I
sought out the MSU Educational Technology program because I am planning
on getting back into teaching in a classroom setting next school year.
As I started thinking about this process, the one aspect of my
professional life that I felt needed the most work was involvement. In
my current job, I felt like an outsider when it came to the education
world at large, and addressing these feelings is at the root of most of
the goals I expressed earlier in my Professional Growth Plan. Looking
back, I am confident that I made the right decision.
One
of the most valuable aspects of this course has been interacting with
other members of the course and the larger educational community. I am
not naturally an outgoing person, but this course required me to begin
to make a presence for myself online. The activities in the first few
sessions made me get out there and make a blog, join networks, use
Twitter, follow the blogs of other educators, and post my first ever
profile picture online; this was just what I needed. I feel more
connected now, more a member of a community of educators, sharing ideas,
encouragement, and solutions.
Collaborating
with three of my classmates in coming up with a SIG presentation was
also an important learning experience. It felt good to share ideas with
fellow educators and learn from their experiences. This process also
involved some genuine, necessary problem solving, as we had to work
around schedules, time zones, and personalities. It felt good to get
through some initial difficulties in communication, and really pull
together as a team by the end. I learned a great deal about the
capabilities of technology to foster collaboration regardless of
geography. The most important concrete lesson I will take from this
experience is that voice communication is unquestionably preferable to
text communication, when it is possible.
Through
the independent activities, I discovered some excellent online
resources that I probably never would have come across otherwise. I
found myself examining my views and opinions, and delving in to creative
parts of my brain that have been underused recently. I had loads of fun
creating a comic for the PLN assignment, I was impressed with the
capabilities of Prezi during the SIG activities, and creating my first
screencast for the Personal Technology Plan really gave me concrete
experience in a technology I plan on using in my classroom. I am
excited to keep exploring and finding resources to do things I am not
even thinking about yet.
Overall,
I feel like I have met, or am in the process of meeting, the goals I
set out in my Professional Growth Plan at the beginning of this course.
Additionally, and to my delight, I have come across new ideas that have given me new goals to work for. I now have a
more definite vision of what me teaching in a classroom could look
like. At the top of the list of these new ideas is the flipped
classroom model. Researching and learning about this innovation has
given me a clear sense of how I can incorporate technology in my
classroom teaching, but more importantly, it provides a bridge between
the work I do now and the work I hope to be doing soon. All of the
experiences this course has provided have eased my anxiety and whetted
my appetite for what is coming next.
