Making Changes
At the beginning of the Master of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET) degree program my goal was to feel comfortable using different technologies. I had the desire to learn more about technology and spend time exploring different ways that it could enhance my every day tasks personally and professionally. My goal in the classroom was to make my current lessons more innovating and exciting for my students. I was striving to make my lessons engaging and wanting my students to be excited about learning. I teach in a low-income area where my students don’t necessarily have technology at their fingertips, so my goal was to use their class time exploring different technologies that allowed opportunities within the classroom. I feel as though it is my duty to present these opportunities and allow for my students to show their creativity and give them the chance to learn something new and meaningful.
After completing many of the courses at Michigan State University for the MAET program, my goal was to continue adapting some of the technologies into my own classroom. In hopes to not overwhelm myself, I decided to introduce one new technology each month. By setting this goal, I think it will allow me to dig deeper into using the technology and allow my students’ time to understand the technology at hand before learning a new one. Not only do I want technology to continue to be a main ingredient into the mix of my every day lessons, I would like to create a better home-school connection with parents and students. To do this, I chose to create a classroom website where I keep a blog and update it regularly. My goal is to reach all families and allow quick access to materials, use it for review, see what we are doing in class, and engage with the lessons taught in the classroom outside of school. From here, I would like to create screencasts to help parents and students understand how to use and manipulate the different technologies along with videos of myself to help engage students at home.
Prior to the MAET courses my goals were to learn more about technology for myself. I think this links with my new goals quite well in that I needed to learn the technologies and understand them in order to then teach them to my own students. My mindset was focused on gaining more knowledge for myself and I never connected it to my classroom before. I moved from wanting to learn technology for myself to learning it and then taking it back to the classroom and teaching my students. I continued to change my initial goal by laying out a format where I can introduce one new technology a month to my students. It allows me to teach the technology and all its uses as well as provide time for my students to learn, explore, and create using the technology. This proved to be less overwhelming for myself. It allowed me time to dive deeper into the technology and teach it to my students in a way that helped them to be successful, thoughtfully engaged and used it to the fullest extent. As a teacher, I will always be learning. It is part of the job, to keep up with the latest trends, technology, and advancements made in society. As I learn the new technologies and gain a deeper understanding, I can then take it back into the classroom and enhance my lessons by providing more hands on opportunities for students to show their thinking, creativity, and collaboration with the material.