Relection on the Impact of Technology

The course, Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society has been quite an experience for me. During this course, I have dealt with the death of a colleague, survived the worst illness I have endured in years, had to defend my teaching practices to administrators who question state test results, and had to go tooth and nail with contractors in a effort to get back into a home of my own some four and a half years after Katrina. However, the real experience for me has been the learning I have done in this course. I thought I knew what blogging was, but quickly learned what I had to learn. The idea of using a podcast for my classroom had never occurred to me. Before this course, a wiki was only something I had heard of and never in relation to the classroom. For all I thought I was doing to make technology an iatrical part of my classroom, I realize now that I need to be doing so much more to truly make my class a 21st century classroom (Cramer, 2007).

During this course, I have learned how to set up an account to blog and develop a wiki space. I have learned how to post a podcast to a hosting site on the internet. I have been keeping a webpage for my class the last two years, but have come to realize now that I’m not really doing much with the site beyond posting my lesson plans for my administrators to check. I have learned several ways to take my website beyond this basic simplistic posting spot. I have also learned that having my students produce a slideshow in PowerPoint does not make my classroom a 21st century class. I have learned that I have to look at what they do and the tools they use to do things and incorporate those things into my class. I have learned to leave the concerns of high school and truly investigate how daily tasks and operations are done in the world for which I say I am preparing my students. I must develop my lessons to have my students do things in the same manner as the world would have them while fulfilling the objectives of my course. I have long said I want my students to take ownership of their learning while I challenge them beyond their comfort zones. Technology-based assignments is a way I can get my students to do so while having them demonstrate their knowledge in an authentic way (Laureate Education, Inc., 2008). All the while, I know I must continue to learn more myself. I have to keep my eyes and ears open to the world going on outside the walls of my high school classroom. I have learned through the experiences of this course that I have to get my hands dirty. In order to stay up on things and keep myself prepared for my students, I must try things out for myself. I have to experiment. I have to read. I have to continue to learn. I have to practice technologies that I learn about and study how to incorporate them into my classroom, into my lessons. As I continue to learn, I have to listen and watch my students. I must remember that I can learn from them as well. I should be looking at what they do to understand what I should be having my students do in my classroom to make my lessons more relevant to them.

I am setting two long-term goals for myself to help transform my classroom to a place where technology is integrated seamlessly to help instruct my students and improve their achievement. My first goal is to make my class website an interactive place for my students rather than just a place to electronically post my lesson plans. I plan to do this by setting up a blogging area on the website. I will have my students blog in response to certain topics in stead of turning in the traditional written essay as I cover the writing lessons of my course. This will allow me to bring the writing I have to teach my students to do into the 21st century and will also allow me to have my students interact with each other and hopefully learn from each other. My second goal is to have my students help develop methods for complete assignments in a technological way. I will give my students the objectives for the lessons and discuss the traditional methods for achieving the objectives. I will then have them brainstorm technologies that we could use in the classroom to accomplish these same goals. We could even have different groups do the assignments in different ways, then evaluate the results at the end of the lesson. Both of these, particularly the second, will take me a couple of years to fulfill. I believe that they will help make me a better teacher, make my classroom more 21st century and more fun, and make my students more successful (Cramer, 2007).

In a way, I am embarrassed to admit it has taken this course to get me thinking the right way about technology in my classroom. I have always though of myself as a technological-minded teacher. Yet, here I am, having to admit that it took this class to get me in the correct direction. Then again, that is what being an educator is all about; learning all the time and seeking new and better ways of educating our students.

References:
Cramer, S. (2007). Update your classroom with learning objects and twenty-first century skills. Clearing House, 80(3), 126–132.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008). Bringing the Fun into Teaching with Technology. The teaching professional [Motion picture]. Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work and Society. Baltimore:MD.

Wesley Rogers teaches high school English II (tenth grade).