Final Reflection

I really enjoyed this class- not only did we discuss, collaborate and learn about technology options, we used them regularly. It was nice to be able to make our own assessments based on the experience and not just from watching tutorials or being pushed to try one option over another. The explorations of wikis, Diggo, Google Docs as well learning about integrating technology such as iPods and iPads, I found beneficial to expanding my skill set, but also realize how far behind our school district is in leveraging these tools in the class room compared to other school districts.

From this course I am taking with me the following information and assets - creating curriculum maps using wikis, for each grade level and subject matter, as well as promoting to our staff to research and apply for grants to help us slowly bring our classrooms up to par with those around us.  My perspective now is that we need to provide for our students and need to try to get what we can in these difficult times and slim budgets that we are experiencing here in my school district. I hope that as I share these tools with my staff and peers we can not only increase our students use of technology through blogs and free Web 2.0 resources, but that we can also minimize our reliance on paper /pencils and move more towards a paperless environment that have a wide variety of advantages from cost savings to becoming a more "green" school.

I also admit that when I first watched the videos and saw what various schools both public and private were doing, I felt a very high level of frustration because of how behind and restricted the school district is. As I started to see the amount of free resources available, I started brainstorming more creative tactics and will slowly start introducing these ideas to staff, students and peers to do the best we can with what we've got. I hope that as I start to enforce the use of wikis for use of social studies and science curriculums my staff will see the benefits and extend the tools to their work as well as with their students.


 

Week 8: Personal Learning Networks

Creating personal learning networks has always been a very natural thing for me to do. Since I graduated college, I have always found advantages to building a learning network. The videos and readings, at least for me re-interate the importance of have collaborate environments that we can teach, learn and grow from to become better educators and administrators. 

Until recently, I have been always looking towards mentors, listening and learning from their experiences. I am at the point in my career now where I becoming a mentor and able to share experiences, lessons learned and best practices with our more junior teachers. For growth both personally and in our staff, I believe sharing experiences only improves working relationships among staff, and with those throughout our school district.

With technology, we now have a greater ability to expand our PLN's not only regionally, but globally as well. For example check out this Pinterest example of an educational PLN. Just on this one example alone - the options are overwhelming! And there is an interest group for just about any type of PLN group you may want to join, gain and share experiences with. 

We all have these networks from peers within our school, courses we enroll in and workshops we attend, as our careers evolve so have our PLNs and it is only going to improve with technology and the ability to subscribe to RSS feeds, join communities with common interest as well as courses such as this one, where we need to virtually collaborate and share ideas.

Webinar: Tracey Wilen-Daugenti on How Technology is Reshaping Education, Work, and Society

Tuesday, April 17th: 

Tracey Wilen-Daugenti on How Technology is Reshaping Education, Work, and Society

From the Amazon book description:  
"Higher education in the U.S. has traditionally prepared students for work and social success, but with families, work, and society itself undergoing revolutionary change, is this preparation sufficient to develop the 21st-century workforce? This book explores how evolving family structures, new ways of balancing work and personal lives, and rapid technological advancements will transform the ways that U.S. colleges and universities develop well-educated, career-oriented citizens. Society 3.0 will help higher education providers and industry leaders understand these potentially disruptive variables and design appropriate programs and career paths for tomorrow's workers. 

Review

This webinar was interesting and not what I really expected. Daugenti's focus was primarily on learning patterns and how technology has helped increase resources for continuing educations, specifically at the collegiate level, with specific references to the University of Phoenix and how they are continuing to evolve the teaching methods to help accommodate the variety of learning types that exist. When you click on the url for the University of Phoenix, you will instantly see the push for customization to taylor to your learning styles. There was also a heavy focus on women, how society has changed and the impact on the career and education experiences.

The overall tone of the webinar was a little dry and hard to maintain interest, but this may be also because I was looking of more of a focus on how technology is reshaping education in general and not just a focus on higher education. My hope was to get a better understanding of learning patterns and how we can apply them to our classrooms, so that students are better prepared for higher education options and how they can understand their learning patterns and make decisions that will be of the greatest benefit to them. Personally I felt it was more beneficial to myself and learning all of the different options available to me and my continuing education. 

Daugenti is a wealth of knowledge and I felt like the webinar would of been more interesting if she was able just to present her work and Hargadon was a minimal participant rather than leading the questions and jumping topics. It was a good experience, however I had a different expectation of what I would get out of this topic vs. what I actually did get from it.