As an educator in the 21st Century, everything I
do in the classroom is in constant transition.
I have to think carefully about the activities that I have students do
and consider whether or not I think an activity will help my students reach the
goals I have for them as I want to develop them into 21st Century
learners. Throughout this course, I have
developed my own technology skills even further, and I have also revised my
understanding of the role of the teacher in the classroom. I have also set goals for myself as a learner
and a teacher to continue improving my understanding of teaching and learning
through continued study.
One way that I have developed my technology skills even
further is through the forced use of a blog and wiki—these were tools that I
had not understood at all before, but now I feel somewhat comfortable with each
of them (specifically with the blog), and I am hoping to use them in my
curriculum for the coming year. I have
been afraid to try blogging with my students up until now because I was not
sure what blogging would look like, and I was afraid to create an assignment
where I would not know the outcome before beginning. I am still somewhat nervous to have my
students work on a blogging assignment, but at the same time very excited. My plan is to create an assignment where
students will make a video trailer of their favorite book, and have these
videos be posted to the classroom blog where other students can comment on the
videos and receive recommendations for their next read. Another way that my technology skills have
developed is that I feel more comfortable looking up how to do something, and
now know that there are a variety of places to look—for example a Youtube
video, or a blog posting, or a forum discussion.
This class has taught me to think about the activities in my
classroom in a much more critical light, and thoughtfully consider if the
activities are teacher-centered or learner-centered activities. Unfortunately, most of the activities that I
have been using I inherited from my colleagues, who created them over ten years
ago. This means that most of the
activities are not created to use technology, and most of them require
significant teacher support to complete.
It is my goal for this coming school year to revise a least a few of
these activities to increase the amount of collaboration the students can have
with each other, and also increase the amount of technology access I provide
and require. I have also learned to
think of the technology activities in terms of which specific skills they are
developing. Many students need to work
on their communication, collaboration, and creativity skills, and I want my
activities to provide opportunities to work on these skills. For example, in my fifth grade class we do a
unit about explorers, and in the past I have had students create an independent
project where they made a video to inform an audience about the explorers. However, I am thinking about how I can modify
this assignment to include more collaboration and communication—perhaps blog
postings so that students can comment or each other’s work, or a
GooglePresentation of some kind so that I can have students work in groups on
their projects together.
One of my long-term goals for my classroom is to have at
least one collaborative technology project a trimester, where students have to
do everything as a group, from the research to the final product. I want to be able to have my students
experience the successes, challenges, and even frustrations of group
collaboration in a structured environment where I can provide support as
necessary. Another goal of mine is to
work towards getting more technology for my classroom, either through writing
grants, obtaining school funds, or whatever else I need to do. I have about a 2:1 ratio of students to
computers now, but I know that in order to maximize group work and student
growth, especially in writing, I need to have a 1:1 ratio of students to
computers. With this new technology,
however, I want to be very thoughtful about providing opportunities for
students to use it and grow as learners, and not just be providing a “fancy”
technology experience.
In looking back at my checklist from Week 1 of this course,
I see two areas of major growth in myself.
I used to assign technology projects for the sake of technology only,
and did not effectively design the learning projects around the most useful technology
available. What I see that I need to do
now is first outline the objectives of my lesson, and then create the project
and technology use around these goals. I also see that my own personal collaboration
with other technology-minded people is going to make a big difference in my
ability to successfully integrate these skills.
One of the big “movements” in learning in my school district takes
students away from technology and moves the teacher back to the front of the
classroom, which means that I have to be very intentional about whom I go to
for collaboration questions. I am
looking forward to this coming school year when I will have a new classroom
full of students and a huge number of new ideas that I’m looking to try. I am very grateful to this class for pushing
me out of my comfort zone with technology and forcing me to try new
things. I know that these new skills
will make a significant difference in the learning that my students will
experience in the coming year.
