Reflection on Week 5

Reflection on Week 5

I envisioned a course that provided deep understanding of technology implementation into a school or district. My expectations were set low because after I took the pre-test assessment, I found that I was lacking in many areas. With that being said, I wanted to learn about the interworking with technology and what needs to be done to implement it into a school. I also found myself relating to my administrators currently on staff and why they want us to know and create different ideas in staff meetings. I had to dive deep into how our district’s infrastructure to see and understand how it is set up and created. I needed to see the alignment of our curriculum and how it relates to the 21st century learner and teacher. Reviewing and analyzing those plans helped me also to create meaningful professional developments that were engaging to the professional staff we have. Looking back, I believe I achieved most of what I envisioned for myself at the beginning of the course. As I stated before, I started to compare what I was learning with what our current administration was doing.

Through the course, I got the opportunity to interview a few professionals at my school to see if my thoughts and assumptions were correct about our District’s and schools plan for the 21st century learner and teacher. Talking with our school’s technical professional, she told me and helped me analyze our current Long – Range Plan for Technology for our District. We first took a look at the over Texas Long Range Plan and compared the two. Since she was on the board of technology, she gave me great insight on how they decided to put in and leave out of our districts’ plan. I initiated a conversation with her another day trying to find out where we stood today compared with other districts and schools. This is where I began my research with the STaR chart data and how it relates to school. It seems, from the data, that we are on track of a Target area, which tells me that we are accomplishing many technological goals, yet still have many to be reached for. She also explained that technology is a part of the curriculum and is used as a tool for research, information acquisition, problem solving, and communication. This ultimately led to another expectation I had before taking this course was to learn something to put into practice immediately.

The readings and discussions where well structured throughout the weeks where I found different ideas and tested them out during the semester. The articles opened up my eyes a little wider when they discussed how the new students learn and how we need to change what we are currently doing to broaden our students’ idea about school. The assignments pushed me to try new things, like blogging. I am a “digital native” in some areas, but this helped me break old habits and try new ones. One thing on my side is my attitude towards technology. It needs to be implemented because its capabilities are vast.

One of those capabilities is blogging. This is an innovative way to let students comment and analyze other classmate’s ideas, suggestions, or products. It also provides a forum to let them speak their minds in teacher organized fashion. It creates an online discussion forum to let them see if they are following directions correctly. It can also be a resource center or to guide others on how to research online. It promotes reading and writing in an outside forum. Basically, it helps them to collaborate on information about school. Another advantage of blogging is to communicate with the parents and community on what your class is doing at any time. The connects the community and the school and keeps everyone on the same page.

There are some concerns. Blogs may be viewed publicly, as any other Web site. Students must be trained on issues regarding access, privacy, security, and free expression. As blogs have no publisher, producer, or editor, students must carefully consider the content of postings to avoid anything defamatory, or infringing upon the rights of others. Another concern are that blogs are created by individuals for various and assorted purposes and sometimes content should can be misinterpreted and not recognized as the opinion of the blogger. This is where grading can be a bit tougher than usual.

Through this course, I have made the realization that technology makes learning an active process where students are engaged in meaningful learning opportunities. Implementing technology is a tool that allows students to access current information and creates a learning environment that is comparable to the real world. Through my interviews, assignments, videos, readings, the round table interviews, and my own personal experiences, I started to understand how to enhance and enrich campus curriculum, teaching, and learning. After reviewing and analyzing different areas of technology through the course, I came to the conclusion that our educators must learn to access and incorporate a wide variety of appropriate resources for instructional support, research and administrative tasks to better our educational system. By connecting students to an international learning community, we, as teachers, aim to develop life-long learners who are proficient, productive, and capable of successfully competing in our ever changing world. If that vision is shared and implemented, our future students and teachers will work seamlessly with technology in everyday use.