Reflection of What I've learned in this course

As this course comes to a close, I sit back and think of all I have learned through this journey. This course was so beneficial because it opened my eyes to the many possibilities and reaffirmed my ideas that technology has a much needed place in the modern classroom. But even above my realization, I have learned new skills to take with me and use with my students. Before this course, I had never heard of the term -"Web 2.0" and had never used many of the tools that we used in the course. I have occasionally blogged but never really thought about using it in the classroom. I had never dreamed I could make a podcast on my own but did it successfully. I had also never used or heard of a wiki until I experienced it in the class.

Armed with these new tools, I am embracing a new outlook on how a classroom should function and what is most beneficial for my learners. Using technology in the classroom is not just about replacing out dated ways of doing things with something new and more efficient and effective. It is about taking these tools and searching for ways to do something totally different and change the way our students process and learn new concepts. This falls right along with what Dr. Thornburg says when he uses the phrases "Doing things differently vs. doing different things." When we take these tools and turn them into something a student would never experience if they had not existed, we are changing the way our students process information and learn key concepts. Taking it a step even further, when we use these tools that encompass the "21st Century skills", we are encouraging learning through collaboration and interaction among classmates. We are heading into the direction of a learner-centered classroom. The concepts the students are learning and the knowledge they are building comes from the work and information they are learning through one another and with the use of technology. The teacher has now become just a guide, steering her students into the right direction to let them take ownership in the learning process.

Now that I know how to use the tools and have come up with ways to incorporate them into the classroom, I am eager to share my knowledge with my colleagues. I want to continue to think up new ways to use the tools in the classroom. I also will continue to use refer to the blogs I discovered at the beginning of the course. Many of them had extremely useful advice and ideas to better my classroom when it comes to technology. The best way to continue to expand my knowledge and encourage student growth with the use of technology is get in there and just start trying it out the classroom. I can learn so quickly through experience as well as think of new ways to incorporate the tools in my classroom.

I have two goals for myself so I can transform my classroom environment to better reach my students needs with technology. My first goal is to have all the second grade teachers in my cluster come together to brainstorm ways of using technology for the betterment of our students. We all are in similar situations when it comes to the amount of technology we have exposure to as well as we share an understanding of how our students think and what they need. To accomplish this goal I want to start a blog among the second grade teachers. With this blog, we can share lesson ideas as well as brainstorm ways to push through the obstacles we face on a daily basis. I know my weakness is a lack of creativity when it comes to thinking out of the box with the use of technology. If two heads are better than one, imagine what we can accomplish when we put together 50 heads! My second goal is to seek and search for ways to bring in more technology to our school. My biggest obstacles is lack of technology. I want to incorporate all that I have learned but with one computer in my classroom, it can be a little difficult. My plan is to seek out additional funding through grants. Our cluster brings in a lot of money from the foundation they set up in the community. With the money they earn, they distribute it to the cluster schools. The only catch is, you have to write a proposal and have data and/or specific ways the money will be used to better student achievement. My goal is to complete a proposal for additional technology in the classrooms after collecting much needed data with a small study group in the classroom.