As I started this course 5 weeks ago, I started to really think about how technology was used in our schools, what was really offered to all teachers, and how technology was really perceived in our schools. I have always thought that technology was a strength of mine, being that I have only been out of school for three years. I quickly realized that this was not as true as I thought; I took the pre evaluation and realized that I had to answer low on most questions. The problem was that I have heard of most things; however I was not sure how to actually do any of the things. After realizing this, I envisioned myself being much more tech savvy by the end of this course. I would say that now that the course is coming to an end, I can say that I am much more tech savvy then before. I had never created a blog before, so I was actually really interested to learn how blogs work. I have already read blogs, but never had my own. I feel that I did achieve what I envisioned because I went outside of my comfort zone with it comes to technology, and was successful.
Now that I understand blogs and how to post power points, I feel that I can take this back to my own classroom. For example my campus requires that all teachers maintain a website. On this website you must post worksheets and notes that you do each day in your classroom. When I have done power points in the past, I have never liked just attaching the file, so now that I know I can convert the power pint so that it plays on my website; I feel that my student’s will benefit from that resource when they are absent. I have already started doing this on my school website.
Throughout this course I found myself constantly learning more about myself. I again thought I knew a lot about technology and thought that I was using it effectively in my classroom. I am using it all the time, but this class has made me realize that I need to look at the class from the eyes of the students, what do they feel comfortable with and using, what is hard for them, what do I think will be most effective for them. At times, I think we get caught up in how innovate this technology will look from the outside, and we don’t think about the user friendliness of the tools and how they really help. I know understand why the student’s are so reluctant to the textbooks and even the homework papers, they do not use books, even books that they want to read can be found on the computer ( kindles) and paper is not something they use as much, all notes and reminders can be types into your phone, computer or some other devise.
This leads to me to blogging. I find myself reading random blogs on the internet all the time to try to read thoughts and opinions on topics, so after this course I realized why wouldn’t’ a blog in a classroom help my students in the same way. If I had a class blog, students could read my lesson notes from home at any time, they could read announcements, comments about my thoughts about the day. Student’s sit on the computer at night, so this would be helpful to keep the student’s up to date and involved. I was not sure how to use a blog period till this class, much less how to incorporate this into my classroom. Now, I do see the positive side of this, however I do see the negative side of blogging. I feel that if we do not monitor blogs, provide security for blogs and set limitations on blogs that we could have many issues from the standpoint of an administrator. As an administrator it is important to make sure that we set guidelines, monitor blogs and know what is really out on our teachers’ websites, and blogs. The more freedom and technology we allow the more legal issues you can face.
As an administrator it is also important to make sure that I communicate with my community and stakeholders in our community. With a blog for the school, we can educate our stakeholders on what is going on in our school on a daily basis. With live blogs each day, we can put emotions and thoughts in to our communication. We can put instant results, information, reports, data and messages out to our community within seconds. Again, I think it is important to make sure you have a certain security feature so that those who do not need to know every detail of our school are not checking up on them when they are not suppose to.
All in all, this class has opened my eyes to the extent of which technology can reach our students and the effect that technology can have in our schools.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
When looking at the Long Range Plan, one area is of interest to me. Educator preperation and develpoment sets the standards of what our teachers will need to master and be educated on before they should be able to teach our future leaders of the world. All teacehers who are starting out now, have to master SBEC standards before they can becomes teachers. However, technology is changing at such a rapid pace that all techers will need to have continued traning to keep up to date. As for vertern teacehers, who have not had the training in the first place need to partipate in training as often as possible in order to still meet the SBEC standards.
The state and the district as moving at a rapid pace to change the enhance the use of technolgy in the classrooms, but in this area the state and district as budgeting money to help support the training of teachers to be able to excute the new technology. The state is looking at all districts on the same playing field. Texas has a high percent of teachers already using technology, however then you look at the districts, you can find bigger budget cost and funding to help support the support local trainings.
To help with this process, the district should be setting standards and requirments for training for all teachers. Visions and goals should be set and all professtional develpoment iniatives should be directed towards the visions.
The state and the district as moving at a rapid pace to change the enhance the use of technolgy in the classrooms, but in this area the state and district as budgeting money to help support the training of teachers to be able to excute the new technology. The state is looking at all districts on the same playing field. Texas has a high percent of teachers already using technology, however then you look at the districts, you can find bigger budget cost and funding to help support the support local trainings.
