As I reflect upon this class, Understanding the Impact of Technology on Work, Education, and Society, I feel an immense sense of relief and satisfaction at having completed the most challenging class I’ve encountered, to date. This class was exhilarating, exhausting, challenging, and immensely frustrating, all rolled into one great big package!
I struggled more that I anticipated while learning to use the Web 2.0 technologies. Despite those struggles, I can see a multitude of areas that I’ve made growth in! I feel comfortable using not only my own personal blog, but also building and using my classroom blog with my 3rd grade students. I am sure that I learned more than I ever thought possible about the technical capabilities of a wiki page, and I feel quite comfortable that I will be able to build one for my students to use in a collaborative manner. Learning to use and collaborate on a wiki was a very challenging experience that opened my eyes to the importance of teaching my students not only how to use the technology, but also the collaborative skills they will so clearly need to be successful in a technology rich 21st century world. I still need to learn the process of building and setting up a wiki page. I anticipate that challenge to bring with it new revelations and learning that I will be able to share with my students, as well. I had experimented with podcasting prior to this class, but I had never completed the editing process and published it for everyone to see. I feel very confident in the use of podcasting and audiocasting software, but I still need to work on learning how to best upload the finished product to a website or blog. The experience and understanding I have gained about these valuable technologies, while pushing me to my limits of patience, have provided me with very valuable insight to the use of technology in my classroom. I can, through my own experience, understand the problems and challenges that my students will face while using these technologies. These new understandings will only help to improve the quality and significance of the education I provide my students.
The Teaching-Learning cycle has always been an important part of my teaching and the lessons that I build. With better understanding and use of Web 2.0 technology, I know that I will be able to more effectively and efficiently evaluate my lessons and the learning that my students are doing, in order to ensure that students gain the understanding and knowledge that they need. Blogs and wikis allow me to evaluate and modify the learning that students are doing, as well as adjust the lesson to extend the learning of students, or to re-teach and guide students to the learning they need. Blogs, wikis, and podcasts all lend themselves to the creation of student-centered projects that can be used as assessments of and for learning, which in turn allows me to reflect and plan for the next steps in my students’ learning.
Technology programs, especially Web 2.0 technologies, lend themselves extremely well to the development of a student-centered classroom. I now understand that my classroom has been predominantly teacher-centered. I have dictated the information my students learned, and I have directed them to the types of projects they could create in my classroom. With better integration of Web 2.0 technologies and computer-based learning games, my classroom has, seemingly overnight, transformed into a more student-based atmosphere. The use of my classroom blog has given my students a voice in our classroom, because they can comment, ask questions, and add to our learning through their blog responses. Students now have more choice about what they learn, and a choice about how they display the learning and understanding they have gained. In my most recent science unit, students began the unit by asking questions about the topic at hand. Students then divided themselves (with some guidance and input from me) into groups of students with similar interests. Each group chose one of these posted questions and began researching in books and on the Internet to find the answer. As we head into the project production phase of this unit, each of the groups has chosen a different mode of presenting the information they have found. The final projects will include typewritten essays with accompanying graphics and images, video podcasts, slideshow podcasts, and Comic Life poster presentations. The student excitement and engagement in this unit are the highest I have ever experienced in my nine years of teaching, and it is predominantly due to giving my students a choice, voice, and effective technology in their learning. I fully intend to incorporate this type of project and learning wherever I can in my classroom!
The readings and videos provided me with numerous revelations and understandings about technology in the classroom. The greatest of these is the importance of “doing different things” with technology, not just “doing things differently” (Laureate Education, 2008, a & b). Prior to this class, I often used technology to do things differently. Now my classroom focus is on seeing the ways that I can do different things in my classroom, specifically through the use of Web 2.0 technologies. Through learning to use my personal blog in this class, I have felt much more comfortable using my classroom blog to encourage reflection, thinking, and collaboration between my third grade students and myself. That experience has led to a different way of thinking in my classroom, both on my own part as well as my students.
In the next two years, I want to do two very important things to integrate technology and 21st century skills into my classroom. First and foremost, I want to explicitly teach my students how to effectively collaborate with each other, and with experts in the knowledge that they seek. I want to develop a yearlong unit and performance rubric that will help guide students on their journey to becoming an effective and contributing member of our classroom. This will involve developing my own collaborative skills with the teachers and instructional coaches in my building and district, which will require additional time and planning on my part. I have found recently that there are so many teachers around me who have fantastic ideas and skills that are beneficial to both myself and to my students. Teaching my students how to collaborate effectively will also require the dedication of classroom instructional time to topics that are not explicitly defined in the district or state curriculum and standards. In order to show my administrators that this use of classroom time is beneficial and necessary to my students, I will have to provide evidence, in the form of student growth and progress statistics, that this time in my classroom is being spent wisely. Secondly, I want to make computer, Internet, interactive whiteboard, and iPod/MP3 technologies available in my classroom throughout the entire day, to be used in all subject areas. I would like to set a goal of being able to make six to ten computers available to my students in the classroom. This presents several challenges to me as a teacher. In order to have these technologies available for all my students throughout the day, I will need to work closely with my colleagues to utilize the limited technology that is available in the building. I will also need to work closely with my building administrators to be able to allow students to bring their own iPods or MP3 players to class for classroom and instructional use. At this particular time, these objects are considered “toys” and it is not acceptable for students to bring them to school. To obtain this technology, I will more than likely need to write and receive monetary grants from district or outside sources. I am currently working with district instructional technology coaches and my administration to obtain an interactive white board in my classroom on a full-time basis. If these negotiations with administration should fail, I will need to apply for some very specific grants to gain this effective hardware for my classroom.
When I first began this course, I felt I was well on my way to incorporating practices in my classroom that fostered 21st century skills. Upon completing this course, I feel that those skills have improved even further. I find that I have made the most growth in creating lessons that require students to ask questions and use problem solving skills to find the answers they seek. I also feel I have made an enormous amount of growth in using a variety of different technology and media programs to enhance the lessons in my classroom, as well as making those media available for my students to create and publish projects of their own choosing.
While I am relieved that class is complete, I am very aware of the skills and understanding that I have gained over the last eight weeks. This challenging class has provided me with some of the tools I will need to successfully integrate 21st century skills into my classroom teaching and into my students’ learning. That alone makes all of the struggle, frustration, and technology revelation well worth it.
References:
Laureate Education, Inc. (2008). Emergence of Educational Technology [Motion Picture]. [Featuring Dr. David Thornburg].
Laureate Education, Inc. (2008). Evolution of Technology and Pedagogy [Motion Picture]. [Featuring Dr. Chris Dede].
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/99014937@N00/1212722186
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