Sunday, December 20, 2009

What I have learned through my coursework.

This course Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society has helped me to develop my own technology skills. Reflecting back on this course, I found that I have been challenged to understand how intricately technology and education can be intertwined. Some assignments in this course were new to me but I felt as though I embraced them whole heartedly. I found the hands on nature of the course assignments to be interesting and practical. I think that developing a wiki with people from different areas gave me a firsthand look at what it takes to collaborate with others and, how easy it is to do this task with schedules from different areas of the world. The first hand experiences were most meaningful to me because it helped me take a concepts that were fairly new abstract to me and make them concrete. I felt a great sense of accomplishment after walking away with a completed project that was reflective of my learning. Upon completion of this course, I can definitely say that my technology skills have been challenged and I have learned many concepts such as developing a wiki, blog and creating a pod cast. These technological skills have been valuable assets in my classroom.

I think that I will continue to develop my technology skills by applying them to the classroom situation and collaborating with colleagues about how to best implement 21st century skills. I have also joined a technology group through my intermediate school district that will help me stay current with technological practices at the elementary level. I also plan to continue to expand my technological skills by continuing to read and comment on topics from the blogs that I have subscribed to through this course. From what I have read, on many of the blogs, there are many ideas that address student achievement and the use of technology. My students will have become better problem solvers and they think more analytically about the information they come across while working collaboratively. These skills will increase the student achievement in all areas of the curriculum.

One of my long term goals for my students include increasing the comfort level and atomicity of working in a collaborative group toward a common goal or to solve a problem. I would like to start with collaboration within the classroom setting then venture out to collaboration with students in different areas of the world. I want to broaden my student’s world beyond the county they live in so they are more global thinkers. I plan to accomplish this task by engaging students with technology in order for them to become confident learners who guide their educational destiny.

My second long term goal is to increase the ability of my students to be savvy consumers of information to help facilitate their own learning. I plan to accomplish this task by allowing students to collaboratively dissect information they find and determine the merit of the information. I will accomplish this with the assistance from the technology teacher and classroom teacher. These course assignments have made me a more accomplished teacher when it comes to implementing technology across the curriculum.

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