To help with this process, the district should be setting standards and requirments for training for all teachers. Visions and goals should be set and all professtional develpoment iniatives should be directed towards the visions.
Week 1 Assignment Part 4
After looking through the Technology Applications TEKS for K-12, I found that we are suppose to be sprialing these TEKS all they way through thier school education. In K- 5 they student's need to learn to become proficent at the keyboard, which makes since they are learning to write, read and spell, so we can only hope that they can type thier thoughts out correctly by the end of thier elementary years. In the middle school, the students should be able to create documents, and use them in a variety of ways, and in multiple subjects. As you move to the highschool the options are endless, students could start to write thier own computer problems. However, if we forget to test them on thier abilty to type after 5th grade, then how do we expect them to make computer programs.
As a math teacher, I think it would be important for me to maybe create a lesson where the student's get a problem and they decide how they are going to teach the problem to the class. They can make a powerpoint to present, which would keep them typing, and have them making document's. In powerpoints, there are so many ways to enhance the document as well. Which makes the learning fun and keeps the students engaged. This woud cover TEKS all across the board. Not at much of the foundations, but the communications would be heavily loaded in this lesson.
As a math teacher, I think it would be important for me to maybe create a lesson where the student's get a problem and they decide how they are going to teach the problem to the class. They can make a powerpoint to present, which would keep them typing, and have them making document's. In powerpoints, there are so many ways to enhance the document as well. Which makes the learning fun and keeps the students engaged. This woud cover TEKS all across the board. Not at much of the foundations, but the communications would be heavily loaded in this lesson.
Week 1 Assingment Part 3
After reading through our long range plan for technology, I find myself wanting to get up and go find more technology to use in my classroom. As a math teacher, I currently use my laptop, my projector, my elmo, my smart board, my set of TI navagator calculators. While I know this is a lot, I still fill that I lose my student's interest at times. I wonder what else I can do to help in this area.
I agree that all my student's know more about emailing, networking websites, cell phones and computers in general then I do, so I wonder what I can do to incorporate this into my classroom.
As an instructional leader on a campus, I feel that I would need to make sure that funds are there on my campus to provide the student's with the technolgly first. Then once I have the technolgy, I would then like to provide professional developments on how to use the technolgy in an operating manner along with ideas of how to incorapte it into the lessons.
I agree that all my student's know more about emailing, networking websites, cell phones and computers in general then I do, so I wonder what I can do to incorporate this into my classroom.
As an instructional leader on a campus, I feel that I would need to make sure that funds are there on my campus to provide the student's with the technolgly first. Then once I have the technolgy, I would then like to provide professional developments on how to use the technolgy in an operating manner along with ideas of how to incorapte it into the lessons.
Week 1 Part 1 A and B
After completing the three Technology skills assessment's, I was very surpirised by a few things. As I read through the Technology Applications Inventory, I found that I knew what most of the questions were refering to, however when it would say, " I can and I know", I foudn myself checking no. I do know about a lot of the technology, I have just never taken the time to do things myself. I am good on basis computer skills, powerpoints, presenting and seraching the internet, but when it comes to the more complex things, I find myself calling the help desk.
Then as I took the SETDA assessment I found it interesting that my school does provide and promote lots of technology throughout the school, however they do not offer lots of training on how to use the technology, how to operate, how to incorporate into lessons or how to manage the technology. This might lead to why I know about the things it I can do, but do not always not how to use or how to do some of the stuff.
I do however find myself at a level 3 on the Rubric for Adminisrative Technology, I do most things through a computer, I keep most data on the computer and I use the computer to document student activity and doucments. I do help with the webpages, however I do have a sheet that tells me what to do.
Overall, I find myself in the middle of the technology world. I know a lot but there is still more for me to learn.
Then as I took the SETDA assessment I found it interesting that my school does provide and promote lots of technology throughout the school, however they do not offer lots of training on how to use the technology, how to operate, how to incorporate into lessons or how to manage the technology. This might lead to why I know about the things it I can do, but do not always not how to use or how to do some of the stuff.
I do however find myself at a level 3 on the Rubric for Adminisrative Technology, I do most things through a computer, I keep most data on the computer and I use the computer to document student activity and doucments. I do help with the webpages, however I do have a sheet that tells me what to do.
Overall, I find myself in the middle of the technology world. I know a lot but there is still more for me to learn.
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