Week 8 Reflection

Over the past eight weeks the technology skills I use as a professional teacher have definitely improved. Before taking this course I had no idea how to even create a blog let alone how to use it as way to educate the students in my classes. But I must say learning how to create a podcast was not only fun to me, but seeing the looks on my students faces while we were creating the podcast in class was priceless. As this course comes to an end I can honestly say I will continue to use the tools I picked up in this course for years to come.

Once I began to understand the concept of digital natives and digital immigrants it was like a light bulb came on inside of me. I believe the idea of my students being digital natives did more to help strengthen my understanding of the learning and teaching processes. I believe I became a better teacher the last month of school when began to view the digital capabilities of my students as a positive instead of a negative. For example, I was constantly getting onto my students for having their cell phones out in class. Before this class I just thought these students were being disrespectful or defiant, but as I continued to work through this class I realized my students were on their phones because they were somewhat addicted to the technology it provided. So I began to implement activities that allowed them to text in their answers for test or quiz reviews, and it was amazing to see students whom normally did nothing become engaged in the learning activities.

I definitely believe my teaching philosophy has definitely changed from teacher centered to learner centered. As I worked through this class I caught myself relating my teaching techniques to my coaching techniques and one thing I noticed is that my approach on the field was different from my approach in the classroom. My coaching philosophy has always been it does not matter how well I perform the technique or how well I know the offense, all that matters is how well my players perform the techniques or how well my players know the offense. This class has helped me recognize that this needs to be my approach in the classroom as well. No matter what is required of me I need to adapt my teaching style to what works best for my students instead of asking a sixteen year old child to adapt their learning style to me.

As I continue to complete this master's program I look forward to the information I will learn that will help further my knowledge of how to implement technology in the classroom. Although the information in this program has been and will be very helpful I will begin to look into professional development opportunities that focus on technology in the classroom as well.

As I look forward into the future it will be imperative for me to overcome budget restraints in order to obtain a mobile laptop cart for my classroom. I believe having this cart in my classroom will be instrumental in helping my students succeed academically as well as obtaining the 21st century skills they will need to succeed in the work world. In an attempt to reach this goal I will begin to research grant opportunities that will help fund this project. I have already begun writing a $500 grant that is designed to help teachers enhance technology in their classroom. Although it may take a while to build a complete classroom set of laptop computers I will begin to use the school computer lab as a resource to help my students become efficient typist and Internet researchers. My plan will be for my students to be proficient in these areas, so once we have the laptop cart we can begin to increase the level of technology activities in the classroom.

Jerry Brown