Week 7 Reflection

• In what ways has this course helped you to develop your own technology skills as a professional teacher?

This course has helped me to develop my own technology skills as a professional teacher in a number of ways.  First of all, before this course the only technology of the major three with which we have worked (blogs, wikis, and podcasts) that I was accustomed to using was blogging.  This course has helped me to better use that tool in my classroom.  Second, this course has exposed me to the use of wikis.  While I have not yet integrated the use of wikis into my classroom, I now know how to use a wiki and am looking for an opportunity to use it in my teaching.   Third, this class has made me more proficient in the use of podcasts.  Prior to the class, I had dabbled with podcasts, but I now feel very comfortable in making, editing, and publishing them.  In fact, I have begun to have my students do podcasts in class.  Finally, this class has given me numerous technology resources that will help me to keep up to date with technology in the classroom. 

• In what ways have you deepened your knowledge of the teaching and learning process?

My knowledge of the teaching and learning process has deepened in a couple ways.  First, I have gained a better understanding of how to make my classroom learner-centered.  This is always something that I have tried to do, but this class has provided me with tools and strategies that allow me to do so with more efficiency.

The second way that I have deepened my knowledge of the teaching and learning process is by better understanding the needs of today’s students.  The technology survey that we did during the course really helped me to narrow in on what the students’ expectations are when coming into the classroom.  I believe that these things I have learned will help me going forward.

• In what ways have you changed your perspective from being teacher-centered to learner-centered?

I do not believe that I have really changed my perspective in this area.  I have always been a teacher that has taken a learner-centered perspective.  I do believe that I have learned how to be more effective in this area by integrating technology into my lesson plans.  But, my philosophy has not changed as a result of this course.

• In what ways can you continue to expand your knowledge of learning, teaching, and leading with technology with the aim of increasing student achievement?

There are a couple ways that I plan to continue to expand my knowledge of learning, teaching, and leading with technology.  First, I will use the resources that I have found in this class.  There are a number of great websites that I have been introduced to throughout this course.  I will continue to visit them regularly to see what innovative things can be used in my classroom

Second, I will begin to look with more precision at what my students need to succeed.  Implementing new things into the classroom is not enough.  I really need to analyze their effectiveness through reflection.  In a sense, I need to make my classroom into an experiment and investigate what helps the students to increase achievement.  While I have certainly done this in the past, it has been an informal process.  I want to become more effective at analyzing and using student results to design my teaching process.

Set two long-term goals (within two years) for transforming your classroom environment by which you may have to overcome institutional or systemic obstacles in order to achieve them. How do you plan to accomplish these goals?

My first goal is to transition my classroom to a textbook-free classroom.  Throughout this course I have seen the potential that is available with the digital revolution.  I would like to see my students not rely on textbooks and have the opportunity to use online textbooks in conjunction with all of the additional information available online.  In order to do this I will definitely need to be proactive.  Right now I only have one computer in my classroom.  Next year will be an improvement as we move into a new building.  We will have 20 laptops to share among the four language classrooms.  I am already in the process of looking for technology grants to get my classroom to have a one-to-one student-to-computer ratio.  I will continue to do this until this goal is accomplished.
My second goal is encourage the development of 21^st century skills throughout my high school.   These skills have not been emphasized, or really even mentioned, in my district.  I want to become active in encouraging these new skills and how tailor instruction to meet the needs of the 21^st century learner.  This could start by simple things like engaging colleagues in discussion about the new skill set and making these ideas known.  Beyond that, however, I believe that it is going to take a core group of teachers to make this a priority in our building.  I envision putting together a small group of teachers that have bought into the 21^st century concept to present the idea to the rest of the staff as well as the administration.  I think that the administration will be open to the ideas, but we are going to have to own it if we want to see change come quickly.

Refer to your checklist from Week 1. Have any of your answers changed after completing this course?

Looking over the checklist, not much has changed for me since beginning the course.  One thing that I do notice a difference in is enabling students to take responsibility for their own learning.  I think that this course has helped me to better understand how to implement lessons and strategies that allow the students to engage in the learning process.