Course Reflection

I envisioned that we would learn how to lead educators in their classrooms and learning about best practice in all content areas. Once the course work began though, my view changed. With instruction remaining the focus, technology was fused with instruction. I then realized that while I push forward in my career, the world was also pushing forward and growing with technology. When we got to the professional development piece and began to transfer the thoughts of the connections that I was making to students and technology to teachers and technology. I began to take the needs of our students and evaluate how teachers can be more effective in meeting the needs of this 21st Century learner. I looked at the teaching skills that our staff would need to take advantage of the benefits of teaching through technology. I feel that I have received a good foundation in these areas to better enhance student learning and aid in my progression of future administrational skills. This course not only met my expectations as a graduate student, but also challenged my abilities in the field of technology. I am better competent to assist my teachers and students, and I can engage them better in technology.
My job as a curriculum specialist already entails utilizing the Internet, analyzing data from AEIS reports and AYP reports, and training my staff. Because know I feel confident to use almost any program that I come across, I am better able to assist my teachers, and I can engage them better in my trainings. I started to I saw how beneficial the outcomes of the course would be in relevancy to my job as an administrator. I had to understand the needs of our students and look at the needs of our teachers so that they could be formed to meet the needs of our students. I have already begun training staff to post new items onto their school web pages that are relevant to the education of our students. I researched more effective learning tools for our teachers to post so that their sites contain more information than posted homework assignments.
I am sure it probably took me twice as long as a lot of the other students to complete my blogs. I felt way out of my comfort zone. I can remember the night I had to post my assignment to my blog, during week four, we were asked to make a chart for our action plans and post it on our blog. That took me a lot of extra hours to even figure out over trying to get the
action plan to go on the blog. Then I noticed that I missed the section about the programs we had to upload to in order to convert our power point, and then upload it to our blog. I was discouraged to find that my blog would not accept the assignment the way that it was when I attempted to place it in the blog. It would not allow the chart to be on the blog. The words were present, but the chart had been omitted and/or to small. I posted the assignment regardless however it did not reflect the hard-work that I put into the assignment. But I kept trying it out throughout the course, and refused to let it intimidate me- I just had to spend a whole lot of extra hours mastering the technology part first. I am so happy that I stuck with it, because I feel that I have learned so much in this course. Even though I am not completely comfortable with all of the new technologies I have learned about in this course, but I have definitely mastered an understanding of the majority of them. I know now that even though I am a “digital immigrant” vs a “digital native “, I feel confident!
I found that all five assignments that I was responsible for during this course to be challenging .I struggled in carrying out some course assignments. The time spent each week was incomparable when compared to other courses in the program. I was discouraged that I could not complete the assignments by the beginning of the week because all the time spent struggling with them. This did not prevent me from completing or accomplishing my goals but it did slow me down. These assignments tested my technology skills and presented me with new ideas for my future in education or administration. I was able to meet the rigorous demands of the class each week as I strived to do my very best. I found the assignments to be the most difficult [time consuming], interactive and helpful assignments that can actually be applied in the classroom and later on in my administrative career. I found that our assignments and projects were very relevant to work at school.
This class was extremely beneficial and a great learning experience for me. I give more thought to technology applications as I plan lessons. In order for our children to be successful, we have to be aware of the fact that our world has changed and our students are fully integrated into technology, and it is our job to teach them to use these resources responsibly. This course taught me that I need to slow down and give the students small amount of the information, time to learn, time to practice in their classrooms, and then add other small amount. I see now that wherever my path might take me, it will continue to include technology integration.
I also learned about myself that I am truly satisfied with my leadership role. I feel very positive making the decision to pursue the administrator certification that will position me to continue with my leadership role and escalate to the administration position either at the campus or district level where I can contribute more in the area of technology. This class has been a great learning experience for me.