Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society has opened my eyes to new options in the classroom. I have always heard about blogs, wikis and podcasts, but was unsure of how I could incorporate them into my classroom until now. After learning to utilize these tools, I can see the validity and usability of these options. I feel that these classroom options open the door to develop more project-based learning activities in my classroom and let the students drive the process of learning. I look forward to a classroom that is more student motivated than teacher motivated. I have a good feeling that the students will take the opportunity to run their own wikis and blogs with great success and change the way of classroom discussions. This change will open up classroom instruction time and in the long run, I will be able to cover more content standards than I am doing now. I plan to use the knowledge that I have learned thus far to help me implement these tools in the classroom, but I know I will come across obstacles in using them and I will trouble shoot as I proceed like I did while completing the course projects. I do not hesitate to “Google” questions and seek out helpful sites and programs when I come across a tough situation, by doing so, I will get my tough questions answered.
I have two goals that I am going to be working towards implementing in the next couple school years. The first of these goals is to begin a classroom blog that is up to date and utilized on a daily basis. This blog will be a place that students can go to and post questions from assignments, comments about a lesson, or links to helpful/cool sites they found that tie into our classroom lessons. This blog will be a sounding board for all students so discussions can happen between students that are not in the same class period, but are taking the same course. This blog will be used daily and bookmarked on the classroom computers. I anticipate the students will resist the use of the blog at first because everyone resists change. If I diligently keep the blog up to date and respond quickly to posts and questions, then the students will buy in to the idea and use it more. I will also allow the students to access the blog in my classroom, since some students do not have internet access at home.
The second goal that I would like to implement is posting podcasts on my blog. I will use these podcasts as a way for absent students to get the lesson they missed. I will record one of the lessons from each day and then post that to the blog, so students can listen to the class discussions again at home or absent students can hear what we discussed in class when they were out. I see the obstacle for this goal being me more than anything else. It will take a large effort on my part to keep up with recording and posting podcasts daily. I will attempt to make this part of my routine during my planning period and once it enters my daily routine for a while, I should be good at keeping up with my posts.
I look forward to making these classroom changes and am anxious to see how they impact the learning of my students… and me.
