Course Reflection

This course has given me an opportunity to develop and implement some of the technological pieces that I have wanted to bring to my classroom for quite a while.  The most meaningful and immediately useful piece is the blog that we created.  I will be working to use this in connection with my classes.  I’m not sure exactly what role it will play.  It is created and already there so I have no reason not to use it.  I enjoyed making the podcast and working through some of the issues I had really tested my problem solving abilities.  I have also been thinking about using these pieces as ways to reach my students.  They live in this digital world and spend the majority of their time on the computer and the internet, I need to reach them where they are.  I have also been working to find ways to put the focus more on them when it comes to learning.  In the beginning of my career I decided to be the one that was driving the learning in my classroom.  It didn’t take long for me to discover that this was not the best way to operate.  I have been working to make this happen and this course has continued to drive me towards that ideal.  I think that I will continue to seek out resources and experiment with technology and the possible uses inside and outside of the classroom.  There are teachers around the country that are doing great things when it comes to these applications, I just need to be proactive in finding them and then reaching out and tapping into them as a resource.  This networking can also lead to ideas that I have not even thought of yet.  Using these resources in a focused manner that benefits student achievement is my goal.

My first goal is to have a fully functioning blog that my students will access and use on a regular basis.  They can respond to postings as part of their classwork and also comment and respond to postings by other students.  Creating this type of interactive networking is an exciting prospect.

My second goal is to have a regular (bi-weekly or monthly) podcast that I can post to provide students and their parents access to information outside of the classroom.  I see this as a great tool for parents to have a little ammo when talking to their kids about what they did or are doing in school.  I also see it as a refresher for students who can make deeper connections to the material that we are studying or have previously covered.

The obstacles to these goals are that there aren’t very many teachers in my entire district trying these types of technological tools.  Whenever it comes to something new, people fight it.  I can see my administrators being suspicious and questioning the value or intent.  There is always a concern (and sometimes rightfully so) that teachers are reaching too far into students personal lives or that they are sharing too much of their own personal lives.  Getting people to believe and back what you are doing is sometimes the biggest challenge that can be faced.  I see this as the wall that I must break through.

This course has driven me to take some of my ideas and actually put them into reality.  I have always done fairly well when it comes to technology and now I have taken that it moved it towards my classroom and using it for the benefit of my students.

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills

http://www.p21.org/index.php

I had the opportunity to spend some time reading through this website and found some very interesting information.  I also found quite a bit of the information to be of the types of strategies and ideals that are already in place.  There is plenty of information about how you can work with this organization and lobby for change in your state.  This is where I think the roadblock is with my state.

The State of Washington has repeatedly shown that they do not value education and that spending money on education is a low priority.  It has also been the case that our state only cares about operating at the minimum standard and that the only things that are important are those that help our students pass standardized tests and raise AYP scores.  When we have had the opportunity to step up and challenge our students to reach for a higher level in the areas of math and science, we have crumbled when we couldn't get the score results that we wanted.  Passing scores in these areas are no longer on the table for graduation requirements.  Social Studies entered the conversation briefly but didn't make it very far down the road before being squashed as well.

What does this have to do with the previously mentioned website?  If the State of Washington is unwilling to fund and/or pursue the most basic of education areas, why would they think that the four Cs (critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, and creativity and innovation) are worthy of funding or time?  I think that there is a great deal of value in having students that can perform the four C's at a high level.  I agree with the website and the idea that our business leaders are looking for employees that can do these things and do these things well.  I just don't see that working its way into the education environment in this state.  Our state has voted down numerous education reform options (you don't want to hear about the charter school debate).  We don't like how it is now and we are afraid of change so the easy thing to do is to keep it the same.

I would love to see some of these ideas put into place in my classroom and in other classrooms like mine.  I think that there is a lot of positives that can come out of changing what we do to help students be better poised for success in their future.  The question is:

What's holding us back?