Final Reflection: Course EDUC-6713

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.  

References:

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.