What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
Let me preempt my choosing favorites by saying that I can only fairly choose from the exercises I have been able to implement thus far. Once the 2011-2012 school year gets underway, and I am able to apply additional Web 2.0 tools, I am confident that my list of favorites will not only be altered, but also expand!
So, at this time I will choose the tool that I have already implemented outside this class, and that would be the social bookmarking site. After creating one on “Delicious” for the first time, not only did I see the ease in which one could do such a thing, but also immediately envisioned the positive effects this would have on my colleagues and me as we continue to meet our personal goals of always improving for the sake of our students. With each workshop and session of professional development I attend, I am inundated with an additional list of resources on the subject. Organizing these in an effective manner is nearly an impossible task, and one that I either did so begrudgingly or not at all. Not any more. The current initiative that my district is working toward has an abundance of accompanying gurus, each of who comes with at least a book or two. The social bookmarking site has offered a timely, efficient, and usable method to sort these resources. The beauty of having this be “open to the public” is that everyone’s expertise and experience with these resources can be taken into consideration, if not relied upon. We can count on the support of our own colleagues and then welcome the insight of countless other professionals.
If I were to consider another tool as a favorite, it would have to be the WebQuest. My ongoing professional goal is to create lessons that are student centered, and ones that will engage my students and take them to the next level in their learning process. The children that come through our classroom doors are not the same as the ones that came through a decade ago. They are no longer willing to sit with book, paper, and pencil and take notes that they will need to memorize for an assessment. They need to be in the driver’s seat, and that seat is enveloped with technology. These kids are of the technology generation, and they should not be stifled because their educators are not of that same generation. It is our job to keep up with them in order to provide them with the best learning environment possible. A well-designed WebQuest is just the ticket. After minimal direction, the student is in charge of his/her own learning, and is engaged and energized to create the end result successfully. For this class, I created my first WebQuest, and I will definitely be tweaking it in order to utilize such a tool in my classroom. When I think of all that will come out of the students conducting their own research, applying their new knowledge, and then creating an end product that they will own, I get very excited and know they will as well.
How has this course assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
One of my lifelong learning goals is simply to never stop learning. This course will quench my thirst for new information and will also affect my students’ lifelong learning. I was not raised in a generation of generation of technology; therefore I need to constantly learn in order to keep up with my students’ technology savvy ways. This course has helped in that it has opened my eyes to way more than I knew was out there. As an educator, I strive to find ways to engage my students, and encourage them to take ownership of their own learning. When technology is involved in the lesson, they automatically become more interested, and this leads to engagement, which ultimately becomes the ticket to being a passionate learner.
This class has assisted me by adding to my technology toolbox. I now have a variety of tools to create engaging, student-centered lessons. Not only will this class affect my students, but it will also affect my colleagues and their students. I have already shared the social bookmarking site, and it truly helped us meaningfully organize a multitude of resources. I also shared with them a few of the Web 2.0 tools, and we are anxious to work together in order to see them come to life in our classrooms.
Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this course that surprised you?
I considered each and every Web 2.0 tool I was exposed to be a take-away, because I can honestly see me implementing many of them in my classroom. They are very user-friendly and therefore very doable for the busy educator.
As for unexpected outcomes and surprises, I think the only thing that I was pleasantly surprised at is just how useful this information was. At times I have taken courses where I find myself wondering when I would ever utilize the information that was being shared, but definitely not this one.
I was also pleased with the way the assignments were directed. Expectations were clear, but the way the student was allowed to meet those expectations was left up to him/her to decide. Consequently, I was able to create projects that were useful to me, and ones that I would use in my professional experiences. I am always appreciative of assignments that I will learn from and enhance my teaching with, and these class projects did just that.
What could we do differently to improve upon this course’s format or concept?
I can honestly not think of ways to improve this course, and I am truly not one to always say that. The combination of written direction and the supplemental video clips are a perfect combination. All of the information was current, and could be utilized in any classroom environment. The assignments left room for each student to create an end product that would benefit his/her classroom, and the time allowed was more than enough.
If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you again choose to participate?
If I were still in the market to further my education I would most definitely choose to participate in such a discovery program. And regardless of me being in the market, I will most definitely recommend this course and others like it to students.
No comments:
Post a Comment