Reflection

This class EDUC-67101, Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society has been very beneficial to me. I have always been a little intimidated by technology, but having to actually experience things on my own to pass an online class has gotten me a lot more comfortable. I feel like I am ready to tackle any form of technology now. Technology is something everyone will have to face sometime in their life to thrive in this world. My entire school district this year is going paperless, so people really need to get familiar with computers.

This year I plan to use a lot of technology in my classroom. I just hope and pray that administrators and parents will support my ideas. I plan to give opportunities for a lot of collaboration and try to create a student centered classroom. My first goal for this school year is to not work harder than my students. I want my students to have more responsibility and I want them to lead discussions, so that they won’t have to sit through boring lectures like I did as a student. My second goal is to expose my students to all sources of technology and continue to teach them 21 Century skill to help them be successful in future endeavors.

I am going to continue to be a life long learner and hope that I am able to work and collaborate with colleagues who are on the same page as I am. I plan to participate in as much professional development as possible. My district offers a lot of free courses on technology, so I think I am going to take advantage of that.

New podcast URL

http://shondamelvinawilliams.podomatic.com/player/web/2009-08-08T09_20_02-07_00

Here is the URL to my podcast:

http://podcastmachine.s3.amazonaws.com/1442/6838/jermainejohnson.wma

Partnership for 21 Century Skills

My first reaction when looking at this particular website was that it was going to be a whole lot of boring reading. Everything looked organized and well thoughout, but will it really benefit me? As I skimmed across the information, the members and partners really grabbed my attention. Seeing those big names like Dell, U.S Department of Education, and the National Education Association really made me feel like this could be interesting and worth looking into with more depth. I honestly thought it was going to talk about all these different kinds of technology and teaching kids how to use them to their advantage. I was surprised to see that the website proposed plans about how bring education, business, and government together. The proposals wanted to create productive memebers of society.

I don't really agree or disagree with the information on the website. I think it all sounds grand. There are so many plans and proposals to do this and that when it comes to providing and better education for our students, I'm just anticipating the day when something really happens.

This year my students could not agree on anything. I teach fifth and sixth graders who really love to talk and love the computer. Whenever we had discussions they went on for hours. I think as for as my classroom, I would use my blog as a place for my students to make comments or to respond to daily questions. I would post daily questions or just ask for their opinion on content that we discussed. They could read what the the different comments and we would even talk about some in class. With the students being able to blog everyone would get a chance to say what they feel, and not just a few outspoken ones.

I have recently started taking on line classes. I was afraid at first, but once I completed one class I began to feel comfortable. I am learning so much in my technology program. This week I learned about something called the RSS feeder(Real Simple Syndication). It sounds cool and I can't wait to learn more about it.