Final Reflection for my graduate school course

This week in graduate school I was required to reflect on what I have learned in the class the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society during the past seven weeks. Before I began this course I did not have any prior knowledge of, or practice using podcasts, wikis or blogs. During the first week of the course I completed a checklist that covered the use of 21^st century skills in my classroom. I found that my strengths were that I allowed my students ample opportunity for real world problem solving and collaboration. The one area where I needed to provide my students with the opportunity was to provide students with multiple and varied opportunities for using technology tools and resources to support their learning. I now have the knowledge base myself and feel more confident in allowing my students to explore these technology tools.

The most meaningful part of this course has been the hands on experience and practice! In the beginning I was unsure that I would find ways to use the web 2.0 tools in my kindergarten classroom. However, what I have learned in the past seven weeks is that a classroom blog can be a place to showcase student work and communicate with the parents, a podcast using my kindergarten students voices can increase engagement and a wiki is a tool where parents can sign up for classroom donations. I now have firsthand experience using these tools and have made a goal that by the end of this school year I will have shared my knowledge with my co-workers. I will have to overcome the attitudes of many of the senior teachers who do not see the relevance of using technology. My goal is to create a mini-lesson where I explain the importance of using and teaching the web 2.0 tools and then help the teachers practice using the tools in their classrooms. I set this goal so that I transform more than my own classroom environment.

Because I am a Kindergarten teacher I generally use teacher-centered instruction; but, with the help of this class I have started implementing learning-centered instruction. One area of trouble with this class is when we were told that it is very important in 21^st century learning to relinquish control to the students. This is a particular challenge to me because I believe that my students are too inexperienced with web 2.0 tools at this point in the year to allow them to explore on their own. However, I have established a long term goal that within two years I will find multiple ways to allow my students to have control of their learning. I plan on accomplishing this goal by trial and error; I will create situations where my students gain experience and I facilitate their learning, but don’t direct it.