Week 5 Assignment

At the beginning of this course, I had no idea what to expect. I did not know that this would be a technology class. The course title does not lead one to believe that the entire course is about instructional technology rather than leadership. When I learned what the course content would be, I was interested. As the weeks passed, I expected more about blogs, wikis, and podcasts. While we did learn to blog, I had expected more content that would deal with blogging. Podcasting and wikis were addressed in our readings, but there were no assignments involving wikis and podcasting. I think I expected to learn about the need for instituting more technology into our curriculum. I do believe that we did learn about this, and that we learned about ways in which we can better use technology in our own schools. To sum up, once I knew what this course was, I don’t think it lived up to my expectations.

This course is very relevant to my school and to my work. Our district is very committed to the use of technology in our classrooms and student learning. All information in our school begins with the school software. We use technology to plan our lessons, register for staff development, obtain information about our special needs students, and teach in our classrooms. Many of us are using technology in testing, grading, and everyday assignments. There are a few in our school who are blogging to maintain contact with students and parents. After this course, I can see a use for blogging within my work. There is a push in our district to go totally to computers and a vision of a time when we are no longer using textbooks. I believe the outcomes of this course are highly relevant to what I do.

As I stated in the first paragraph, I expected to learn more about wikis and podcasting. I realize this is not an in depth technology course, and we did not have the time to get much deeper into different new technologies than we did.

I was successful in completing all the assignments. I am not sure how successful I was in the week 4 assignment. At the time of this writing, I have not received a grade for that assignment. My only problem with the assignments in this course was with the week 4 assignment. After talking with my classmates, I think we all felt that there was not enough detail about the form the assignment was to take. Only after another classmate posted the action plan was I able to develop an idea that was to be my plan. Other than the lack of information for this one assignment, I feel the other assignments were not a problem to complete.

I learned that, personally, I have a few more technological skills that many of my peers. I’ve worked with some form of technology for the last three decades. I have used many different types of software and I am not afraid to try new pieces of hardware and software. I think these traits will help me in leading other staff members toward using technology more in their teaching. In addition, our school and district are well ahead of many of the schools in Texas. The problem some schools have is lack of funding and lack of technology development. If there have been no technological advancements in certain areas of the state, it will be hard for schools to improve their technology situation. These schools can still improve some uses of technology in their districts while waiting for bigger improvements in their areas of the state.

In the educational setting, blogging can be a tremendous tool for learning, communication, and information to all stakeholders involved with the school. Blogging can be instrumental in teaching by involving students in their own teaching and learning. I have learned that a blog can help students teach themselves and other students. This can also be instrumental in making lessons and assignments dynamic. By using a blog, we can set an assignment in motion and the let students define where it goes. We can use a blog to maintain avenues of communication with administrators and parents. Blogging can be used to deliver necessary information about anything from current lessons to future assignments. There are many uses for blogging already in use and many that will be found as people begin using blogs in education more.

I think one of the biggest concerns with the use of blogging is the lack of planning that many people do when using this form of communication. Teacher must understand what information they can and cannot publish. They must also realize that their blog will be viewed by many people. Everything about that blog will be scrutinized and they must be very careful how it is written. Students must realize that their will be people reading their blogs that may not have good intentions. Students must make sure the information they put in their blogs cannot lead people to them.

I addressed the last question in a previous paragraph. All stakeholders can be kept informed through a teacher, administrator, campus, or district blog.