Final Reflection and Blog Posting on the Impact of Technology
Over the last eight weeks, I have reflected on my teaching philosophy, professional practices, and the amount of technology I currently use in my classroom. As I have said in the past and will continue to state even after I finish this degree, I could not have picked a more appropriate time to learn more about integrating new technologies into my classroom. Looking ahead at the school year to come, I already feel more prepared for the new and exciting challenges and learning my students, and I will be faced with. On August 31st, I will begin my eighth school year in my district, and now more than ever, my students will be exposed not only to 21-st century college and career readiness skills but also Web 2.0 technologies they will utilize for years to come.
During this course, I began to take mental note of the many changes I with incorporate into my typical first week of school routines. Many of the platforms and new technologies embedded in this course through research, or professor and classmate suggestion I will also be embedded within my own new classroom norms. I plan to prepare my students with a good understanding of their device, digital tools, and collaboration options right away just in case we transfer back to a strictly remote learning setting this year. Looking back, Twitter, Wikis, blogs, and feedreaders were barely present in my vocabulary, and now they have become part of my weekly routine. Shortly, they will be part of my daily routines with my colleagues and English language learners (ELLs).
As I learned from Richardson (2010), there are many benefits to using a blog in your classroom, and I feel its ease for collaboration between myself and my students and amongst each other is a way I will increase engagement and participation. Since this is one area where my instruction was lacking last Spring, this is a way I plan to increase communication between myself, my students, and their families to facilitate and improve my students’ overall learning during these uncertain times (Walden University, 2015). I anticipate that students will struggle with navigating and keeping these new platforms organized. Therefore, I am pleased to see that my classroom Blogger syncs easily with Google Classroom and Nearpod, another new online platform my district will be utilizing this year! I hope that Blogging in my class will not only increase participation and engagement but
I have also learned that the role of teachers is ever-changing, and our responsibilities no longer lie in just planning lessons that relay our knowledge of content material to our students. Not only should we “be aware that our “students’ prior learning, culture, family, and community values,” but we need to possess the ability to adjust and modify our curriculum to meet the needs of each student (Walden University, 2016a). While I have always tuned into my student’s prior knowledge, this will be another new struggle this year as I will be teaching more than just mathematics. Identifying my ELLs’ prior knowledge of digital devices and tools to modify my support and instruction of these technologies will be a task I have never completed before (Li, 2013).
I feel being more educated about these technologies and able to anticipate struggles has deepened my knowledge of the teaching and learning process about these new 21-st Century skills (Richardson, 2015). The one silver lining of the pandemic is that my district is now a one-to-one school, so I have been given the opportunity to integrate these new learnings much easier into my classroom and my “new norm” instruction. I am actively transforming most of my in-person lessons to interactive digital lessons that students can also complete from home as my school is doing both in-person and remote learning this Fall.
In addition to these changes, throughout the 2020-2021 school year, I will assist and support all my students in navigating their devices, new digital tools, and mastering proper online safety protocols. By doing so, they will be able to successfully instruct others on these topics and utilize these skills in other courses or within their workplace. By the end of the year, I would also like my teachings to prepare my students enough to possess the skills necessary to design instructional videos in multiple languages (ISTE, 2016). This will assist me in instructing and communicating these ideas in an innovative and engaging way for my future students the following school year (ISTE, 2008). I will accomplish these goals by modifying my math curriculum to model these actions and new instruction so my students will learn by exposure and completing the activities throughout the entirety of the school year (Li, 2013). Through this program, professional developments provided through my district, and my research, I would like to learn how to continue to develop my students’ technology literacy and inevitably prepare them for the future.
References
International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2008). Standards for teachers. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/standards/standards-for-teachers
International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2016). Standards for students. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/standards/for-students-2016
Li, N. (2013). Seeking Best Practices and Meeting the Needs of the English Language Learners: Using Second Language Theories and Integrating Technology in Teaching. Journal of International Education Research, 9(3), 217–222.
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Corwin.
Richardson, W. (2015). From master teacher to master learner. Solution Tree Press.
Walden University. (2016a). RWRCOEL diversity proficiencies. Walden University Blackboard. https://class.waldenu.edu
