This class has helped me develop my technology skills by showing my more options that are available for my classes related to technology. The idea that the internet is more interactive than the past is encouraging because it gives the kids extra motivation to produce quality work since it may end up online for the world to see. Learning how to start things like blogs, wiki’s and even podcasts have given me new ideas on how to assess and incorporate technology into my classroom. Being able to change the format of some of my assignments is a very encouraging and exciting opportunity.
I am not sure that I deepened the knowledge of my teaching and learning process from this class. I have been a teacher for 13 years, and having lived a with a teacher all my life. Every summer I spend some time trying to figure out how to better understand students as well as try and find ways to hone my craft so that the most kids will be able to comprehend. I have also been a technology junkie for well over a decade, so I have spent a lot of time trying to find ways to incorporate technology into my class. For these reasons my craft hasn’t been effected, just some methods with which assignments will be administered or assessed.
When I think of how long I have been teaching and how much education I have it is difficult for me to say that the students’ level of knowledge, common sense, and problem solving ability is equal. I have spent a lot of time trying to make my class both challenging and entertaining for students. I model a lot of problem solving for my kids. Learning how to find answers to questions, talking about the validity of website information, and making sense of situations are all things that are taught in my class. The idea that all the money spent learning about this is not necessary is not something I completely agree with. In my class the students still need my help figuring out how things work. They may be able to find the basic information on their own, but most of the information that they find is beyond their level of thinking. I have to help them make sense of the vocabulary that they are unfamiliar with as a part of the learning process.
I am looking forward to the near future when there will be the ability to expand on the technology that is available in my classroom. As a part of a process that our district is going through we will be able to purchase some new technology in an effort to improve the knowledge base that our kids are expected to know to pass our state test. The idea that I can finally purchase some probe ware to work with our data collection devices that we have is extremely exciting to me. I have been wanting to make better use of this technology for quite a few years now. Fortunately we will have that chance in the very near future. I will continue to be a technology junkie and look for ways to add more and more technology, I am just not sure what this will look like or how it will happen.
I would like to have at least 5 more labs that make use of probe-ware in my class. If I could accomplish this I could change my class from being a data collection and graphing class to an analysis of data and interpretation class. Giving students a chance to check their findings by repeating experiments and confirming or challenging their results is something that would make their process different from anything they have every seen before.
I would also like to find a way to make good use of web 2.0 tools for my physics class. They are constantly struggling with how to process the information that they are learning about in class. Having a blog for them to chat as well as a wiki to find out more detail about physics concepts should make their learning in this class more concrete.
Honestly I missed completing the technology survey during week one so I have nothing to compare answers with. I do everything on the list at least sometimes, and some items I participate in often. In reflecting on the experiences on this class, the only changes would have come from internet opportunities that I wasn’t really aware of before.
