5306+reflection

Dr. Abernathy used this video in this course, but it is still the best one I could find. Students today are different. The world they are going to is different, so we have to teach differently. media type="custom" key="6495379"


 * EDLD 5306**

Everything in this course is relevant to the work I do now. My job is to train teachers in the use of technology. The information about effective professional development has already been applied to the design of upcoming training sessions. The needs of the 21st century student and the 21st century worker are dominant themes in training sessions I am planning and collaborating in with others. The needs of our teachers, drives the training sessions that I am planning. The state long range plan for technology will be prominent as I write the outline for classes. I had been focused on web 2.0 technologies for a couple of years and had lost a bit of my focus on the TLRP for technology. This course helped to refocus my attention on that. The teaching and learning section of the Texas STaR chart will shape and describe course goals in my sessions. I will be using a lot of the ideas gained from the article about creating evaluations for courses. We design and redesign an annual self assessment each year for the teachers based on the Texas teacher STaR chart. This course helped to see how others interpreted the STaR chart. That has helped the last couple of years as we reassess the teacher self-assessment. I had a certain amount of knowledge about the tools that our assignments were centered around. The part concerning building a collaborative community of learners using a wiki was interesting. I have done some of that but the fact that I didn’t get much participation from my instructional technology team members forced me to rely on my experience as a collaborator rather than stretch my knowledge and work as an organizer. I appreciated the use of web 2.0 tools in this course and feel that it helped me and many of the other participants. I completed all of the course assignments. Some of them were things that I had done before. The course assignments that involved blogs and wikis were not new to me. The blog was a small focus and I didn’t continue with that blog beyond the requirements of the assignment; primarily because I have three others that are on school district systems and the new one was more than I could juggle at the time. The wiki assignments titled E-Communication and Online Community as well as the Online Collaboration assignment, were more focused and I couldn’t adapt them to my other 4 wikis that I already maintain. I was a co-presenter and collaborator on another wiki designed closely to the assigned tasks, but these assignments gave me the opportunity to take on more of an organizer role than a collaborator role. It was interesting to view that experience from the different perspective. I didn’t do much on the wiki used in this course, but this did put me in the position to look at it from that new perspective which was an educational experience itself. Group collaboration was minimal, limited to interaction in the discussion boards. The two wiki assignments referenced above were designed to include participation from colleagues in Magnolia. My colleagues didn't participate in them. I learned that a large part of the focus I have been working toward in my job has been in the right direction. I have explored many of the aspects of the web 2.0 environment and when I think I am ahead of the curve, something new pops up to remind me just how far behind I really am. I have also rejected many of the educational software concepts that have been developed, with a preference for technology that is used to produce products and solve problems. Many of the authors that were assigned mentioned the benefits of these educational tools and I am reconsidering the value of them. I am now more open to the benefits of a balanced technology program that allows for the use of educational software and the use of productivity software that helps create authentic products and solve real world problems.

Nesbitt, B.J. (Producer). (2007). //A Vision of k-12 students today//. [Web]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A-ZVCjfWf8