Reflection

This course has helped me to develop a few technology skills. The first being hosting my own blog along with understanding why blogs are so being used so much by the consumers of the 21st century. It is a great way to voice your opinions. In an environment of fast paced change in knowledge it allows a person to have a voice and to create their own views. This is where I believe the learner-centered instruction becomes so important. If I as an educator continue to just spill out information to my students most of it will be outdated by the time the student goes to apply it. I have deepened my knowledge of the teaching and learning process by being exposed to an environment where learning is more than just listening but it is also interacting with each other and creating new knowledge. The second way I have expanded is by trying out Podcasts and wikis. I really enjoyed the podcasts and found it very simple to use after I got it all setup. I am looking for ways to incorporate these into my classroom.
The two long-term goals I have set to transform my classroom environment into a learning environment of the 21st century are to take old lessons that I have taught in the past and process them for changes that need to be made. To often teachers don’t evaluate their lessons after the first run through. I plan on looking for ways to force students to use more technology. Second goal is to get my room up to date with the latest technology. I want students to have the option of doing and turning in their assignments from home as well as being able to access their student files they created at school. This is going to take a lot of work to overcome the district technology committee who believe technology just means having a computer for each teacher. I will have to convince it is worth time and money to make our intranet available elsewhere.
We live in an exciting time and we must embrace the changes and realize our students are counting on us to prepare them for their future not what our future looked like.

Profiling the Students of Today
Gabcast! Profiling the Students of Today #1

Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

I found the website Partnership for 21st Century Skills very interesting. I believe that until businesses take control of who they are hiring change will not take place in the educational system. It is definitely a step in the right direction, a group of major players in the business and technology world banning together to create the worker they would like to hire. With that being said the biggest problem is still the lack of monetary resources at the disposal of the educators to create the so called "real world" educational environment. I teach in a computer lab that has not been updated in over 6 years. How real world is that? No new software or hardware for 6 years. If a company dared to save money this way they would be out of business. Just like in politics the place the money comes from has the biggest say and these companies spend billions on buy-outs and mergers every year but the giving to create a stable economic system in the schools is very limited. Almost full power is expected before their business is willing to donate. If they want this change to really take place it will have to be done with money first.

ThankYou

I have checked to see if the blog sites are avialable at school and some are and some are not. I talked with the district technology department to see if they could put one or two on the exception list for me. This should happen next week.

Journals

I have been toying with this idea for a few months now. I teach freshmen level computer applications and at the beginning of the semester we do a quick refresher unit on keyboarding .During The first half of the semester I have the kids write a daily journal that must be typed and about 100 words. This is great practice keyboarding and to get them thinking of different topics. I think next semester I want them to create a blog to journal on. I could subscribe to their blogs and read all of their work in one spot without having to look in multiple computer folders. What a time saver and fun way for students to use blogging.

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