Reflection

Over the past eight weeks of this course my knowledge of technology has certainly grown. I was aware of the different areas that the course covered but I was not proficient in them. I now feel comfortable utilizing these tools in my classroom. I also have a higher comfort level when exploring these tools on my own. My level of teaching knowledge has also grown. I have seen how these concepts are taught on a graduate level and I have begun to apply these to my middle school classroom. The podcasting assignment was fantastic because it required me to learn something at the same time as my students. It also helped that my students absolutely loved recording their responses to the questionnaire. I feel that these experiences have started me down the path towards a stronger 21st Century skill based classroom.
I have never had a particularly teacher-focussed classroom. Ive always thought that students learn best by experiencing things and exploring on their own. I try to do as little lecturing as possible. This class has helped me further this goal by teaching me some new tools to apply to my lessons. I can now have students orchestrate their learning experiences and interactions through wiki's and blogs rather than through additional direct instruction. Students can teach each other! I plan to continue utilizing and exploring the different tools from this course and also any new tools I happen upon in order to further my own knowledge. This commitment towards my own improvement will reveal itself in my student's acheivement in the classroom. A teacher must be a life-long learner if they want to instill that same commitment in their children.

My first, and main, goal in my classroom as always is to master my student management for each and every new activity. I have always been weakest in the area of student management. This mainly stems from the fact that I like to have a good time too! However, anytime something new is attempted there are always unknowns and management tweaks that need to happen. Long term I would like to gain the flexibility to add new lessons to my classroom and incorporate new technology while not losing any control over my class.

My second goal is more of a long term goal than the first. I would like for my students to look back when they get their job and think that my class provided them with the most important skills for their vocation. I believe that for me this means an integration of the 21st Century Learning skills. I need to teach my students the things that will allow them to succeed in the workplace. If they can look back and see that they received those skills in my class, then I will have been a successful teacher.

http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/

http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/

The 21st Century Skills website was an interesting read. I took some time today to explore the site and read through its articles and qualifications.

First impression: I was a little worried when the first headline posted on the site mentioned that they had trained 50 people. I'm always skeptical of sites that have big mission statements and goals, but in reality reach very few people. However, after looking at this I immediately went to their FAQ page and looked at the members. Big names! I was impressed with the national scope of the members in this program. So I went back to read the full article about training people and found that this was a program recently started. Fifty people isn't too bad for that.

Looking under their state initiatives section I noticed that they only had 10 sates signed up under their initiative so far. For a program that appears to have been around since 2004 this is not bad, but neither is it anything amazing.

I began going through the resources the site had posted. There were a lot there. The tool they used for their route 21 program with the rainbow and pools was interesting, but a little confusing. Once you chose your section of the tool though there was a lot of useful information to browse through.

I had little to no significant problem with anything I saw on the site. There was a lot of information to go through, but it seemed pretty standard to me. My students wont be affected by this directly yet, as they are in Maryland which isnt one of their states. However it could be in then future so its good to browse through all this program has to offer. I hope to look more at this in the future.

Blog Possibilities

Creating this blog last week made me think a lot about how I would use it in a classroom. In a lot of ways I could see it truly benefiting students. It would be great to have kids conversing with one another over a blog on any sort of topic. I don't really see a blog being used as anything other than a discussion board, but it would be fantastic at that. I could envision students posting their views on current issues, talking with one another about the best way to approach situations, or complimenting one another's work. I teach technology to 6th 7th and 8th graders. I find it is most difficult for them to explain what they think or feel about something. These blogs would greatly assist students in learning to convey feelings and ideas.

Testing Blog

This is a test for my first blog