Reflections - Week 5

I really did not know what to expect from this course. Technology has never been my strong suit so I knew that I had a lot to learn. I did achieve much more than I anticipated through this course. I would have never created a blog if it was not a requirement of this course. I have read blogs but not ever posted anything to one. I have a much better working knowledge of how blogs work. One unexpected result of this class is that I am excited about technology in my classroom. I have begun talking to my students about technology in ways that I never would have talked to them before. I told the district helping teacher that I “had seen the light” and that I wanted her to come into my classroom to teach both the students and myself relevant technology. We have already talked about what the first lesson will be, graphing. By being forced to incorporate technology into weekly assignments, I am no longer apprehensive about trying new technology. I went to the campus media specialist and borrowed one of the ELMOs that we have on campus. That would seem like a small step to a digital native but to a digital immigrant, it is a bit more important than that. Any new use of technology by me is a success.

Technology is very relevant to the work that I do. I am a half time administrator and a half time teacher. I am able to analyze data using technology as well as search for video clips for my classroom. This course just helped familiarize me with where the learner of the 21st century will be in the near future. I want to be part of that 21st century learning and now I am embracing the learning of technology. I have sometimes thought of technology as an imposition but today I really view it as a tool. I am not afraid to try new things with technology. All of the teachers that I work with, with the exception of one, are all at least 15 years younger than I am. This course has helped me to realize that it is alright to ask them to show me what they know regarding technology. If I don’t do that I am really doing myself and my students a disservice. I have even asked our technology helping teacher to come into my classroom to teach both the students and myself some relevant lessons using technology. She is going to come to my classroom in January and teach us how to do pod casts. That is not only relevant but fun as well.

I don’t know how we could have accomplished much more during this course since there are time constraints but I do look forward to learning how to pod cast and how use different avenues to communicate with my students and their parents. I am in an elementary school so I don’t know how long it will be before we use cell phones and wikis with our students but I don’t think that it will be long. Since I have taken this course I don’t think that I will be as apprehensive as I would have been about learning these new ways to communicate as I would have been. Our school district has had mandatory time equivalency courses on line. Since this course began I have found myself, more than once, defending the districts decision to require that this be done on line. I almost laughed out loud at a meeting this week when someone said they just wish they understood why we have to do that stupid STaR chart survey every year. I told her that next year before we had to complete the survey I would lead a staff development so that everyone would understand why they had to complete the survey and what happens to the data derived from the survey. I would not ever have cared before this course.

I was ultimately successful in carrying out the course assignments but I have to tell you that my husband is my technology helper and he has recently had to move to Calgary for his job. I will follow in a couple of years but for now, I have to adjust to learning how to complete any technology task on my own. The day that I had to embed the power point into the blog about pushed me over the edge. I tried for over two hours to get that done. I called the help desk several times but I could get no one to answer. I was very frustrated and I had a major melt down and called my husband and told him that I was ready to quite. As he always does, he calmed me down and told me to forget it for that day and look at it again the next day. At 3:30 in the morning I woke up and realized that I had my blog open and the power point could not embed. I got up and tried one more time and it worked. That was a good lesson for me. Firstly I can eventually figure it out and secondly I need to not give up.

I learned from this course that I can do much more than I ever thought that I could regarding technology. Technology is simply a tool that must become part of my tool box. As an administrator, I must continue to stay on top of new technology developments. This will be a challenge as technology is not an intuitive thing with me. I am not a digital native. Somehow my attitude has changed regarding technology during this course. I used to think of it as an imposition and now I view it as a way to communicate with the world. I must be able to communicate with students, their parents, as well as colleagues using the latest technology at any time of the day or night. I also view technology as a way to get the most up to date information available. Using search engines to research anything is something that I look forward to pursuing with not only my students, but those people that I work with as well. I was in a meeting last night and we were trying to formulate a mission statement. Three people had computers on and were searching the web for mission statements. It was amazing that all three people were going about the same task but were using different avenues to get there. This is how I am learning to view technology. There is not a right way or a wrong way but a collaborative way.

Educational blogs will be invaluable to the 21st century learner. I teach science and I think it would be great fun to have my students conduct an experiment at about the same time as a classroom on the other side of the world conducts the same experiment. I think that students could collaborate and learn so much from each other. At the same time they are learning, I would hope that they would gain a better understanding of different cultures around the world. I work hard at teaching my students that we are all different and that is alright but have students communicate with others all around the world would teach them something that I could not. I think that it would teach them tolerance for others. This would also teach them to start thinking globally instead of just about their local community, state, or even country. If we are all going to live in this world, we must be able to learn from each other.

I think that the main concerns that I have about blogging in an educational setting are safety and confidentiality. The safety of our students is of utmost importance and can never be compromised. Somehow educators have to create that safe environment not only in the physical classroom but in the online classroom as well. Confidentiality goes hand in hand with safety. Students need to feel that what they blog will not become an avenue for judgment but an avenue of open communication. Just this week my principal sent the administrative team an e-mail telling us that the district was working on a lesson that will be presented to all students regarding cyber bullying. I found the timing of that e-mail very interesting since we have been reading about cyber bullying. I hope that the district that I work for is making every effort to keep all stakeholders safe. We have all read about children who have been bullied to the extent that they have taken their own lives. We must find ways for that to not ever happen.

I could set up a blog so that all stakeholders could both collaborate and communicate with each other. I am also the building representative for the PTO. I think that blogging would be a great tool to use so that the PTO Administrative Board could communicate with each other. Ideas could be built upon and knowledge could be shared with all instead of sending e-mails back and forth among just a few. With a common blog, we would be able to build on each other’s knowledge. This would be very helpful because the PTO board only meets once a month and there is never enough time to get everything discussed during the meeting. We would not have as much to discuss if we had all been on a blog together. This would also be true of the staff. I could see how putting homework on a classroom blog would be helpful for students, parents, and teachers. Teachers could also blog by content area. It would be interesting to be able to blog with teachers that teach both older students and younger student the same subject area that you do. Really, it seems that the possibilities are endless.