End of Semester Reflection: Taking Initiative

Wow!  As I read through the National Educational Technology Standards bullet by bullet, I am so satisfied to realize that I have grown tremendously in each category throughout this Semester.    There are three technological skills that I have particularly emphasized over the months and would like to share about in detail.  They are as follow:

"2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments: (d) provide students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments aligned with content and technology standards and use resulting data to inform learning and teaching."

• Taking the Assessment of Learning and Instructional Design classes while studying Technology in Education have made for a tripley practical experience.  In Assessment, we've been studying how to design tests, grade them, and analyze them to learn what our students know, where they're still struggling, and what we need to improve on as teachers.  In Instructional Design, we've been practicing lesson preparation.  I've applied what I've learned in Technology class to both of these processes: namely, creating and teaching lessons via SMART Board to prepare students for the exam, via SMART Response.  I've learned that the SMART Response System is so unique in that it provides the grades and even, Item Analyses for me.  This is extraordinary compared to the exams that I would have to analyze one-by-one as done in Assessment class. The results are immediately available, just milliseconds after all students have completed each question.  These results then, inform me as a teacher how well particular students are grasping particular content areas and how well I am doing teaching each particular student and lesson, in order that I might ultimately and constantly improve as a teacher!

"3. Model Digital-Age Work and Learning: (c) communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital-age media and formats."

• All Semester, we have discussed how crucial it is to use technologies in Education for communication.  I can certainly say that I feel one hundred times more comfortable communicating with the inside and outside world, particularly via my personal website and blog.  Having worked on these communication boards throughout the past Semester, I now know how to create my own website with different pages.  I have mastered the ability to upload documents onto the website for students and parents to see.  I am at much greater ease when integrating multimedia such as videos, onto my website as well.  It was always a mystery to me how websites would ingrain links in certain words or pictures without the entire URL addresses, to make the site more user-friendly.  I have reached the point where I no longer avoid seeing my website because it is hideous and has nothing of value yet, but rather I enjoy looking through my own website for resources, and even more so, editing it.  I hope that students and parents would feel the same way when utilizing the communication boards that I provide for them as a means of communication.
• Several communicative digital medias/formats that I have learned are: sharing a Vocaroo podcast via link on my website or an email, blogspot, Google Docs, and a Weebly website, which may include videos, files, websites, photos, letters, and podcasts within itself.  I've also been introduced to countless other communicative technologies that I have yet to explore.  These include, but are not limited to: wallwisher.com, Delicious, Wikispace, Slideshare.net, furly.com, freecorder.com, Mindomo, Box.net, and Pageflakes.com.

"5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership: (c) evaluate and reflect on current research and professional practice on a regular basis to make effective use of existing and emerging digital tools and resources in support of student learning."

• A goal that was very important to me this Semester was to expand in the personal research that I do to continually grow in educational expertise.  It is easy to study technology tools as a requirement for an Education Program class, but that is a habit that I wanted to develop when I enter the teaching profession.  I want to keep myself updated in regards to new technologies, resources for students and teachers, and teh research done on the affect that these resources have on learning and teaching.  This class has helped me to begin this habit by providing me with reliable places to search and more importantly, sparking curiosity so I want to constantly be aware of anything that migh supplement my future students' learning experiences. For instance, when studying SMART Boards and Interactive Whiteboards, I researched the product website as well as the Marzano research done on this resource in the classroom.  This report was extremely insightful in understanding how such a technology could serve as a detriment or supplement to education (please see my blog entry, "Marzano Research Done on Promethean ActivBoards"). 
• I've realized that technologies are constantly being updated, invented, and integrated and that the only way that I'll be in the loop after this class is over, is by immersing myself into more current studies and applying these studies at my own initiative.

Technology in Education has enriched me not only as a future teacher, but also as a citizen of the global community.  There is immeasurable knowledge that we can all learn from one another, if we take the initiative to communicate our strategies, successes, failures, findings, ideas, and inspirations. 


 

Reflection #12: Future Funding for our Classrooms

What? A few days ago I attended a conference at the Meydenbauer Conference Center in which Governor Christine Gregoire spoke to the crowd.  At one point she mentioned that about 60 (or 70?) percent of our WA State budget is untouchable according to the Constitution. Part of that budget is alloted to Education.

So What?  This reassured me that no matter how tough the economy may get, our schools will at least have minimum funding because they're protected by the law. Since that conference, I've been thinking about how critical it is for schools to have sufficient funding for their classroom resources.  We've talked all semester about the marvelous things that various technologies can do for students, teachers, parents, and community members associated with our classrooms.  We've discussed classroom websites, gradebook tools, SMARTBoards, Interactive Boards, response systems, Ipads, flip-cameras, podcast recorders, document cameras, and the list goes on.  But of what use are all of these ideas if the schools we  may be teaching at lack the funding for these resources?  Must we collect
boxtops-for-education" forever in order to get what we want and need for our classrooms?

Now What?  If this class has taught me anything practical about the cost of incorporating technologies into our classrooms - it is that there are countless AFFORDABLE, if not FREE resources available at our fingertips.  I've learned that it's not so much about having money in our pockets, but awareness, connections, and determination to get what we want and need. In other words, a teacher who has more than enough funding for their classroom but no creativity may not necessarily have more supplementary resources for their students than a teacher who lacks funding, but is full of ideas.  Just like doesn't always buy happiness in the outside world, so it doesn't necessarily buy success in classrooms.  A smart teacher creates free websites, utilizes free online tools, borrows resources, tries out special technology promotions, and applies for various grants. 

I hope to be such a smart teacher, whether I have sufficient future funding for my classroom or not.