Class One is Done

I have finished my first class at Lamar University. It wasn't all that different from Ashford with the exception of not having to write papers every week. I will miss having all of my Ashford friends in my class with me but I have definately made the right educational decision for me. I now have an entire month off without class. It gives me plenty of time to spend with the kids over their Christmas break. I start my student teaching in three weeks. I am excited to get into the classroom. Once I am done with the student teaching in April I will be able to get my teaching credentials. I hope to start looking for a job after that. I look forward to continuing my education and finishing my Masters degree.

Week 5 Reflection

Five weeks ago I started my first ever Masters level course. I was unsure what to expect until I read some of our assignments. After reading these assignments I determined that I would be learning how to use blogs and wikis. I have never used these types of websites so I was very interested in seeing how to use them. After five weeks in this course I feel like I have gotten a good idea of how to use these sites. I believe that with a little more practice I will be able to come up with different uses for these sites. I believe that I have learned more from this class than I had expected upon entering it. I believe that the course has been very informative for me and that without the class I probably would not have ever even thought about using these types of sites in teaching.

I believe that I will be able to use this information when I become a teacher. I feel like I am getting pretty good at this type of site and feel that I would probably use them in my classes to communicate with parents and students. I believe it will be a great way for my to communicate what is expected of the children to both their parents and the students themselves. I believe that using technology is relevant in today’s school systems. There are a lot of parents who work and are very busy. They may not always have time to call a teacher and ask for information. For these parents a wiki could be a great way to communicate with the teacher. They can look there to see what their children’s assignments are. They are also able to use the wiki to speak with the teacher. Email will also be convenient for these parents. Since technology is so important in today’s world we need to make sure to use it in our schools too.

This course was very informative. I feel like I learned most of what was being taught. I feel like I do need a little more work on using a wiki. My main problem was learning how to set it up so that others could comment on my post. Eventually I found out how to do it. Because of this I feel like I may need a little more work using it. I believe that with a little more practice it will be very easy for me to set up the security on my sites. Security is definitely important when dealing with parents and students so I want to make sure that I have got my security set up in the correct manner. I want to experiment with setting up sites that everyone has to sign in to see what is on it. I believe that if I learn to do that it will make the security better for dealing with students and parents. I also feel like I need a little more time trying to come up with ways to allow students to use technology in the classroom. I have some ideas, but since I have not started teaching yet it is a little harder for me to envision some of the ways it may be used. I feel like that will come with time spent in the classroom.

I was successful in doing the course assignments, but I was a little discouraged on some of them. It is difficult to answer some of the questions if you are not a teacher. It is difficult to know some of the information asked if you are not employed by a school district. I did have some knowledge of the schools from my children being in school. I asked some of the teachers there for information which did help me with the assignments. However, it was still discouraging and made me feel like I may not belong in the class. In the end I have made it and know that I do belong here. It is just harder for me than for others because I do not have the information that most of the other students have that are currently teachers.

This course has taught me that the technology I love so much can be used in the classroom. I never knew just how much technology was being used in our local districts until I started this class and also met with the Goose Creek Chief of Technology. I did not know that every fifth grader has a computer in our district. I was very excited to learn this information. I learned that I have always thought of blogs and wikis and something that had no place in our schools. After this course I have learned that I was mistaken. They definitely can be used in our schools to help our students and their parents. I think that I need to keep an open mind to what can and cannot be used in our classroom. If I had not kept an open mind when I went into this class then I would have missed out on different uses of blogs and wikis. An open mind is very important in an educator and I need to continue to look for uses for all of the different technologies out there.

Introduction of the E-Rate Plan Week 2 slide show

View more presentations or Upload your own.

Week 2 Web Chat

When attending the week 2 web chat we discussed that credential of Lamar University.  I already knew them from going to Lamar when I was younger.  I had also gone online and researched several colleges this time before choosing Lamar for my graduate degree.  We were told about our internship that we need to do.  I brought up the question of how we were going to do the internship if we are not currently employed.  We were also told that this degree would make us eligible to take the principal certification exam.  I was actually surprised by this knowledge.  I had not been told that when applying with Lamar.  I am glad that is the case because it keeps me from having to take a second Masters program later if I decide to become a principal.  We were also told that our first six classes will be technology classes and the last six will be for the principal certification.  I really enjoy the web chats.  I like getting to put a face to a name.  I also have noticed that a lot of the other students are teachers and I hope that I can learn from them also.

National Educational Technology Plan

The National Education Technology Plan 2010 calls for applying advanced technology used in our everyday lives to our education system.  This will improve student learning, accelerate and scale up the adoption of effective practices, and use data and information for continuous improvement (Obama, 2009).

According to this article it has five goals and also recommendations for the states, districts, stakeholders, and federal government.  These goals are learning, Assessment, Teaching, Infrastructure, and Productivity (Obama, 2009). 

The goal of learning is to engage in experiences both in and out of school that prepare them to be active and creative in our global community (Obama, 2009).  I believe that we want all of our students to be engaged in learning and be able to compete in our world upon graduation. 

The goal of Assessment is to help with continuous improvement (Obama, 2009).  I think that this program needs to be assessed along with the students.  I think that every program needs to be continually assessed to make sure it is working in the way it was designed.  No plan is perfect so we need to make sure to make any changes that are needed. 

The goal of teaching is to make sure that teachers have access to data and training that is needed.  It talks about how educators teach alone usually and that they do not have many opportunities to learn in workshops and put this information into practice (Obama, 2009).  I find this to be a sad fact.  I think that our teachers need to be able to get an education whenever possible.  There is new technology coming out all the time.  In order for our teachers to teach our children they have to have training and understand how to use the technology themselves. 

