Week 5 Reflection

As I look back and reflect on this course, I have learned a lot in many areas of the integration of technology in education. Prior to this course, I didn’t have any exposure to the Texas Long Range Plan for Technology, and had little exposure to STaR charts. Not only do I know about these important concepts, but I could explain them to my fellow educators and explain the importance of both. I was cautiously optimistic going into this course that I would get a lot out of it. I thought the articles were extremely relevant and the course was as beneficial as any that I have take to date through this program. I have already met with my principal and had a productive discussion about the future of technology at our school and gave her a few suggestions for improvement. I also had an opportunity to compare the StaR chart results from my school with the other high schools in my district in order to compare our current state of technology and was pleasantly surprised with our current status. I did see some areas that need improvement, and I hope to be a part of making those improvements happen.
A couple of things that I would have liked to done throughout the course was to find specific ways to incorporate some of the technology mentioned into my classroom and the other classrooms in my department. The main barrier to this was a lack of time, due to the fact that I am also a head basketball coach and it is the middle of the season really restricted my focus to just assignment completion without additional exploration. I would have liked to locate and observe teachers at my school utilizing technology, especially some of the tools mentioned in articles, but again, I really didn’t have any windows to make that happen. I hope to do some observing of cutting edge technology in the spring. I also plan on presenting my powerpoint about our school’s STaR chart to my principal and get some feedback.
The assignments were not didn’t have a high level of difficulty, but were very time consuming and I was forced to use large chunks of time to complete them. I wish I would have had better time management skills and broken up the assignments into easy, more manageable chunks throughout the week. The fact that the use of technology was integrated into the assignments, using a blog, creating a powerpoint, exposure to webcasts, all were important and worthwhile. In order to get comfortable and confident with technology, hands on activities and opportunities to try out applications are necessary.
I need to continue to pursue every opportunity available to improve my knowledge of technology and all of the applications for education. I feel like I have a solid foundation to build on but have tons of potential and room for growth. I would like to be a leader on my campus with technology use, and be able to learn new applications and share my information with the rest of our faculty. I believe 100% that we need to step up the importance and integration of technology in public education. It should be at the top of the list. We have an unbelieveable resource that is not being utilized to its fullest potential, and our goal needs to be to tap that resource and get more out of it. It is a continuous improvement idea.
I had a great experience starting and using my first blog. I hadn’t used one or been a frequent reader of one until this course. I had a negative conception of them, mainly due to the fact that I hadn’t been exposed to them previously. I think that blogs can be a great tool for educators, students, and all stakeholders in education. Communication is essential for teachers, and blogs are one of the most efficient ways to communicate with every person that needs information. With that great tool, great responsilbility also comes with it. There would be opportunities for misuse and abuse, and teachers would have to be extremely careful to make sure it is used exclusively for education. As the head of the health department at my school, I can see myself setting up a blog to reach all freshman students taking health. As a head basketball coach, I could have a basketball blog, including posts from players, important dates and updated changes that occur throughout the season.
As tough as it was balancing my time management during the busiest time of the year, I really feel like I got a great deal of pertinent information from this course. I am going to be a leader at my campus with the integration of technology at professional development and in the classroom. I will start it within my own department, and also try new things with my basketball program. I plan on meeting with administrators to discuss things that I learned in this class that I would like to try. I am also going to observe some of our technologically savvy teachers to get ideas from them and collaborate with them on how I can also utilize technology to improve student engagement and production. This course opened my eyes to great ideas and exposed me to state standards and charts for technology that I was not aware of, but are important to know and share with colleagues. As I reach the halfway point of my graduate school experience, I am very satisfied with the knowledge that I have gained and am excited about what the second half of courses has to offer.