Reflective Essay on Technology

The course “Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society” through Walden University has helped me to develop my own technology skills as a professional teacher in many ways. Some examples are by creating a blog through eblogger.com, setting up an RSS feed, and creating a blog posted podcast. I also learned more about how to use wikis both as a resource and how to collaboratively create a wiki and use widgets.

I have deepened my knowledge of the teaching and learning process by learning about the history, present state, and future of educational technology. Understanding where educational technology has come from, where it is now, and where the future is going allows a teacher to appreciate and relay that information throughout the teaching of technology. This course has also depicted how the use of technology in schools will affect the work place later, without this knowledge, teaching of technology in the classroom will not seem necessary. It also solidifies that educators want to make sure that students are prepared to enter the workforce, and be able to compete for careers. Through Marc Prensky’s articles the differences between digital immigrants and digital natives have been studied. The sooner an educator realizes that there is a difference between themselves and their students, the easier it will be to understand that this difference does not mean teaching the way we are used to, but instead it means an evolution in order to engage students. Students can be engaged by teaching them in a way that they are used to, through technology!

My perspective of how to change from teacher-centered to learner-centered classes has become more thorough. My undergrad courses, in science education, taught me to use student centered inquiry labs and activities. However, this course has given me more ways to allow the day-to-day class transform into a student centered environment. This can be accomplished by application of inquiry with computer and Internet based technology tools, such as audacity, wikispaces, eblogger, podcasting, vocabucasting, etc. Another aspect that will help a classroom be more student centered is to rely on the students for assistance in how they best like to learn. Eliciting the student’s help will allow them to feel a sense of ownership over their learning.

I can continue to expand my knowledge of learning, teaching, and leading with technology by using suggestions in my Tech & Learning magazine subscription and email forwards, utilizing the educational resources that our group and other groups placed and rated on our wikis, and by making use of colleagues knowledge (both through Walden and within my own school).

According to Dr. David Thornburg’s DVD segment “Bringing the fun into Teaching with Technology,” the amount of work will go up for the teacher to incorporate skills for the 21st century learner. Despite this, I am excited to say that, I have set three long-term goals for transforming my classroom environment. The first goal is to begin using vocabucasting for each chapter/unit. Vocabucasting is a combination of the two words vocabulary and podcasting. Essentially, students will, in their own words, be defining vocabulary, recording their definition in a computer program called audacity, exporting their definition as an MP3, and placing these definitions on the classes’ website. Another long term goal is to have students create, conduct, and analyze a lab, on voice thread. Voice thread is a place for students to record their voices. Students can then listen to each others’ analysis of the lab report and collaboratively learn. Students could also use the classes’ wikispace http://sms7eastscienceheredity.wikispaces.com/as a place for discussion in their lab report data and conclusions not only to “‘read’ but also to navigate the World Wide Web, locate information, evaluate it critically, synthesize it and communicate it- all skills that are becoming vital to success in this century’s economy and workforce” (Miners & Pascopella, 2007). My third long term goal is to align science units with technology curriculum. As this curriculum “provides a set of examples for preparing students to be lifelong learners and contributing members of a global society” (Profiles for Technology (ICT) Literate Students, p. 1).

During the first week of this course we filled out a checklist indicating our teaching practices for supporting 21st century skills and developing technology skills for the school and workplace environments. This checklist has three columns often, sometimes, and rarely. When I initially filled out this checklist I was down the middle between often and sometimes. However, after this eight week course, four of my answers have changed over to the often column. I feel that I can now often design learning experiences in real world activities, enable students to take responsibilities for their own learning, design experiences by incorporating technology, and seek out other professionals to build a personal learning community.

I can truly say that my teaching practices are in a state of change and I cannot wait to continue to work hard toward this evolution of teaching for the 21st century!!

Resources

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2008). Bringing the fun into teaching with technology. Baltimore: Author.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2008).Spotlight on technology: vocabucasting. Baltimore: Author.

Miners, Z., & Pascopella, A. (2007). The new literacies. District Administration, 43(10), 26–34.

Prensky, M. (2005). Listen to the natives. Educational Leadership, 63(4), 8–13.

Prensky, M. (2008, March). Turning on the lights. Educational Leadership, 65(6), 40–45.

Profiles for Technology (ICT) Literate Students [Booklet(excerpt from NETS for Students Booklet]. (2007). Ruston, LA: ISTE.