To create a successful
learning environment for our students takes many different things working in
harmony. Educators need to be able to
pull all the factors together so that our students are able to use the many
resources available to them. Our face
paced society and work ethic has created wonderful opportunities for students
to create, to research and to apply their skills through technology. Using blogs, podcasts, instant messaging, and
wikis can help teachers transform the classroom into a forum that our students
are familiar with.
Taking the course Understanding the Impact
of Technology on Education, Work, and Society at Walden University has
helped me develop my own technological skills as a professional teacher by
infusing technology into my lessons. Using my interactive whiteboard in other
ways besides a presentation tool has helped me inform my students that the
internet and resources online can be used for educational purposes then just
entertainment. My knowledge of teaching
and learning processes has deepened through multiple points of entry for student
understanding of a particular subject through technology. Creating many forums for our students to
express and receive ideas can only help our students to become successful. Giving our students dynamic ways to obtain
the information we need builds different skills for them to develop. Seeking information and distinguishing what
is important to achieve our goals will help our students to build critical
thinking skills. I have always thought
that teachers did all the teaching and that students only learned from the
instruction by the teacher. After taking
this course, it is clear that resources can be made available to our students
so that they can learn from their peers and other resources that already exist
all over the internet. I will continue to
expand my knowledge of learning, teaching and leading with technology with the
aim of increasing student achievement through acknowledging how my students receive
their information and providing pathways to be successful. I will try to keep reading and looking out
for different resources that our students to access when they are in school or
at home.
I will strive to
incorporate a new technology every year to see what works best for my students
to be successful through the different ways they can learn the material. Being able to take my students to a computer
lab in school once a week can help them become familiar with the different resources
to use and apply to their school work. Scheduling
time to use the computer lab with my school will give my students opportunities
to build skills that will help them research and come up with their own solutions. Another long-term goal is to setup and a live
interactive classroom that will inform students of their progress as the school
year carries on. Using my schools online
website can help me create accounts for all my students to view which
assignments they have completed and what they still need to complete to become
successful in the classroom.
Providing students with
multiple and varied opportunities for using technology tools and resources to
support learning has changed from rarely to often because of the different ways
I can reach out to my students through the various resources the internet
provides us. Model effective and
appropriate technology use in my work environment by using appropriate tools in
work processes, such as communication tools, grading software, and online
resources for teaching and assessment went from rarely to often after this
course because of the different ways we learned to reach out to our students
through different forms of media. We can
use online resources to inform and apply their learning to games or other interactive
software to motivate our students to learn.
