunities for career development have helped my campus move toward integrating more technology into our curriculum. Our district has also received grant money to purchase Elmo’s and projectors to make students more actively involved in their learning.
The key area to success of this area will be that the teachers and students buy into the fact that change is necessary, and that we must be willing to adapt to these changes. The one certainty in life is that it will not stay the same. So many veteran teachers know so much less about technology than the students they teach. Instead of embracing this knowledge and getting students to help them, they feel intimidated and fight the change. To be successful in anything, one must seize the opportunities that are available to them and use them in a constructive way to become a better part of society.
My recommendations for this area to keep improving, is to continue teaching to every students’ individual need, and finding ways to fund the necessary changes even with all of the budget shortfalls districts are facing for the coming school year.