Final+Reflections

EDLD 5364 Course Reflections

1. This course met these expectations and even surpassed my hopes. The videos were inspiring and very informative. Many gave real examples and real people using technology is innovative and exciting ways. However, the books offered the most useful information, material that could be of immediate use in actual classes. Not surprisingly, I expected to learn how to teach with technology. I was very excited; this is the class I have been waiting for. It is hard to say what I envisioned because I do not know many of things available so much of the material we have learned is new to me. I was hoping to have specific technology uses along with how they are used. I enjoy learning with case studies and honest examples. I like to find out what other people are doing so I can try or many times, because it sparks my imagination and I am able to use their examples to create ideas new to me that I can use in my classroom.

2. This course has been extremely relevant to what I do. Much of the information discussed during this course could easily be translated into a math classroom. The use of surveys, the development of productive cooperative learning and the giving students a choice of final product are all concepts that could be used immediately in my teaching of math. I am excited about the opportunities this course has opened for me. I have agreed to give a workshop in February on the uses of available technologies in teaching mathematics. The readings on professional development and their lack of follow up have helped me identify what to include in my workshop. Since this is a one hour, one time only opportunity to discuss technology with secondary math teachers. I will try to spark interest and give these math teachers ideas to take back to their campus and try. They could contact their campus technology specialist or me for assistance.

3. Although inspired by many of the technologies available, the reality is that it is still hard to translate some of these into a high school math classroom. The idea of gaming was great and I found software claiming to be Algebra but does not include anything past solving. This is very discouraging. One of the negative outcomes of this course is the anxiety that I feel. I want to include these wonderful ideas into my classroom, into my curriculum and expose my students to the technologies available. The stresses of teaching and exciting students about math, preparing for standardized testing and all the other daily pulls makes it hard to find the time to plan for new technologies. The things I want to try have a set up time that I have not been able to fit into my schedule. As a result, they are not being done. This causes me anxiety. I want to do this and I cannot seem to. How are we going to inspire those teachers that do not even want to do it? As a technology leader, I should be able to experiment and create so I can share that with colleagues. I found this too to be very discouraging.

4. I did not have any troubles completing the course assignments. I did feel “out of my element” with our topic, only because it was a Language Arts unit and that is not my expertise. I truly enjoyed the Book Builder assignment. As I mentioned before, I had no idea something like that was available, and free. I still say its strength is students using it for projects. It did inspire me to try with my class a “how to “type of project. They may not be able to use the Book aspect but they could use Photo Story or similar to create a tutorial of some sort. They could create the podcasts I use for my classes. The item I was not as enamored with was the UDL lessons material. It seemed to me that this was a recurrence of Lesson Cycle, Renzulli and many other programs introduced over the years. No new material, just new names. I was able to complete the assignments with no difficulties but like so many lesson plan, we create them for the administration to monitor not the teacher to follow. The teacher should be checking that they are covering the TEKS; however, you do not need a formal lesson plan for this to occur.

5. The primary thing I learned about myself is I can only do so much. I want to do more, and I plan to do more, I just cannot do it now. Making I upset, anxious or sick over it does not do anything to help me. I believe that if I schedule time for developing the technology-based items to use, I may find I can be more done than I think. On the other hand, maybe not, but it is worth a try. Anything I learn to do is more than I knew before that. I think as teachers, we like to have the answers. I think as teachers, we also expect those teaching us to have the answers as well. I think that is why we are awful participants during meetings; if it does not interest us immediately, if we think the presenter does not have the answers we are looking for, we tune them out and grade papers. I think my struggles to find time to experiment, to find what I consider “real” technologies to use in a high school math class; will help me connect with teachers when I am in a leadership role. I enjoy giving workshops because I can pass on the information I have learned. I just hope the participants enjoy learning what I have to share.