This course has provided me with a lot of new information that I have and plan to incorporate into my classroom. This course has taught me that technology can be used to advance students’ skills in critical and creative thinking (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009a). Throughout this course I have learning several useful strategies to implement technology into my science lessons. Although I have learned many useful strategies to implement technology into my classroom overall goal I learned from this class is to become a self-directed learner. Self directed learning is an essential skill that educators must focus on throughout their career (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009). I learned the importance of updating my knowledge and skills of the use of different technology tools. I learned that in order to be an effective teacher you must set goals you plan to obtain, the actions you would take, monitor your learning and evaluate your learning process.
My personal game
plan was to strength my confidence in the following to goals: in promoting
students reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students
conceptual understand thinking, planning, and creative process and design and
adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources
to promote student learning and creativity.
Throughout this course I feel that my confidence has grown in both of
these areas through personal research, collaboration of classmates, and through
introductions new technology based lessons in my classroom. This is a goal that I will continue to
monitor throughout my career to keep up to date with new and emerging
technology. In addition, after each
lesson I teach I always evaluate my lesson to determine the benefit technology
had in my lesson. I also write down
notes to myself on strategies that worked and did not work to improve future
lessons. In the future I will modify my
game plans to keep up with the current technology. If I feel that I mastered the goals I have
set I will modify my goals so that I as a teacher can continue and grow as
well.
As I conducted
my first WebQuest assignment after feed back from classmates and students I
decided to add a collaboration portion into the assignment. I will have students work on a wiki page
where they are able to compile different resources they discovered on their
WebQuest. In addition, it will provide
them with the opportunity to collaborate and learn from classmates as
well. I never realized the education
benefits that a wiki page can have until the past two weeks when I worked on a
wiki page. I like the idea that students
are able to add and modify information while their changes are also being
track. I also was unaware that students
can add comments and have discussion on a wiki page as well. I think it is a great tool for students to
work on projects and collaborate together.
I look forward to the introduction and gaining more confidence in my
wiki skills.
In my class I
plan to incorporate many of the skills that were learned in this class such a
problem-based learning, social collaboration, and digital story telling. I feel that students use technology on a
daily basis and should learn to incorporate it to enhance their content
knowledge in my course. I am currently
working on designing a digital storytelling lesson that I can incorporate into
my class. It will allow students to improve
on research, creative thinking, problem solving, and communication skills
(Laureate Education, Inc., 2009b). In
addition, a goal I plan to implement in my classroom is authentic blogging to
engage students in higher order thinking skills and collaboration with
peers. I think in todays world as
students have information available to them at the tips of their fingers
worksheets are no longer a useful tool of homework assessment. I plan to begin to implement blogging into my
lessons to encourage online communication outside the classroom.
This class has
provided me with a great deal of information that I have started to use in my
classroom. In addition, I have also
provided colleagues with valuable information I learned in this class as
well. As much as I am excited to finish
another Walden course I am truly going to miss the interaction and learning
experience this class has created for me.
Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology
integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. (Laureate
Education, Inc., Custom ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer).
(2009a). Integrating technology across the content areas: Promoting
creative thinking with technology. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer).
(2009b). Integrating technology across the content areas: Spotlight on
technology: Digital storytelling, part 1. Baltimore, MD: Author.
