Course Reflection

When I started this course on technology, I really thought that I knew a lot about technology in education. I am the Early Middle School technology teacher and have access to many different areas of technology. Boy was I wrong. After starting this course, I looked for different outcomes.



Researching through our Campus and District Improvements Plans has brought many new things to my attention. I really didn't understand what those meant to technology until this course. I knew improvement plans were meant to help our campus in the way of regular classrooms and curriculum, but including technology has become a new experience for my classrooms. We are having a growing number of students with learning disabilities and our school district is researching every possible angle to aid in their learning. My campus has found numerous resources for our students with learning disabilities to be able to function in a "regular" classroom. Our campus has had several students diagnosed with dyslexia and we have found a voice recognition program that has tremendously helped with students. My classrooms have also had a number of vision impaired students where we have found keyboards with larger letters and a program that enlarges the screen so the students can function in the classroom.



After starting this course, I found that what I wanted to get out of this course was to learn more about resources and what other educators thought about education in the school system. The articles that were supplied during this class provided an unbelievable insight to what is going on in the technology/education world. As a technology teacher, I know technology changes everyday. What I have to do is work with our campus and district technology directors to keep up with the changing trends to transfer that to our students.



One area that I really enjoyed was the examining of our campus Star Chart. As a campus we are always reminded to complete these charts but I did not really understand the outcomes from them. I always knew what the chart was asking for, but I did not know what exactly is was used for. After reviewing our Star Chart, the results showed that our campus scored lower in the areas of professional development. Our district has taken strides over the past three years to provide professional development for technology to improve this area in the classrooms. Our educators are required to complete 12 hours of professional development over the summer in the area of technology. As a result of our professional developments, our numbers have increased over the past three years.

Another area of this class that I really received a lot of information is when I was completing my assignments. These assignments allowed me to be able to explore areas of technology within our school system that I never really looked at before. As a technology teacher, I know the technology TEKS and how they are applied to my classrooms. But as far as the Star Chart and other assessments, I did not truly understand how those were applied to my campus. This courses assignments gave me the opportunity to explore the data that has been assessed from my campus and school districts. I also learned a lot from examining our school and district's Campus Improvement Plans. Through the interviews that I conducted with my principal and Campus Improvement Plan committee member, this allowed me to receive a better understanding of what the CIP committee does to help improve our campus in the area of technology. One area that I had trouble in when completing my assignments was some of the lengths of assignments. As a teacher\coach, it was really hard to complete all of the readings, assignments and watching the videos in a timely manner. What made it easier for me was that I am a technology teacher and this area really interests me. I found myself spending some late hours completing the assignments and for the most part the assignments and readings really intrigued me and I found myself not realizing it was 1:00 in morning!

Some of things that I learned from this course was how important technology is to our district and how it will be shaping the future of education. I have already seen first hand how technology is becoming integrated on my campus with our students with learning disabilities, but through this course I was able to see how technology will be shaping the classrooms, communities, educators and students to have a better overall educational experience. On my campus, I can go to any classroom to see some form of technology becoming integrated into that classroom. Through this course's readings, I have gained valuable information to be able to share ideas and web site's to my colleagues.

Another area of this course that I really enjoyed was blogging. I have always read blogs but never created one for myself. Blogging allows you to be able to communicate with anyone, your ideas or information. In the education world, you can use blogs to communicate with your students, administration and stakeholders. Blogs can be set up as a community forum where you can comment and express your ideas or feelings toward the subject being discussed. One area I do not like about blogs is that someone can express false information. You have to be able to trust the source to make sure the information they are providing is true.

Overall I really enjoyed this course. The readings were very informative and I will save them for future reference. I believe this class has covered a broad view of what technology means to education and where technology will push the future of education to.