Course Reflection

Course Reflection

It is amazing how technologically advanced our students are today; even our youngest students know to operate a computer, gaming system, or music/video equipment. I now fully understand the concerns of our nation to meet the needs of the 21st century learner. Targeting the struggling student who is engaged by learning in different mediums will ensure district success and should be occurring in our society today. Not using technology in the classroom due to limited resources, such as hardware and software shortages, should be a call to school district administrators to allocate money to foster a comprehensive technology curriculum that incorporates all disciplines and grades.
Well, it does sound good. But the question on my mind this entire course has been how to fund it. It takes a lot of diligence and expertise to create an extensive, functioning technology program that meets the needs of the Long Range Plan, keeps costs down and provides greater access for students. I have not envisioned myself as a master budgeter, but I realized that I am going to be the one making these things happen for my campus. Developing the flow chart that outlined the roles and responsibilities of the technology staff within my district really opened my eyes to the individuals in charge of making technology happen. I will have one of those roles one day, I will have to make sure my teachers are integrating technology effectively, that their needs are being met, and the needs of my students are being met.
The paradigm shift from paper and pencil tasks to classrooms that have LCD projectors and Smartboards is one of the challenges administrators are facing in our state. If research has told us that students learn more effectively with technology, then why are teachers not being held more accountable for using it in our classrooms? Why is staff development on technology never hands-on? If we plan to make this shift to accommodate the 21st century learner then our schools need to get up with the times. There is no excuse for two or three teachers, out of campus of fifty, that use technology on a regular basis in the classroom. A lot of teachers are still scared to use technology because of failed past experiences. I believe this when an experienced and knowledgeable technology staff comes in and teaches the teachers how to use the software or hardware. Addressing the needs of the teachers will ultimately lead to success among the students.
Coming into the course I thought I used technology a lot, then I realized I am not doing half the stuff that other schools are doing for their students. I would like to do more podcasts and have my students create blogs to meet other students around the world; I plan to incorporate some of these things into my lessons next semester. Using the blog in this course has allowed me to put a face with some of the students I have talked with in the past 5 courses. It also allows me to talk in a different setting about topics of interest and I can understand how this would be an effective communication device for all campus stakeholders to keep up with information and communicate with administrators on the needs of the district. I now feel more comfortable using a blog, creating multimedia presentations and developing my skills to model for the students. I plan on using my professional development agenda to iterate to the staff on the importance of technology in the classroom and its benefits for our students.
Overall, I truly enjoyed this course. I have learned a multitude of things that I can use in my classroom and apply as an administrator. The development of the action plan has shown me that I can create a model to work on the deficiencies and the technology needs of the teachers and students. I still wish, however, that I could have learned how to use the different software features that was outlined in this course. I recently went to a law conference that stressed the importance of being safe when using blogs and allowing for certain content to be unblocked and the main speaker kept reinforcing to the staff that it should never be allowed at school, so what is the best practice? The round-table discussion allowed me to see what is best practice in the technology field and how to address them as an administrator, but never what to do to solve the problems of cyber bullying or indecent pictures making their way on the site. I just feel very confused about what I should do and how I can approach administration to start student blogs. I really liked listening to the professionals talk about how the shift in the educational standards in technology will be changing in the future and what we can do now to meet the needs of our students.