Reflecting on my Walden University course...

Throughout my current course at Walden University, Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society, I have developed a better understanding of the types of technology and skills that should be incorporated into 21st century classrooms. Although I consider myself a digital native, I have learned many new technology skills that can be used for teaching. The frameworks outlined by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills have become a starting point for the creation of my lesson plans. I have learned the importance of incorporating new skills to the content I am already teaching in the core subject areas. “To be effective in the 21st century, citizens and workers must be able to exhibit a range of functional and critical thinking skills related to information, media and technology” (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2004). Before I can include technology into my classroom, I must learn how to use it effectively. I have learned how blogs, wikis, and podcasts can be used by students to share their work and their knowledge of the content they are learning.


I would like to continue learning ways that I can integrate technology into my classroom to increase my students’ achievement. I would like to get in touch with my state's board of education to get more information of how we could become recipients of 21st Century Skills Incentive Funds, to incorporate and encourage the use of “creativity, innovation, critical thinking and financial, economic, business and entrepreneurial literacy,”(Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2004) in students. I would also like to attend more workshops that will expose me to new types of technology and skills that will help my incorporate technology into my lessons.

With the wide range of technology tools that are available to our students on a daily basis, they are finding teachers' lectures and worksheets to be useless and boring. To make my classroom a more exciting learning experience for my students, I would like to set two long-term goals to increase my students' achievement. My first goal is to use websites, such as ePals, to encourage my students to learn from their peers from other cultures. The classes could communicate about the content they are learning and share information that they have researched. Exposing my students to different types of technology learning tools will allow students to learn in different forms and at different levels. My second goal is to spend the next two years teaching my students to become proficient in using different types of technology. Dr. Thornburg stated that educators need to, “start thinking about how these tools could be used in education so that when they became commonplace, they’d be ready for it,” (Laureate Education, Inc., 2008). Although my students are exposed to many types of technology in their daily lives, most students have not had the chance to use tools such as blogs and wikis. Once I am able to establish what is expected of my students when using technology, I can use these teaching and learning tools to meet my instructional goals and increase my students’ achievement.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008). Program 4. Technology and Society [Motion picture]. Understanding the impact of technology on education, work, and society. Baltimore: Author.

Partnership for 21st Century Skills (2004). Information, media, and technology skills. Washington DC: Author. Retrieved from http://21stcenturyskills.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=61&Itemid=120

Student Technology Questionnaire

I created a podcast describing the results of my third grade students' responses to a questionnaire about the types of technology they are exposed to at home and school. Check out my podcast at: http://tiffanyharrell.podbean.com/