My PLN

Over the course of this semester, I have developed a much greater network than I ever anticipated. For starters, I developed a blog which I have never done before. I received interaction from people all over the world, that I have never even met before. I also began to interact with teachers all across the world in our Comments 4 Kids project. That was so so amazing to me. I really enjoyed it when the teachers responded back to me about the excitement from their students.

I do have a Twitter, and I have not used it too much, but I must say that it has been a much greater experience than I thought it would be. Twitter is a huge network, filled with lots of great information. I want to continue to keep in touch with the "At the Teacher's Desk" blog, and I really want to watch the updated "Did You Know's" as they come out.

I enjoyed interacting with Kaia's father and Kaia herself. What a wonderful way to communicate, and what a phenomenal job he is doing with his daughter.

I want to continue to develop my personal learning network. I want to continue to use my Professional Blog as I broaden my network horizon. The things I have learned in this class are very interesting, and I believe will help me in my teaching profession.

Comments 4 Kids

Comments 4 Kids was so fun!! It was one of my favorite assignments all semester. Looking at the students' work from all ages always put a smile on my face. I really enjoyed commenting on the kindergarten student's assignments. This is such an awesome way to interact with other students, and as well as teachers. As a future teacher, this is an awesome way to get ideas from other teachers for your students in your classroom. I have said from the beginning that I think this would benefit students a lot because if they are doing work for other people to see, it is most of the time important to them, therefore it encourages learning. If a student knows they are going to be doing work to be put in a file folder to never be seen again, there is a good chance they could care less about it. Blogging and Comments 4 Kids is a good way to have other students get excited about other students work! I LOVED this assignment!

Overview of the Semester

I have gained so much knowledge this semester. It is next to impossible to list them all in this one post. And the interesting part is that we didn't learn everything!! I learned how to do things in a different way than what I already knew. Powerpoint is not the only way to create presentations. Google Docs can be accessed anywhere and I continue to use them frequently. Learning how to do html modifiers was something that I also learned. This is something that a lot of people that I know do not know how to do. I learned how to create a class blog that I will incorporate in my classroom when I am a teacher, and I also created a professional blog that I will continue to use and post things that I learn. I really like the professional blog, because that is something that I can take to every classroom that I walk into. I can introduce parents to it, and other teachers. I enjoyed Comments 4 Kids also. It was so fun to read the work of other students of all ages and interact with them as well as the teachers! This is something I want to use in my classroom with my students. I think it gives students a sense of pride in their own work when other people find meaning in it! I watched several videos and listened to several podcast on technology literatacy. I honestly had no idea this stuff was out there on the internet. This is all so helpful! I loved the post "At the Teacher's Desk" , it was so informative, and I actually have it saved in my favorites tab so I can access it regularly. All of this information is so helpful, and it is going to make teaching much more enjoyable. One thing that I learned day after day was that no matter what I did NOT know how to do, there is a world of tools on the web to learn from. Not only that, but as you learn, you teach other people!

I can't think of anything that I did not learn - honestly. I did not even expect to learn as much as I did so it certainly exceeded my expectations! I don't think there is one thing that I am going to purposely forget after this class is over. Any time I want to know something or anytime I learn something, I am going to think about my PLN, and how I need to keep it updated! There were some things that did excite me, and there were some things that seemed tedious. It was hard for me to figure some things out by myself, so I enjoyed when Dr. Strange would explain step by step to us, because once I accomplished the learning part it became very easy to continue to do it on a daily basis.

Intellectually challenging? Oh yes! I can not explain how many times I started an assignment and thought, "there is no way I am going to learn this," but after it was over, I felt a sense of accomplishment. I don't know if this was intellectually challenging or not but it was hard to step out and put my opinions and thoughts out there to other posts. It is so easy to read something and form your own opinion but because of whatever reason to just keep it to yourself when it comes to the internet. However, once I started, it is a very good way to learn, especially when it formulates a conversation so that new ideas can come about.

As far as me getting bored with the course, I'm not so sure that I was bored, because there was so much to learn. Sometimes I did not want to learn. Sometimes I did not want to pursue more knowledge, but no matter what, every single time I completed something else, I was excited. The things that I have learned in this class has sparked many conversations with my family and friends and it has been quite interesting to get their opinions. So, to say that I was bored would be a false statement. I could say that I became lazy at times.

The only thing that I would change about this course is that I would either make it a strictly online class, or I would allow more "lab" time in the classroom. I really enjoyed the days when Dr. Strange would allow class time to do some of our work because it gave us a hands on opportunity to ask him questions. Other than that, I really enjoyed the class.

Am I technology literate? Good question. Do you ever become FULLY technology literate? I feel like I have learned so much, but I also feel like I have a lot to learn, so I don't know if I could fit into a definition of technology literacy. I want to expand my knowledge and to continue to learn as I teach others.

I want to continue my technology learning network after this class. I will be honest and say that it will be a challenge to continue to do it everyday, but I want to learn to make it a part of my daily ritual especially when I become a teacher. I want to continue to find new websites to put on my RSS feed so that I can become updated regularly. Speaking of my RSS feed, I LOVE using this. I have all kinds of things on there, and it is so easy to have it updated on one page so that you don't have to go to all of the websites to see if there is something new.

After this class, I want to continue to learn, and take the things that Dr. Strange has taught me and expand on them to become a better teacher! Because just like Doug Johnson says, technology isn't going to make a bad teacher a good one, but it can make a good teacher a better one. I want to be a better teacher because of my ability to search out for new information.

Thanks Dr. Strange, for teaching us what we otherwise probably wouldn't have ever thought about seeking after!

Innovation - Education - Technology

Doug Johnson published two articles containing 7 Stupid Mistakes Teachers Make with Technology, and 7 brilliant things teachers do with technology. As I read over this, some of them were quite comical because I could imagine some that a lot of teachers make these EXACT mistakes everyday, not knowing that they are making the mistakes.

Some of my favorites were: #2. Treating a school computer like a home computer. This is such a true statement. I must say though that it is very easy to forget that things are visible on the web and especially if you are on a server network. I know that I have a company email at my office and I have to continually remind myself to keep it business streaming only because you just never know who could be watching! School computers should be used just for that purpose only. I could only imagine the hilarious things an IT tech guy encounters from trying to clean up personal issues on a business computer.

The new rules of the classroom was so enlightening! There is no possible way to just pick one for my favorite. I loved how it transformed the classroom mindset from the teacher having all of the knowledge to the classroom being a circle of knowledge where EVERYONE can share information and EVERYONE can be teachers at some point. This should completely transform the mind of a teacher to encourage a world-wide (literally) network in their classroom.

To sum it all up, Doug Johnson says this, "Technology won't make a poor teacher a good one. But it can make a good teacher a better one." Simply said, technology is not here to save the world from stupidity, but it can push you along the way to new information!