Refection Week 8

As the result of my interactions that have occurred as a part of this course, I have come to a number of conclusions. First and foremost, I understand that today's students are living in a world of whatever, wherever, and whenever. As educators, we are negligent if we fail to acknowledge this truth and expose our students to the use of the tools that provide a foundation for their using technology in the future. That said, I am also aware that during this time of financial crisis, technology is an area that administrators and school boards are cutting. I find this to be alarming. I believe that we are challenged to provide students experiences to collaborate, problem-solve, and present findings by using technology to do so. I also believe that as educators we must not only engage our students in the use of technology, but we must also educate parents and community members on the need for students to have these experiences. I cannot suggest where much-needed funding cuts will need to come from, but I can present good cause for technology funding to at least remain untouched., realizing that in many cases schools are already unbelievably behind.

A part of my game plane involved providing mentoring to my colleagues. I have found this to be very challenging. I have used what I consider to be very “user-friendly” tools such as iMovie and MovieMaker, and I feel confident in providing training to my peers. However, in most cases, I do not find interested teachers. They are unwilling to spend the time it takes to learn to really use the software and are even more unwilling to create a classroom environment that supports student use of these tools. I have, however, found that by taking a few steps back and using tools that are equipped with their own software Flip Video Cameras and Logitech Web Cams-that I can get teachers to at least try the technology. My regret is that their use of these tools seems to occur in isolated events. The teachers are simply not committed to making technology a part of their instructional methodologies. I plan to continue increased use of these tools in my classroom, though, and hope that as the teachers see what I am doing that they will ask questions or seek to use these tools as well.

The assignments that I have encountered during this course have helped me to better design lesson plans that are driven by standards as well as to the use of technology. I realize that as passionate as I am about the use of technology, I must support standards by using these tools. I have grown in my ability to plan more valuable learning experiences for my students. In particular, readings related to digital storytelling have strengthened my approach to writing instruction. Before this course, I had read articles related to storytelling as well as those related to using software and even hardware. However, I had not read a lot about how the two could be blended to create strong learning experiences for my students. My readings in this course have allowed me to see how my students can gain power by using digital media to strengthen their stories. It has also made me aware of a number of free digital tools that I can use to support my efforts. I feel that this is valuable as it is my goal to improve my own instructional practices as I become aware of new strategies through my graduate studies.