Lessons Learned: Areas of Growth

I have learned that effective teaching strategies lie at the center of any successful educational activity. The pedagogical strategy employed much match the best practice for the individual piece of content. It is important to vary the strategies when needed. Technology is a tool for teachers to use when it benefits learning, and can often provide for the students a chance to engage in idea-based learning and constructivism. It is important to analyze the technology and content to ascertain the pedagogical strategy that best fits the activity.

I had not given too much thought to using websites as stand-alone instructional objects before enrolling in my current graduate course. I now see that there is merit in creating these types of online experiences for our students. I evaluated Blogs and WebQuests in this course, and I generated my own WebQuest and STAIR. This process taught me how to evaluate the different technologies and decide whether they were worthy for use in the classroom. Educational technology will evolve with time, and it is important that we learn how to adapt to it as well as learn the current technology. If we were just taught how to use the current technology, the program would lose its value after a few short years. However, we are being taught how to evaluate and adapt to technology, and these tools are invaluable.

I am going to give you a glimpse of the goals I had set for this program and this individual course in order to evaluate my progress (the intended audience was my high school students):

It is my goal to integrate technology into the classroom only when it will make a difference.

• I intend to use technology to help you understand concepts that you might not have understood without the use of technology. I will use technology to help reinforce mathematical ideas by showcasing the material in a way that is unique to the individual technology.

• I will use different teaching strategies combined with technology to help you develop a strong sense of intrinsic motivation. In other words, you will engage in the activity without seeking external rewards.

In order to use technology to make a difference in your lives, I have to grow as an educator by increasing my skill in using technology.

• I plan to dedicate myself to my studies in the pursuit of obtaining knowledge related to technology use in the classroom. I can learn the advantages and disadvantages to different technologies by reading other educators’ research on new and developing technologies.

• I will practice and experiment using technology to the point that I have mastered its practical use in the classroom. I know that I will encounter success and failure during my trials. I know that these failures will be learning experiences and are part of the educational process.

• I know that collaborative experiences are essential and that I cannot accomplish all of my goals without the help of others. I plan to seek out assistance when I experience difficulty in my academic pursuits.

It is my goal to develop skills and integrate the technology with the overall goal being increased student learning.

The above goals were centered on existing technologies, and I will continue to strive toward these goals. These goals are continual and will never be fully reached. I intend to continue to progress and become more comfortable with the web 2.0 educational technologies. I plan to become more equipped to deal with future technologies as well. I want to further explore the development of cross curricular WebQuests and STAIRS. I know that my first experiences with these stand-alone instructional objects had a steep learning curve, but the process of actual creation will become swifter. These new goals will be added to my overarching goals that were listed above to help me become more adept at integrating technology into education.