Teaching+with+Technology+5364

Reflection: When beginning this course I envisioned several new forms of new technology that I could use in my classroom. I thought it would be like an up to date staff development. While the two books that we reviewed did offer several examples or links to some of the new applications of technology being used in classrooms today, I didn’t really learn anything new. I was introduced to some very intriguing ideas and/or sites that I can use. At times becoming distracted from my assignments to go exploring and letting my mind drift on how I can apply or use this in my classroom. I don’t think the class outcomes of this class have met up with what I had envisioned, but I now have a wealth of resources at my fingertips that if I take the time to utilize will provide the outcome I envisioned. Hopefully with some extra time I will be able to develop some lessons using these sites.

Now that I am armed with a wealth of resources, I think the outcomes are relevant to what I do in my class. Because my class is an elective, I am afforded with a little more freedom to explore some of the new technologies that I read about. The first thing I plan to implement in my class is the homes of our own program. I was very excited to find that our district has this program available to us. With it, my students will have to use problem-solving skills and do research before they are able to actually build a house. Once they begin building there are also other real life barriers that they will face which will deepen their understanding of all the complexities and planning that it takes to build a house. I also plan to use the Jason project as an enhancement to a module that I already do in class.

I did not achieve all of the outcomes I had envisioned for the class. Some of the outcomes that I did not complete were practicing applying the theory that we learned. I did create a learning activity, but it was for an entirely different age level than what I teach. Another outcome that I hoped I would have was to be proficient in the use of the Google sites. I did manage to navigate to our site and was effective in completing my share of the group assignment, but the group leader ended up with a much better understanding of how to use the site. Another outcome I did not achieve was to effectively communicate with group members through the Google sites. When our group discussed things, it was through email instead of on the Google docs or Google site that our team created. I attempted to start a discussion about one of my concerns to no avail. With it being the end of the year, I think that some found it difficult to find time to do this.

I was able to complete the assignments, but not to the satisfaction that I would have preferred. The major obstacle I faced was time and/or the structure of the class. The way the class is structured you need should do the weeks assignments in order. I found it difficult to watch the videos, then complete all the reading, start a discussion and then start the assignments. Because I had to begin working on some of the assignments before completing some of the readings, I think it took away from some of the learning. I was not able to acquire the knowledge needed before beginning my assignments. Some weeks also had several different assignments, which made it difficult to complete the required work. Another area that proved to be difficult was the communication with team members. With the struggles I listed above compiled with having to wait on members of our team made it that much more difficult to comply with the class due dates.

In this course, I learned about the United design for learning and its principals. The concepts and theories I learned in this course made me rethink my approach to education. I learned that I was able to manage my time better than I thought. I also learned that I can create an effective technology based lesson for an elementary level class even though I have never taught anything younger than an 8th grader. One thing that I am still amazed at is the level of professionalism that I continue to improve. Maybe it is just the lack of professionalism that I see in other s that makes me feel so accomplished. I have improved some technology skills, but more importantly, I think I have learned how to teach to use some of the tools we learned about. I think I will be able to apply some of the theory and practices that we learned from the videos and our readings. I definitely plan to continue to reference the resources we used in the class.