EDLD+5364+Teaching+with+Technology+weekly+relfections

Week 1 reflection:

During week 1 I learned multiple learning theories associated with student learning new information. These theories included constructivism, connectivism, and cyborg theory. The learning style that is closely related to my own teaching philosophy is constructivism. I strongly believe that we as individuals learn new knowledge by relating it to prior knowledge that we have already been taught. This is how we expand our own way of thinking. It's similar to using context clues to solve a problem. When you are confronted with a problem to solve you look at the problem and find similarities to that problem and other things you may already know. This can help you to solve the problem without really knowing any actual information about the problem. In other words you use knowledge about a different subject to solve this problem in a separate area of learning. It makes sense to you because your prior knowledge helps your brain to tie it together.

Week 2 reflection:

During the course of week two I learned new techniques and ideas about how the brain retains new information, how to relate to learners of different skill levels, and how technology enriched classrooms are being utilized for our students education. These topics and techniques have helped me to understand some aspects that need to be done in order to better serve my students. I have also learned that many school districts believe that we need more technology instead of learning what to do with the technology that they already possess. We must learn how to use what we have and not always try to eat the greener grass thinking that it will be better for us. We need to listen to our students and learn to ask them what they need to be successful in life or career. When we start down this path, we will be the learners and out students the teachers. It’s a win win situation for all involved!

Week 3 reflection:

At the beginning of week 3 I was in a limbo phase between being totally lost in what was needed for me to do for my group and for myslef individually for this course. I began to see what is required from me while using the UDL tools on the CAST website. Using the lesson planner tool I realized that it is a very valuable piece of teaching excellence. It will help many teachers to be able to plan easier for their lessons. It allows them to put all their ideas down to use and review for each lesson, whether it is text, audio, or video. Also using Book builder was an interesting tool which can be used for student/teacher presentations. It is also auser friendly tool that allows for a broad range of creativity from the creator. I will spread the knowledge of these tools to my fellow teachers so that they may begin to utilize them in their current classrooms to help the technological progress of school districts.

Week 4 reflection:

During the course of week 4, I expanded on the idea of the lesson plan I created to solve the assigned scenario for GT students. I thought back to Web 2.0 tools that I had used during this course of study and used that exerience to incoporate technology into the lesson that I never knew about before. I planned a science lesson in which students would monitor the progress of two different plants given the same amount of water, but different amounts of sunlight. The students would montitor this progress with digital camera photos or digital video. They would then use this gathered information to create a digital photo story using the Web 2.0 tool, Photostory. The would then present this to their classmates along with their conclusion about the experiment. This was a good experience for me because I'm currently teaching PE, and our lessons don;t require a lot of ellaboration or in depth planning. This experience will help me in the future if I get the opportunity to teach a different subject.

Week 5 reflection:

During week 5 I used the process of reflection to evaluate what I learned during the time I spent working on this course. It opened my eyes to all that we had learned and accomplished together as educators. I was reminded of the collaborative process that my group participated in during the creation of our educational website. I also had the chance to review resources that we learned about during this course that I think are useful to all educators when preparing to create a new unit/lesson for students. I will do my best to show all educators at my campus and possibly my district these new resources. This will give them who aren’t in a masters program the opportunity to use this otherwise unknown knowledge to create a more conducive learning environment in their classrooms.