From start to finish, this course has given me more practice with and insight into technologies both old and new. Practice and insight are not the only two things I am taking away from this course. In some cases I feel even more confused than I did before and I think that goes back to there not being a clear definition about what it means to be a twenty-first century school. Without a clear definition, I do not have a path to follow, so instead I like I am groping in the dark to figure out what technology will benefit my students the most.
I know that technology will be a big part of my student’s lives, but I do not want to institute a new form of LoLcats into my classroom (Shirky, 2010, pg 18). I want the technology that they use to be meaningful and actually be a benefit to them in the future. Sometimes the best path seems to be the one that does not teach my students a particular technology, but teaches them how to uses technology efficiently.
One of the most frustrating things about schools not having a clear definition about what a twenty-first century school should be, is the fact that students are being inundated with technology outside of school and all that technology is changing the way they perceive and manipulate the world and information around them (Carr, 2010, pg 120). Students are changing, but the institution meant to prepare them for life after school is not keeping up with them and that will lead to unprepared and unproductive adults.
I have been using some of the technologies that were talked about in class for about 13 weeks now and I have a better insight into how well they work for my classes. I created a wiki for each of my classes at the beginning of school because technology was our inserivce topic back in August. For the most part the wiki has been helpful, but not in the way that I had predicted. Parents and fellow teachers have been using my wiki to help keep students on track with what they should be completing for class.
Parents were particularly pleased with having the assignments and schedule on the wiki because they felt like they could do something before missing assignments became a problem. Many of the parents I talked to at parent/teacher conferences felt the wiki was a positive addition to the class because in the past they would not know what assignments were missing until grades were posted and then they were not always certain what the assignments were. With the information on the wiki page they could access the assignment themselves and see when their child was to have completed it. Overall they just felt more empowered and it became a better learning experience for them and their children.
Another positive of the wiki was using it for discussions with my sociology students. The students needed to find time outside of class to complete the discussion, but none of them had trouble doing that. Many of the students liked it because it allowed them to talk without having to do so in front of a class and they felt like they were able to speak their piece and not have it feel like everyone just wanted them to hurry up and be quiet. The depth of discussion was better than it normally is during class. Part of that is the fact that the students can take a moment to think before putting their thoughts down and everyone is not trying to speak at once. It also forces the people who would just sit back to speak because I can see who has all posted and who has not shared.
At times I felt that some of the stuff we did in class was redundant. I already had a wiki space, so I knew how to create and manipulate it. At the same time I realize there were people who did not know how to do that. I have a better appreciation for how my students feel when they are being taught things they already know because there is a lengthy learning curve between everyone’s prior knowledge. I also understand why we learned about both wikispaces and googlesites even though they provide a very similar service. Every technology that was taught has slightly different uses and it could be that slight difference that reaches one more student or reaches a student who would otherwise be missed. It is difficult to know what technology will be important in the future, so the more exposure teachers have to different types the better their ability to weed through what is useful and what is not. The potential benefit of a technology outweighs any redundancies I might have felt existed in class.
Overall the two courses were very helpful to me. I have more knowledge and skill than I had at the beginning and it was more beneficial than the two days of inservice my district provided at the beginning of the year. I am still frustrated by the lack of direction in what it means to be a twenty-first century school, but that is not something that we could have decided in our cohort. Not only do I feel more comfortable with the technology myself, but I feel more comfortable teaching my students how to use these technologies.
References
Carr, Nicholas (2011). The shallows: What the internet is doing to our brains (paperback ed.). New
York, NY: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc.
Shirky, Clay (2010). Cognitive Surplus. New York: Penguin Press.
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