Reflection Post

Reflecting on any life experience can be beneficial. It gives us an opportunity to step back and look at a situation from the outside. When I step back and look at the experience I had in taking this course I am flooded with thoughts. Not only was this course fun and easy to enjoy, but it was also challenging, thought provoking and pushed me the limits on my technological knowhow. I was definitely a little weary about the whole Blogger assignment when it was first given. But now, sitting here writing my final blog posting I have to say it was an overall great learning experience. It forced me to analyze the material I was reading the book and gave me an opportunity to see how beneficial many of the topics and technologies we discussed can be in my future classrooms. This was a great way to integrate the learning objective of critical thinking into a fun and useful internet tool.

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The blog was not my only concern when reviewing the syllabus that first week of class. I was also very hesitant to do group work in a class that only meets once a week. It is difficult enough to cultivate successful projects on your own let alone organize and structure a project with 3 or 4 other people when you all are on different schedules. But, after doing the collaborative lesson plan assignment I realized that even though it was a challenge is made me feel much more capable of working with others from a distance using technology. This took care of the technology/information management learning objective that was discussed in the syllabus.

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The last comment I have to make about this course is that I never expected to retain so many of the resources shown to me throughout the course. I look forward to using sites such as Wikispaces, Google groups, Blogger, Delicious, Livebinders, Prezi, Rubistar, Questgarden, and many of the other great sites we were taught to use this semester. I can’t wait to discover more great ways to integrate technology into my future classroom and use all the great tools I have learned in this class! Thank you to not only my fabulous professor, but also to the great group of peers I had the privilege of working with this semester as well.

 

So to close I just want to say....

 

 

Journal #11

Digital Portfolios and the Importance of Starting Early

As a future educator, it is important to understand the purpose and importance of putting together a digital portfolio. A digital portfolio is a great way to showcase your skills in technology before even beginning at a new job. It is a great way to stand out among other applicants for any positions you might be applying for as a technologically savvy educator. Most people in the education world will admit that there is a great value in being able to seamlessly integrate technology into your classroom. Not only should you as a teacher have a digital portfolio but it is also a great idea to cultivate digital portfolios with each of your students as well. There is a great blog posting I found from the Getting Smart blog that discusses the merit in developing digital portfolios with your students.

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In the post the author, Kathy Cassidy, discusses the success she has found in developing digital portfolios, via a blogging platform, with the six year olds that she teaches. These online portfolios are a collection of all of the students work from reading to math. It is an age old practice to collect and organize your student’s projects to track their process, she has just modernized the process by taking these portfolios digital. It is a great way to keep parents as involved as possible when they can just log on to their child’s digital portfolio and see exactly what their child has been achieving at school. She also discusses how the students tend to put more effort into their projects when they know it is not only their teacher that is going to see their work, but also anyone who can access their blog. She says it can be a great motivator.

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Creating a blog at such a young age is also a great gateway to discuss many important issues like making sure that you aren’t posting any personal information on the web. The fact that we live in an increasingly digital world is something that we can’t deny. The post states, “Children need to learn early that it is important to present yourself well online and some of the ways that can be done.” Honestly, I really couldn’t agree more. I look forward to using this knowledge in my future classrooms.

The video below is a great example of a teacher using technology to explain the importance of a digital portfolio.

 

Journal #8

Taking an in depth look at another educator's blog can not only help you understand them better, it will also be a great learning tool on how to improve your blog. As with all new mediums, the more you view and critique, the deeper your understanding with them becomes.

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For this blog post I will be analyzing and critiquing Kathy Schrock’s blog.

The first thing that I notice when I open her blog is that it is very minimalist in design. The background is white and the writing is in a fairly average black font. As I scan through the first several blog posts I notice that she has lots of pictures and other graphics that spice up the look of the blog more so than the actual page design. In each post she has at the very least three multimedia items whether they be videos, pictures, or something else entirely. She uses hyperlinks regularly that link out to the specific things she is discussing- jsut as we have been taught to do. I was scrolling down and realized that there was virtually no end to her blog.