Reflection

I can't believe this class is over already. I have enjoyed to coursework in the class much more than any other. I have learned so many new things to work with my students. I am now working on setting up blogs for my students next year that we can work on each week. I believe one of the most important things I learned to do in this course was creat a podcast. My students and I had so much fun playing with the editing and sound. They keep asking me when we are going to do it again.

My belief that as teachers we must stay up on what is going on in the world was verified. There are new technologies every day and I must keep up with this so that I can teach my students. My students love technology as much as I do so we really enjoy figuring out how to incoporate into the classroom. This has helped me become more learner centered. As a class we figure things out together.

To continue expanding my learning I will continue with this degree. I am looking forward to what else I will learn and how to incoporate it into my classroom. Now that we are coming up on the end of the year I am getting ready for next year. I am developing lessons centered around technology that will be on going. Lessons that include podcasts and blogs. I am actually looking forward to working on this during the summer months.

One goal that I would like to reach would be to get a grant to get my class laptops. Laptops would be very beneficial because it would give the students access to so much more. With laptops students will be able to complete assignments such as power points and other activities without me having to try and reserve the computer labs. Another goal that I would like to accomplish within two years would be to have all of my students become proficient with different forms of technology. Since I teach self-contained I have my students for three years at a time so this is a goal that I can reach. The only problem I forsee would be lack of funds. There are different organizations here in the community that give grants to teachers. I would like to get a grant that would allow me to outfit my classroom with other things besides computers. If I reach my first goal I will have plenty of computers but there are other things such as mp3 players that would also be beneficial. This would also assure me that my students will be ready for the work place when they leave me.

21st Century Education

As I viewed the website http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/index.php several things grabbed my attention. The first was the way the information was presented. It was all easy to read and in terms that even those not in education could understand. Information was easy to locate and informative. Another was the corporations that are involved in putting this site together and working on bringing education into the 21st century. I was surprised at how there are so few states that are working on this. I would like to believe that there are more states out there working on standards that would address the 21st century. I found the mission statement to be very enlightening, to know that there are those out there who know what our students need and are working to get them this. I found the tools and resource section to be very helpful. The link for Route 21 was very interesting. I enjoyed the videos that were presented. This was another site that was easy to navigate and gather information on. The framework that the designers presented was also very informative. It gave a good description of what our students should be learning. After taking time to navigate through this site and several of their links I truly believe that as a teacher I must do more to make sure that my students are learning how to survive in the 21st century. I must include more technology based learning and give the students more opportunities to use these technologies. It is our responsibility as educators to ensure that our students are getting everything they need to be successful citizens in the 21st century society.

classroom interviews on technology

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Blogging in the classroom

How can I use blogs in the content that I teach? I work with emotionally disabled middle school students. I teach all academic subjects so I am sure there is at least one that I could use blogs with. The first one that comes to mind would be to creat a homework blog. I would do this for math. I have noticed that even though the students understand the concept in class when they go to do it by themselves they forget how to do it so the result is, I don't get homework back. The students could blog their questions and I would go on and answer them. I would have to set up a certain time that their questions would have to be posted and some of my students do not have access to computers. However the students would also be able to help each other, if one student understood what they were suppose to do, then maybe they could explain it in a different way than I did, which could help the other student understand the content. By using a blog to do this the students would be able to show off what they know and this would also enhance the lesson by allowing the information to "sink in" and then get it again when they check the blogs at night.