LE 1 Coming to a Close. (Part 1).

Assessing and researching into my board's and school's policies and the use of our computers to create a technological environment, opened my eyes to the pros and cons of our environment and allowed me to have some ideas of what to aim for to improve the overall integration of technology use for both the students and the teachers. It made me realize how technology scares a lot of teachers and how we are lacking in overall training and advancement in the use of technology at my school.

Collaborating and discussing with fellow teachers has become more important to me than in the past. Going forward, I want to become more proactive than reactive when it comes to technology. I have begun to use lots of new software and types of social media especially using TWITTER more to have conversations with fellow technology users to gain more insight and ideas into what is currently happening in our world. Here is a great site that gives some hashtags that are available for discussing such matters:

http://cybraryman.com/edhashtags.html

Some of the articles that I have read about technology have excited me, but at the same time, taught me how much I really do not know! However, that is an exciting prospect; knowing that I will know so much more than I did before! A huge part of the reason I am taking this course is for that exact fact.

Some of the tools that I have learned about in the first part of this course have given me a learning curve to aim toward and I am spending more time now using and learning how to incorporate some these tools in my lesson planning and delivery. I am definitely more open to new tools and software of any kind now than I was before. Although it takes a lot of time and effort, I think my lessons are going to be more engaging and interesting for the students; by adapting some of this technology into my lesson planning and delivery.

The SAMR model that we read about and learned how to use, made me realize how boring some of my past lessons must have been! I really was in awe of how much better my lessons could become. I used the SAMR model in one of my previous lessons that had been done without it. What a difference! The lesson was more engaging, exciting and definitely interesting. Having the students use their own photos, videos and personal information visually, made all of the students more engaged and interested. Going forward, the SAMR model will definitely be a part of my everyday planning and lesson delivery.

Excited About Learning New Technology!

The course that I am taking is making me feel very excited about how much I am going to learn. I am definitely going to be taking the Google Certification Course and also want to do the Smartboard Certification in the near future.

I know that there is sooo much to learn, but am excited at the same time. I am really enjoying sharing all my ideas and taking ideas from other teachers on the course.

The Skype activity we have to do is going to be challenging, but I am going to try and get one of my fellow teachers in my school to Skype with me during our class lessons.

This Old Dog Wants to Learn New Tricks!

“There are, actually, plenty of books that can inspire self-reflection, buy nothing beats taking the time to write in a journal. The best leaders we’ve ever met all keep journals, so we think it is a good habit to develop.” Notter and Grant (2011)"

I have read multiple articles about blogging explaining the pros and cons and I am quite interested in learning all I can about blogging.
I have always been amazed about people that are able to record history and keep a daily diary. I always thought that those kind of people must be super-organised and that there was no way the average person would be able to do what the experts do.
I have changed my mind after reading about blogging and reading other people's blogs. I think it is something that I definitely can do and aim to try my best to keep current with all my information and use blogging to help me remember things that I have done; lesson that worked or didn't work and maybe why?
As with anything new, I suppose there will be pitfalls, but my philosophy in life is if you fail, try, try, and try again until you succeed.
I hope that I can improve consistently and feel quite positive about being a blogger.

George Couros, "Another Reason to Blog; Proactive Through Reflection"(December 13, 2012) has some very interesting points about using blogs and how they help to slow down, and focus more on teaching and learning by being more reflective and critical about progression. I hope to become more pro-active rather than re-active toward my teaching and learning as he explained.

I hope to learn about these ideas and begin on a new journey of accomplishment. I am really not sure how things are going to work out by blogging, but look forward to the challenge. I agree with George that writing things down at the moment makes reflection much more capable later and should lead to much better reflection. I am sure we all are surprised when we detail things in the past and then read it much later; we forgot so much detail and maybe even forgot some major things. I hope to do exactly that!

Sources:

George. (2012, December 13). Jennifer Hayhurst Retrieved from http://georgecouros.ca/blog/archives/3531

Notter, J., & Grant, M. (2011). Humanize: How people-centric organizations succeed in a social world.