Technology Class Overall Reflection

Overall I felt the class was really great. It took me a little time getting started at the beginning because I am not very good with technology to begin with. One of the suggestions that I would have is that you might offer to do the first lesson with participants when you meet with them for the first time to set up the class. Once I got the hang of it I really moved through the lessons, but it just took me a little time to get there. I really thought that the lessons were well thought out and you asked us to be very reflective about how we would use them in our classrooms. I particulary loved learning about wikis and blogging and plan to do more with these next year in my classroom. In terms of the structure of the class, I liked that I could complete the lessons as my own pace with suggested deadlines. It was great to also hear from other participants about how they were going to use the ideas in their classroom. That gave me inspiration as well for my own classroom. I would recommend this course to anyone who thinks they want to learn more about technology in the classroom.

Reflection 3

In general, I am going to try to use technology more for sharing student work. Before every unit we do I am thinking about how I can incorporate the use of technology within my lessons or projects. I think that students love to use technology and it gives them a purpose for actually doing a lot of our projects. I feel like I learned a lot from this class. I am now more aware of different ways in which technology can be used in the classroom. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by not knowing what to do, I feel excited. I am much more technology savvy now than I was before.

School 2.0

What strikes me most about this map are all the things that you can do to incorporate technology. All the little comments in the middle of the map are what interest me the most. I love the idea of having ebooks and computer programs to help kids with reading. I think that having students communicate with each other online is a wonderful way to immerse them in technology and education. I think technology can help kids become life-long learners. I would definitely keep the parent involvement piece of this map. I love the idea of having parents be able to be a part of online activities and also having them be able to access their child's grade from home. This would save the district a lot of time and money because they wouldn't have to worry about progress reports and report cards. I guess I wouldn't change anything,. In a perfect world I would wish that we had unlimited funds to do what we needed to do for kids to help them learn better.

Reflection on Dr. Zhao's Podcasts

It is overwhelming to think of all the changes that need to be made to our educational system in order to keep up with the pace of things. I think the change really needs to begin in colleges where teachers are educated. Classes need to be devoloped for teachers that will help them meet the technology needs of our students. Also, nationally we need to look at how we can provide access to technology in the classroom. We all know that technology is a priority, but it also has taken a hit through budget cuts. Maybe eventually we will have a computer for each student, but that would be a tremendous cost to school districts/parents. I'm not sure that is feasible. I guess what we do is try to infuse these things slowly. I worry that we are not moving fast enough in comparison to other countries and I know that is a concern for many other people as well.

Collaborative Project

I am thinking abou how I can have students do a collaborative project using some of the ideas from this presentation. I think that this would work well with The Giver. I could put students in groups and have them create their own virtual community. We would look at the problems in our world now and talk about how we can do away with those problems. They would do research and look at some communities in our world now that are structured differently and also the community in which Jonas lives. I would have them create their own government, education, housing, laws, ect. for their community. I have seen other teachers do a similar project, but it was more pen and paper or draw a poster kind of a project. What if we had each group create their own website for their community? Other students could then spend time looking at the ideas of their peers and evaluate the different communities. Would these changed communities create new problems to be faced? This is a great starting point for me to look into for next year.