My Final Class Post 10-28

Over the past 8 weeks, I have learned so many new skills to incorporate into my classroom. The RSS feeds, blogs, wikis, and social networking that I have done during this course will really help me for the future in my classroom. I look forward to slowly integrating these skills into my current teaching practices.

This course has really helped me get over some of my fears as a student learning new skills. I was really nervous about the beginning of the course. I can look back and reflect on how I thought this course would be very time consuming. I later realized the skills acquired in this course will actually help me save time rather than loose it.

I have changed my perspective from being teacher-centered to learner-centered. I realize kids learn differently today. I hope to become more of a facilitator of information. I have tried at least 5 activities since the start of class that have been focused on the student acquiring skills. I like the freedom the activities give me to wander around and watch students learning. I felt good about the actual learning happening in my room.

I plan to continue my my knowledge of learning, teaching, and leading with technology with the aim of increasing student achievement. I will continue taking courses through Walden. I think of myself as a life long learner. I hope to develop technology skills as they evolve. I intend on trying new activities to help promote interest in my classroom. I will continue to find new ways to work smarter not harder. I have added a few new tools to my belt to help me as an educator teach kids.

Two long term goals for transforming my classroom environment would be:

1) I will try to implement blog and wiki activities into my classroom to be used as learning tools at least once a week.

2) I will participate on an educational blog at least once a week to help better myself as a teacher.

I hope to start working towards these goals immediately. For goal number 1, I would like to start creating and trying 1 activity a quarter that involves the new technology. I hope to feel comfortable enough to use these tools weekly by next school year. For goal number 2, I will use my favorite blog sites created in this course to help me complete my goal. I intend on taking professional time to view and participate on each blog site created in this course.

My 1st Podcast

Check this site out. My 1st podcast.

http://www.podcastmachine.com/podcasts/2196/episodes/9606

Partnership for 21st Century Skills Review

I found the Partnership for 21st Century Skills site to be quite interesting. I did not realize there are already states involved in this movement. I kept thinking to myself that the message was good on this site, but how am I going to manage worrying about these standards when I have so many others to pay attention to in my current position.

I do not think I was surprised by any of the information on this site because I went in blind to what I was reviewing. I liked how it gives resources tools to be used in my classroom. I also like how there are articles posted to keep a viewer up to date on the current information.

I do not disagree with the message being sent on this site. I feel like the message is important, but will fall on deaf ears for awhile in my district. Right now, we are concerned with writing, writing, & more writing. I also noticed Colorado was not on the list. I am interested to find out why so few states are not on this site as partners.

The implications for my students and for me as a contemporary educator have been noted. I realize that i need to be incorporating more skills to my students that require them to be successful in the future world of business. I also realized how important it is for me to stay current on new technology skills for the work place.

My final thought on this topic is that our system gets pulled easily into many different directions when it comes to what is thought to be the best for our kids. My only concern is being spread to thin as an educator to do anything more than mediocre in my future classes. I am at a lose as to what our countries vision is for our students. I will continue to stick with my philosophy of doing the best I can with the time that is provided.

My Educational Ideas for Blogs

I am an 8th grade Social Studies teacher in Colorado. I am very excited to use my blog page for classroom activities. My idea of how to use my blog page for class would be to set up a weekly critical thinking question about the past week's lessons. I would ask my honor's students and any other student wishing for a challenge to participate. An example of the question would be: "Who was Andrew Jackson?" I would ask for my students to answer each weekly question using their own thoughts and supporting details. I also hope they would respond to their classmates ideas in a positive way.

I would also like to use my page for enrichment activities. My students could check out my page filled with links and ideas for research on specific topics. I want to think of the page as extra for student experts. Blogs are a very good tool for hooking the digital learner into a subject they may not be very interested in learning about in the traditional manner.

Welcome My Fellow Classmates

Hello visitors,

My name is Chris Wright. Attached to this page you will find a photo of my family. I look forward to working with you in the future.