Week #10 - Reflections

So, I'm going to begin this blog with one of my favorite songs:

Appropriate? Of course it is! This post is about what I've learned from this course and what I want to know more about. Mulan learned that she is not who everyone thinks she is and that she doesn't know who that person is herself. See the connection now? Good! Let's keep going.

First, a bit of reflection of my own - I've created my second podcast reviewing the final learning objectives for this course.

listen to ‘Final Reflection’ on Audioboo

Now, to answer some direct questions:

Why is it important for all teachers to integrate technology into the lessons they teach, regardless the age of the students or genre that they teach?  Or is it?

It is! And I think I covered this in my week 9 post, but I will reiterate in short form. Teachers will never go out of style - a passionate person speaking about a subject they love can inspire. Technology however, will constantly change. Wait, this seems like the opposite argument . . .what's going on here? Bear with me. While we stand up there lecturing our hearts out, students are getting jazzed by the latest technology. And if we can combine those two passions, think of the things we can accomplish. Here's an article by Edudemic that talks about how students are using technology. The short answer is - for almost everything. According to that article 96% of college students have experienced an online component to their courses. NINTEY-SIX PERCENT! If colleges are moving to embrace technology, we can not do our students the disservice of not doing the same.

Discuss what may be barriers to technology integration and how you as the teacher can overcome them. 

Appropriate to this discussion.

In my opinion, the biggest barrier to technology integration is funding. Most of the technology that I have taken advantage of in my classroom came from me. I used my tablet, my laptop, my webcam, etc. to make my classroom a more interesting and inviting place. In the last couple of years, we have acquired a great deal more technology for the classroom - laptop carts, smartboards, student information systems, etc. But all that came because the funding was put in place to do so. School boards and the public in general needs to see that technology is an integral part of our society. As a teacher, its my job to show them. To make my programs and resources visible to them in fun and interesting ways. I want them to say "Wow, that's great! How can other teachers do that?"  By being a futurist, I can encourage and inspire others to come along with me. I want students to show their parents the great work their doing using Animoto or Vimeo and have the parent attend PTO meetings and discuss the great uses of technology and have it spread from there. Like that old shampoo commercial - and they told two friends, and they told two friends and so on and so on.  Here's a great article that can help get parents on board and riding the technology train. One of my favorite parts the the "Follow up with parents" step. Inviting parents in to see what their student has done or other students have done is a great way to get people excited. One year for parent teacher night, we ran a looped video that showed students doing science. It was a big hit!

Another barrier to technology integration, sadly, may be the teacher. Some people are just fearful of technology. One of the fears they have is not knowing how to use it and their students getting some advantage they didn't know about that will decrease the rigor of an assignment. Its an understandable problem.  Marc Prensky writes about it very well in his article about Shaping Technology.  He says "resisting today's digital technology will be truly lethal to our children's education," and I agree with him.  We cannot fall back on old ways with the new ways out there waiting for us.  So, my solution is to be a teacher to my fellow teachers. I want them to feel like they can use technology without fear of something going wrong. They have to know that (in most cases) their "dabbling" as Mr. Prensky puts it, is not going to break anything.  I'm planning on having Tech Tuesday at our monthly meetings at school to introduce new technology to my colleagues. And then, they can introduce it to others and so on and so on (see the theme here?). I love technology and I love teaching, so I can combine two passions into one and help my fellow teacher. Some of the tools I will be covering come from Edudemic's 100 best Web 2.0 tools.  Things that will be helpful to everyone like Diigo and Wordle.

Personal Learning Network
Throughout this blog I've talked about the framework I'm constructing for my classroom and my colleagues. To put a formal name to it - it's a PLN. I'm connecting to others through this class, through Diigo, through the interview process with Mrs. Carney.  Plus, I get to bring all of this information back to my colleagues in my department and staff meetings. I get to bring everyone who gets excited about technology into my personal learning network. And that's just the start - I'm planning on reaching out to experts to speak to my class through Skype and Google+. I'm planning on continuing my role in my district as a technology go-to guy so that when people find new things to share, I can get in on the action. I think having an open mind about technology can really help lead to a better place for teachers and students alike.