What you have learned?
Throughout this course I have learned a variety of ways that technology can be used to enhance my lesson plans. This is my first time creating a website on Weebly, so it was fun to work on my site each week, but I also found some aspect frustrating based on the design template I chose. The most beneficial part of this course for me personally, was the cross-curricular lesson plans and the assistive technology lesson.
How theory guided development of the projects and assignments you created?
How theory guided development of the projects and assignments you created?
As I continue to work on courses to complete my degree, I have focused on a combination of cognitive and constructive theories. This constructivist view allows students to create their own understanding through various experiences (Roblyer, 2016). Another view of learning that connects to educational technology is the cognitive approach of information-processing. As a social studies teacher, inquiry-based learning is important along with activities that engage the learners. This is where technology can impact a lesson and bring about new meaning. My middle school students need experiences and personal connections to grasp the importance of historical events or topics. There is a lot of information and memorization in social studies, but with the integration of technology students can connect the information in new ways. The projects that were created in this course accomplish the learning goals for a variety of topics I cover in my classes. The standards are met, but the use of technology with purpose allows the students to have more control over their learning in hopes that they will gain greater knowledge.
Overall, most of the project follow the same pattern of AECT standards met, leading to a mastery in this area. I created appropriate applications of learning and demonstrated the ability to use technology in an effective and meaningful way in my class. It was used to evaluate or assess my students knowledge and allowed for differentiated learning to help students of various learning styles. I feel that my knowledge of theoretical foundations was developed in this course. I have built upon this with each course I have taken, but with the textbook and additional readings, I gained a greater understand of the the purpose and effectiveness of certain theories. Lastly, with this blog and comments on my peers' posts, I was able to analyze and interpret data and reflect upon technology-supported instruction and learning successfully.
How you have grown professionally?
This is my second year back teaching after taking time off to be a mom. My transition from a high school teacher to a mom and now a middle school teacher has been much smoother this year. This course has helped me evaluate the teaching practices I was using and determine how to integrate technology more into my classroom to deepen my students understanding of the content. Since I am only part-time, I share a room with the middle school science teacher. After creating three cross-curricular lesson plans, I have been motivated to reach out to my fellow teachers and collaborate on a lesson. With the knowledge I gained in this course I am able to be a more effective member on the technology committee at my school and am helping other teachers use software and other technologies in their classroom. My desire with each class I take is that I am able to understand the options of educational technology and that I am able to clearly share those with my fellow teachers. I am becoming more comfortable and feel that I can be a role model for others at my school.
How your own teaching practice or thoughts about teaching have been impacted by what you have learned or accomplished in this course? What will you do differently as an educator as a result of this course?
My teaching has been impacted, especially since I am now a middle school teacher. My students need to move and have hands on experiences. Social studies can be dominated with lecture and notes because of the expectations of what content needs to be covered within the year. Our current standards are in the process of changing, which will allow me to reevaluate how I teach. I use technology each day in my class with the SmartBoard, multimedia, video clips, ActivInspire, and presentation software. As a result of this course I would like to integrate the iPads and Google Classroom into my class. I am hoping to figure out ways to add new projects into my curriculum that allow students to work in groups and take more ownership in their learning. Overall, this course has allowed me to create various lessons with different technologies. The resources on my website will be wonderful to use and share with other teachers.
Part Two: Assess Your Performance
Throughout this course I feel that I have written well-researched content while adding a personal element to the discussion. My real-life situations added to the conversation and provided insight to the integration of technology in schools. As a teacher at a private K-8 school, my goal was to give perspective of what is available and whether or not it is effectively being used. I always get nervous with doing properly formatted citations, but I followed APA-style throughout my blog and brought in outside research to add to my write-ups.
Throughout this course I feel that I have written well-researched content while adding a personal element to the discussion. My real-life situations added to the conversation and provided insight to the integration of technology in schools. As a teacher at a private K-8 school, my goal was to give perspective of what is available and whether or not it is effectively being used. I always get nervous with doing properly formatted citations, but I followed APA-style throughout my blog and brought in outside research to add to my write-ups.
As for timeliness, I feel this was one of my strongest areas. Most of my blogs were posted early in the week to allow my peers time to read and respond to my posts. My weakest area would be my replies to others responses. I commented on at least two peers posts each week, taking time to give a thoughtful answer with as much detail as I could. Due to the fact that my blog was setup in Blogger, I did not always notice all the relies to respond to them in a timely manner. Some weeks I was better than others. Also, depending on the peer comment, sometimes I felt there was not a lot to add in response.
Overall, I feel that I did well with my blog posts for this class. I am a tough critic of myself, so I am not sure I could ever give myself a 70/70. I do feel that I completed the criteria that was expected and made sure that content was detailed. I would possibly give myself a 65/70.