The goal of infrastructure is to see to it that educators have access to comprehensive infrastructure for learning whenever and wherever they need it (Obama, 2009).  I believe this is important.  I also know that it can be expensive and that there will need to be funds in place for it.  Right now it is difficult for school districts because of the budget cuts. 

Productivity is meant to redesign our school systems to take full advantage of technology (Obama, 2009).  This is very important.  Technology is our countries future.  If our students do not learn how to use it then they will have a hard time competing in the job market.  So many things in life are going to technology that they really need it in their everyday life also.  Banks do most things online now.  If someone wants to see a copy of a check they wrote they usually have to go online.  If a person does not know how to use a computer they would not be able to do that. 

All of the items listed in this report are very important.  However, they also all cost money.  The school districts are having a hard time financially right now and I think it will be difficult for them to make all of these goals.  I believe in time they all will but it may take a little while.

References

Obama, B. (2009, February 24). National Education Technology Plan 2010 . Retrieved November 26, 2011, from U.S. Department of Education: http://www.ed.gov/technology/netp-2010

Technology Plan

I am not a teacher so the best I can do is go by the budget put out for my children’s school district and what I know of their school.  According to Toby York the superintendent of my children’s school district one hundred percent of the school districts campuses have internet access (York, 2009-2012) .  I think this is wonderful.  However, it says that there is only one computer for every four students (York, 2009-2012).  I wish this number was better.  I know that because of budget cuts our children are getting less time in computer class.  This was done because the school had to make hard choices.  In order to not lay off teachers they had to make cuts elsewhere and classes such as art and computer class were changed.  This means less time for our children to learn to use them.  I think that is sad.  I wish the budget cuts had not caused this to happen.  Our district shows that they spend $277.40 per student on technology (York, 2009-2012).  I hope to one day see this number higher.  Our plan says that every child will learn internet safety each year.  I do believe this happens because my children are learning it.  Every classroom in the district has internet access (York, 2009-2012).  Every teacher has their own computer.  I think this is important so the teacher can communicate with other teachers and parents.  I believe that Goose Creek is definitely on the right path with using technology and with teaching technology.  I do believe budget cuts have hurt them to some extent, but they are making the best of the situation and still working with the children on using technology.

References

York, T. (2009-2012). Goose Creek CISD Technology Plan for E-Rate Year 12. Retrieved November 26, 2011, from Goose Creek CISD: http://schools.gccisd.net/docs/38-Tech%20e-Plan%202009-2012.pdf

Technology Assessment

Technology in the classroom is something that people can debate and they may never agree on it.  I personally feel that technology does belong in our classrooms.  Because I feel that it does belong in the classroom I also believe that technology assessment is important.  However, there are pros and cons to assessing technology. 

Teachers who have not been in the classroom very long have likely learned about technology to some extent.  This is because many of the teacher certification companies teach technology to their students.  This is wonderful, but that does not necessarily help those teachers who have been teaching for years. 

“In 1999 only one third of public elementary and secondary school teachers reported feeling well or very well prepared to use computers and the internet for classroom instruction (Mouza, 2002-2003).”  Because of this I believe that teachers should be assessed and then put in groups.  These groups should be taught the skills they lack.  This will help them feel more comfortable with using technology in the classroom.  I feel like many teachers will not ask for help because they do not want people to think they do not know how to do something.  Doing these assessments will eliminate the need for them to ask for help.  It will also keep the teachers from being embarrassed if they are in a training class and do not know what to do.  They will be in a class with others who are at the same level as them so they will each have many of the same questions.

I believe that we do have to be careful with assessments though.  There will always be someone who either does better or worse than their actual capabilities.  I think that we need to always try and see firsthand what the teacher does know.  There may be a teacher who says they can do something, but really they do not fully understand it.  For instance they may say they can use Excel, but do not realize that there is more than one thing they can do.  We need to make sure they can really do what they believe they can do.  Also, there are some who would say that they cannot do something well, but in reality they are very good at it. 

It is also important to assess students.  The teachers need to be able to determine how to teach each child.  You need to make sure that each student understands the basics of the computer before trying to teach them more advanced tasks.  If a student does not know how to use a mouse and keyboard it would be useless to try to teach them to use PowerPoint.  We need to make sure we have taught them everything they need to know to start using PowerPoint. 

In the end I believe that technology assessment is important.  I think that we just need to make sure that we do it in the right way.  We need to make sure that we group people in the right groups and get them the help they need.

References

Mouza, C. (2002-2003). Learning to Teach with New Technology: Implicaitons for Professional Development. Journal of Research on Technology in Education , 35 (2), 272-289.

Week 1 Video Chat

For week one I logged into the video chat.  We each introduced ourselves.  Some of us had to work out the problems with our cameras and microphones. Many of us told where we worked if we did.  Others told about their family.  It basically gave us all a little background on each other and what we want to do with our degree.   I believe there were around 25 or 30 of us on this chat.  It was nice to be able to meet the people in my class.  I only met a few people from my previous online school and those were people I had met on facebook. I feel like it is important to be able to speak with people who have similar goals as you.  I have met a few friends online who have the same goals and it made school a lot easier for me.  It felt good to have someone who I could talk to who understood.  Family is great, but they do not like the idea of teaching so it is nice when you have someone who does.  I also think with there being so many teachers in the class I will be able to learn a lot from not just the instructors but the other students.