The course titled “The
Impact of Technology on Work, Education, and Society” has made a tremendous
impact on my outlook and confidence in implementing new technologies within my
classroom. As a Math teacher, I was
always looking to find new and exciting ways to incorporate the latest
technologies into my classroom, but never had any clue what to use or how to do
it. With practice utilizing blogs,
wikis, and podcasts, I am excited about the start of the next school year as I
have already made a plan to have a 6th grade Math blog for students
and parents to utilize throughout the year as the main communication tool.
When
it comes to the teaching and learning process, I have learned the importance of
a teacher being comfortable and effective utilizing technology prior to setting
the expectation that the students will know how to operate it. I realize the benefit of trial and error and
simply giving oneself time to explore and create. Technology
allows student-directed learning to take place where students can be in control
of the learning process. Students can
now dive into the curriculum using technologies that are of common nature at home. A classroom should be centered on students
communicating, collaborating, and using the most advanced technologies so that
we are preparing them for careers of the future. Moving away from a teacher-centered classroom
to a student-driven classroom will create a challenging yet positive learning
environment for all.
Technology
is forever changing. Richardson (2010)
writes, “We are still at the beginning of a radically different relationship
with the Internet; one has long-standing implications for educators and
students. The coming years will be
marked by a flood of new innovations and ideas in teacher, most born from the
idea that we can now publish and interact in ways never before possible” (p.
155). As an educator, I must continue to
use the latest technologies and receive training on how to effectively
implement them into the classroom. I
must be comfortable and at ease prior to teaching my students how to use it and
use it when I know it can have an impact on student achievement.
Two goals that I would like to implement over the next two years are utilizing
a blog within my classroom and expanding my knowledge of the Smart Board even
further to create more interactive lessons.
In order to accomplish these goals, I am going to need to attend Professional
Development sessions to receive proper, up-to-date training, communicate with
my colleagues to try to spark interest outside of my classroom, and try to get
my entire school motivated to utilize the same technologies. With these goals in mind, I must also realize
the time constraints that are posed with standards-based learning and make
every attempt to give students time to create their own learning. With a focus
of students in the forefront, I will try to ignite positive change into my
school district!
When I look back at the checklist,
the biggest area of improvement that I notice is the integration of technology
within my classroom. This is a major
focus for me personally for the next school year. I am going to make every attempt to develop
technology skills for all of the students within my class and model the
expectations I set forth. This summer, I
am collaborating with my 6th grade counterpart to start the creation
of a blog along with other center ideas to bring student technology interests
into the classroom. I have learned the
value of incorporating technology into the classroom and I am motivated and
excited to make the change!
References
Richardson,
W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for
classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
