Learning Reflections From a Digital Immigrant

Upon beginning this course it was my hope that I would learn how to effectively integrate technology with curriculum and instruction in order to improve student’s achievement. I also hoped to become more knowledgeable of digital resources and to increase my understanding of the ethical and acceptable use questions surrounding the use of technology. That was what I hoped for at the beginning of the course, now at the end of the course I can honestly say that my digital “accent” is considerably less than it was before. The outcomes of the course not only aligned with those that I had envisioned, they exceeded them. Where I had only hoped to become more technology literate, I gained a strong understanding of the issue surrounding the use of technology. Where I had envisioned understanding the use of technology at the campus level, I gained a much broader district level understanding. The National Educational Technology Standards and the STaR charts took on a whole new meaning to me. I had no idea the extent to which the nation and the state have invested time, money and resources into technology. What I thought was just a haphazard array of mismatched components is really a well thought out and inspiring plan.
This new knowledge that I now carry proudly is completely relevant to what I do at my school. I can use the knowledge to increase staff motivation in the area of learning new technology. I have already begun by creating a book study blog. In the past when we did a book study it meant meeting in person for more than an hour for as many as 10-12 weeks. Now with the book study blog, we can work at our own pace, and delve as deeply into the subject as we choose without sacrificing any time that could be spent working directly or indirectly with students. Since I had hoped to learn how to merge technology and curriculum, this course has acted as a matchmaker. Now, I can use technology to present staff development that will allow teachers to simultaneously learn new technology while creating new lessons in their core subject areas.
It would be challenging, to say the least, to think of any way in which this course did not meet the learning outcomes that I had envisioned. If pressed, I would say that the only shortcomings I found were in the issue of depth. Because my knowledge level at the beginning this course was so low, there were times when a reading or lecture left me with more questions than answers. Truthfully though, I did not see this as a problem, but more as a prompt to push myself further, gather more knowledge and ask more questions.
One of the greatest things about this course was the way in which the assignments were shared. I had never read a blog before, much less published one. I found the whole experience energizing. The directions for creating a blog, creating a power point and posting to the blog were user friendly and simple to follow. I had some trouble posting my action plan to the blog, but that was overcome with a little bit of ingenuity. There were some times, like when creating the action plan for my campus, that I wished for an example to follow, but I really think that when we ask students to create work we should expect them to do it on their own. Once we show them an example, all we really get are new versions of the example. By not giving examples we truly get student created work. The one caution I have here is that if we are going to allow students to truly create, we must not have a preconceived notion of how their work should look when it is finished. We should allow for individual differences in style and our grades should be based on whether or not they included the essential elements of the task, not what their final product looks like.
I learned so much about myself during this course. I never had any technology confidence, but I would say that my confidence increased dramatically as a direct result of taking this course. I learned how to create and use a blog; because of this my campus is now doing our traditional book study in blog form. I learned what wikis are and am in the process of planning staff development that incorporates their use. I learned why we fill out the STaR chart each year and how truly important it is to each district and campus. All of this, and so much more, made me feel more confident and more willing to take on leadership roles that involved the use of technology.

I keep returning to the subject of blogs, but I think that is because learning about them had such a profound effect on me. I believe that they are valuable tool to the 21st century learner. Because of blogs, students can now publish their work in a form that has the potential to reach thousands of people. In the past, our only choices for publishing student work were creating a class book, hanging them in the hallway or hoping to get them posted into a public place like a library. Not only does blogging allow students to publish in a whole new way, it allows them to read the work of their classmates and to collaborate with other students all over the world.

I realize that with blogging comes a whole new set of responsibilities, but that is true of any new learning venue. When you take students on a field trip to a museum you teach them before hand what to expect, how to behave and what to be cautious about. Blogging is no different. We must be responsible and teach our students how to maneuver in the digital world, just as we do in the real world.

Through our discussion boards and our readings I have also learned many new ways that blogging can be used to communicate with all stakeholders. One suggestion was to use blogs to pass on information about upcoming events such as field trips or class presentations. In this way parents and other stakeholders could have up to date information at their finger tips. Another suggestion was to use blogs in an online version of a class newsletter. Make it shorter because parents are less willing to scroll down two pages of text than they are to read the front and back of a paper you send home, but include interesting things that are happening in you class and even post pictures of student work. Finally, it was suggested to use blogs as a ways to post everything from class schedules to lunch menus. All of these suggestions were very helpful, and I will begin the process of creating a class blog as soon as I have administrative approval.