Reflection

After reflecting on my experiences while taking the course "Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society," I feel that I made professional growth in the area of technology. I feel that I have gained the necessary knowledge to equip my students with the 21st century skills they will need to be successful in the workplace. Prior to taking this course, I was aware of the many Web 2.0 tools that exist, such as blogs, wikis, and podcasts. However, I was uncertain of how to create these types of tools and of the many ways that they can be integrated into the classroom.

As an educator of digital natives, I understand that today's students learn quite differently from digital immigrants. In order to remain engaged and motivated, digital natives must be provided with lessons that are meaningful and that align with what they do outside of the classroom. Today's students prefer to apply their multitasking abilities and to work collaboratively with their peers. The technological tools that are available in many of our nation's schools have the potential to meet the needs of diverse students and their various learning styles. It is up to me as an educator to familiarize myself with the capabilities of the available technology and to infuse the development of 21st century skills into the curriculum that I will be teaching.

Due to the fact that students' learning styles have changed with the development of various technologies, educators' instructional styles must also change. The teaching styles of many of today's educators are antiquated and such teachers are doing their students a great disservice. I am aware that I must act as a facilitator in the classroom and allow my students to participate in student-directed activities. I believe that students learn best when they are able to explore on their own. This type of learning is much more meaningful than being dictated to by the teacher.

Although I have had several opportunities to apply my newly gained knowledge, I have yet to implement any of these tools in my classroom. With next week being the start of a new school year, I will be welcoming my very first class of second graders. I am currently in the process of creating a blog that will serve as a class homepage. I hope to increase communication with the parents of the students I will be teaching and to share the wonderful things that will be taking place in our classroom each and every day. I also hope to share my knowledge with my students by teaching them the basics of blogging. I have constructed a blog page which I have titled "Our Class DiaBLOGue Journal." This will serve as an alternative to the composition books in which my students share their thoughts about the material we read in class. These dialogue journals are usually a source of communication between me and individual students. I am hoping that the online version will foster open communication between all students in the classroom and that they will begin to develop 21st century skills in the process. The main roadblock I foresee hindering my ability to accomplish these long term goals is the lack of funding in my school to ensure the proper resources are available to all students. We have one computer lab in which I will make sure we use each and every week and with the constant decline of computer prices, my school will one day be able to afford the proper amenities it needs.

As Chris Dede adamantly insists, an effective teacher of technology is one who is exposed to the technology themselves. By creating more podcasts, blogging more and more, and contributing to wikis when I feel I have something that a global audience needs to hear, I will continue my professional learning of Web 2.0 tools. I will continue to explore the most comprehensive and engulfing database ever created, the Internet, to ensure my mastery and continued discovery of Web 2.0 applications.

Technology Podcast

Here is the podcast I created for my masters class that highlights the technological prowess of 7-13-year-old girls in a local school system.

http://podcastmachine.com/podcasts/1451/episodes/6854