CED 521 Class Three Reflection

I found tonight's class to be particularly intriguing and rewarding. Watching the examples of Ed's students was truly impressive. It makes me want to teach older kids for a while until I remember my high school teaching experiences! After watching his videos, we watched a kindergarten's class project on what their grandparents and parents recalled about kindergarten. I enjoyed seeing an in-depth project that young students were able to achieve! It gave me hope for this unit project.

While the assessment presentation was interesting, it was pretty much review. As a teacher in a Professional Learning Communities school, I have been assessed to death in the last year. Good information - but somewhat redundant from my classroom experiences.

The most valuable part of the evening was having the opportunity to work on our projects and ask questions. I often find assignment directions to be vague or confusing. Having the opportunity to muddle through it and ask questions was invaluable. It saved many frantic e-mails amongst our study team members! Thank you!

CED 521 Class Two Reflection

In watching the George Lucas video this week, I was very impressed with the tasks that these students were completing. As a special ed teacher working with very young children, I often lose sight of the possibilities that exist for older students. In all of these activities, I saw not only the academic benefit of these projects but also the social skills that are learned through PBL. I would imagine that students who routinely participate in PBL are better equipped to meet the communication demands of the workplace than students who do not. What better way is there to teach and learn interpersonal communication?

After class, I viewed the "Pay Attention" video on TeacherTube. I found this to be a powerful video which may help to persuade some of the more technology reluctant teachers. As a younger teacher, I often find myself better understanding the student perspective of technology than the general teacher perspective of technology. While many of my co-workers are more than willing to try technology, I still find myself being an advocate for technology based learning a few times a week. Slowly, I think the majority of them are starting to come around.

CED 521 Class One Reflection

This week's class forced me to look at my instruction through a new lens. I had always thought that I was a good integrator of technology. My SMARTBoard, in particular, has provided access to computers that was previously unavailable to many of my students. While I assumed that this was excellent integration, LoTI caused me to reconsider. While I understand that the ultimate goal is for the technology integration to be natural and the means for the source of information, I am still unsure of how this would look for students functioning at a three to six year level. Of the examples that I looked at on-line, none of them would push much beyond a LoTI Level 3. I'm interested in anyone's input on how to promote higher-level thinking skills on the computer and am continuing to seek advice from colleagues. This class was truly the first in the program that pushed me out of my comfort zone with technology usage. Although it's not a comfortable place to be in, I feel it is necessary to expand my abilities as a teacher and push myself to new levels.