As We Come to an End...

As I reflect on this course I realized that I have gained lots of knowledge about technology.  I feel confident that I can use what I have learned in this class for professional development for teachers and provide reasons why technology should be used in the classroom. I have always known that it was important and now I have some resources to help me explain it to teachers.

I have also added many tools to my "digital backpack" and can't wait to share them with students and teachers.  I will be incorporating many of these into my curriculum this year!

Lastly, I was able to increase my PLN with lots of resources to follow.  I will continue to use these resources throughout the school year to stay current on new tech tools and ideas.

Social Media

Do I think using social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, for educational purposes for older students is appropriate?
I am in an elementary building so I do not use Facebook or Twitter with the students, especially when My Big Campus is available.  It provides a social media aspect that students can communicate with one another in a safe way.  As long as MBC is available, I will not be using anything else for social media.  I like the idea of using a classroom Twitter account for students and parents that some have mentioned.  I see where this could be very beneficial for reminders and quick answers to questions.  It might even be something I may want to try this year for the older elementary students.  I also think that maybe students want to keep these type of accounts personal for social interaction and not make it another educational tool.  When it becomes educational, it might not be fun anymore for some students.

Curating Tools

This idea of curation is not new to me, but I didn't have many resources to use for curating.  I can see why we need to be curators as well as teaching our students to be curators.  I used bundlr and like it.  It was very easy to use.  I can definitely see students using it.  I also liked the popplets that others used as well.  I can see a use for this in the elementary building because it is very pleasing and fun for the students. I would like to continue using My Big Campus in a larger capacity than what I did last year.  It was introduced to our staff last semester, but I didn't delve into it too much until this summer.  I am working on lessons for my tech classes including digital citizenship and internet searching.  I am also creating a bundle for teachers to use as a resource for digital tools.  I am going to try to curate as many resources as I can for myself and my students.

This course has provided me with many ideas for professional development with our teachers.  The SAMR model is a great way to show teachers where they are with technology and what our goal should be to integrate technology in the classroom.  In my situation, using the digital tools that were provided with students will give them more opportunities to create and find what they are comfortable with to add to their digital backpack.  I would also share these with teachers to use and explore.

One thing that will be a little more difficult is staying connected to find new tools. I had used twitter just occasionally.  In a tech integration training this week, I realized that twitter is a great way to stay connected professionally.  Michele gave us several ways to stay connected, such as pinterest and blogging.  The difficulty for me is going to be able to make time to use these regularly.  Creating authentic assessments is a challenge for me because I try to incorporate many concepts in my weekly classes.  It is hard for me to narrow down the big concepts that I want the students to learn because I want them to learn everything!  My goal this year is to create some assessments for my tech classes that I can use as end-of-the-year assessments to gather data for growth.