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.