As the Innovative Learning Program comes to an end, I have been doing a lot of reflecting. I have truly enjoyed learning and collaborating with my classmates in this cohort. I can see keeping in touch with many of them after this program ends. The biggest takeaway from the program is really focusing on my ultimate user of my work: my students. I really enjoyed doing some research into what motivated my students. I was surprised that the results did not match what I had previously thought motivated my students. I realized that in addition to learning new tools in the classroom, I am constantly redesigning and rethinking lessons to make them better for my students. I have a passion for using technology in the classroom and there is always more to learn about technology because it is always changing!
I plan to share my research with my principal as part of my professional evaluation this year. I have already shared the hyperdoc that I created with some of my colleagues. Through the work that I did this year I also encouraged my teaching partner to explore some new tools with me such as flipgrid and quizizz. We also explored the new features of padlet. This again is part of my commitment to lifelong learning and collaborating with other teachers. I hope that this program continues to bring some new ideas and inspiration into my classroom for years to come. I also plan to continue sharing about the positive effects of technology in my classroom both virtually with other teachers and in person with other staff members at my site.
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Our school site had previously done some professional development regarding technology standards. Prior to my journey at TU in the Innovative Learning Program, I thought I had been using plenty of technology and digital tools in my classroom. As I learned more about 21st century learning and TPACK, I realized that I needed to focus more on overlapping skills in my lessons. As teachers, we are designers of our students learning experiences. After learning more about TPACK this year, I have been more careful to try to design learning experiences where there is overlap between my technical, pedagogical and content knowledge. I am also trying to create learning experiences for my students where they can practice technical skills and also demonstrate content knowledge.
In addition to learning more about TPACK, I have also constantly trying to analyze the learning and use of technology in my classroom to the SAMR model. As a teacher using technology, I want to make sure that my students are using technology to enhance their learning, not just simply substituting using technology for something that would be the same or better on paper. I feel that as the novelty of using technology in the classroom wears off for our own students, we need to be mindful of when and how we are using technology to make sure we are enhancing learning, creating transliterate lessons and pushing our students to do things they never could have done without the use of technology. After viewing the capstones assigned this week in class, I can confidently say that my audience will be middle school teachers. I am still in the process of deciding if I am going to focus on my work with digital literacy or digital tools for motivation, or a marriage of the two. Either way, I can see my work benefitting other teachers who are using technology in the classroom or are at the beginning of their journey of integrating technology into the classroom. On my learn more pages I want to provide sample lessons on the lesson tabs and somehow show some of my student work if I can find a way to blur out their names. I also think that links to sites like common sense media and other websites where I gathered resources to build my digital literacy hyperdoc could go on the learn more page. I most definitely want to showcase the hyperdoc that I made and maybe even the digital badge that I created in 702 (even though my students had finished the unit before I created the badge). I think I also want to show all of the different rounds of research both on digital tools and also on the digital literacy skills of my students. I know I need to spend some time gathering the links I want to provide to my users and also some videos and infographics that can add more visual to the page and break up the text. I want my capstone to be "minimalist" but full of amazing resources. Less is more in my mind. I am starting to feel more comfortable with the building of the pages. Taking the time with some specific questions to answer as homework this week helped me to not just navigate through the pages, but to navigate with a specific focus and mindset. |