Reflection

The Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society Course has helped me to develop Web 2.0 skills, and throughout the course, I reflected on my teaching practices. I expanded my toolkit for technology in my classroom. I became aware that Twitter could be useful took in my class. I agree with Richardson (2015) when he states that Twitter has two benefits, it is easy to find links, and it is easy to connect with people. I created a blog and made my first post. Richardson (2015) says “blogging is a public, long-form reflection that captures what you understand about the world at a given moment and asks readers what they think” (p. 54). I used an RSS reader and came to know that an RSS feed is a useful tool. Richardson (2010) said that teachers should start using RSS now and teach it to students as soon as possible. I created my first Podcast. I found Richardson's (2010) statement that Podcasts are easy to create and easy to use.

The biggest thing that I am going away with from this course is the knowledge that students do better work when more than just the teacher sees their work. Mr. Davidson (as cited in Laureate Education, 2015b) says students need to take ownership of their work. Dr. Thornburg (as cited in Laureate Education, 2015b) says that students should create artifacts. I have also learned that collaboration is a 21st-century skill that students need to be successful. Dr. Thornburg (as cited in Laureate Education, 2015a) said that teambuilding and cooperation are skills that students need to be college and career ready for the 21st century.

I can apply this knowledge to my classroom by having my students do more summative or formative projects. These projects would require students to create something that can be published for others to see. I have always had collaboration activities in my classroom, but now I will focus on making the students collaborate with their peers using technology. Lee (2012) says that teachers “trusting children’s capability to work with a technology is critical” (p. 97). This collaboration might even include collaborating with people outside of their classroom.

I would like to do more collaboration with my classes by using wikis. A roadblock to the implementation would be the student's knowledge of how to embed items on their wikis. Students know how to create power points or movies, but they do not know how to embed it into a webpage, blog, or wiki. I would have my future students learn how to embed items on a blog early in the semester. They would then transfer that skill to their wikis. Creating Wikis supports the collaboration skill that students need for the 21st century.

Using wikis would support me to meet the ISTE Standards for Teachers. A standard that it would meet would be to “facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity” (ISTE, 2008). This use of wikis in my classroom would support the students in meeting the ISTE Standards for Students. The standards that the students would be meet include: “knowledge constructor” (ISTE, 2016) and “creative communicator” (ISTE, 2016).

One SMART goal that I will set for the 2017-2018 school year is to have students create artifacts a minimum of 2 times a semester for each course I teach. I will document the artifacts and keep student work samples. Creating objects would be easy to incorporate into a lesson as a summative assessment.

Another SMART goal I will strive to do by the end of the 2018-2019 school year is having my students make five entries into a blog each semester. I will document the days that students do a blog entry and keep student work samples. I could use blogging as a way for students to do a warm up activity.

References

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2016). Standards for students. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/standards/for-students-2016

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2008). Standards for teachers. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/standards/standards-for-teachers

Laureate Education (Producer). (2015a). Skills for the 21st Century [Video file].Baltimore, MD: Author.

Laureate Education (Producer). (2015b). Transforming the classroom with technology:Part 2 [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Lee, L. (2012). "A Learning Journey for All": American Elementary Teachers' Use of Classroom Wikis. Journal Of Interactive Online Learning, 11(3), 90-102.

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Richardson, W. (2015). From master teacher to master learner. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.