After reviewing the NET standards and taking the TICS survey I’m pretty depressed about my current abilities to bring technology into my classroom. The second element of the NET Standards is very scary to me:
“Teachers design, develop, and evaluate authentic learning experiences and assessments incorporating contemporary tools and resources to maximize content learning in context and to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes identified in the NETS•S. “
The idea that I need to design and develop technology is really overwhelming.
While going through the TICS survey I did fairly well with any question that is about research. This is where I am most comfortable. Number twenty asks if I feel if I could provide a list of high-quality websites for students to use in research. I have done this in the past and enjoyed researching what is available and where it comes from. I also feel I can compare products, such as question fifteen, as long as there are reviews and customer feedback available. Number sixteen and seventeen that ask about finding high order thinking activities make me feel highly confident if they are based on things that I can research and find. If I have to create them then I am totally lost, which also reflects my difficulties with the second part of the NETS goals.
The third part of NETS, items b and c, are about using technology to communicate with peers, parents and students. I feel I can use emails and school websites to create basic communication, but I know it is a very low-level ability. My current school website is to static that it really isn’t ever used by students and parents.
As far as modeling digital citizenship, I am such a low-level user that my technology background pretty much consist of Youtube clips and web links, which don’t require much ethical or legal considerations. I do have conversations with students about plagiarism and what constitutes plagiarizing and the ethical guidelines that govern quoting websites and online papers. Again, a very low-tech application.
Am I a leader in using new technology wisely in the classroom? No, definitely not. I still have my students figure out problems when setting up the digital projector or if the internet is doing something I don’t understand. I consider the students the experts and myself five steps behind where they are. Technology slows down my lessons, so I seldom use it. I always seem to spend a huge amount of time setting things up or figuring them out.
I am moderately confident that I can learn new programs if there is reasonable training, but not confident at all that I can learn it on my own. I think in some cases I may be overly confident, seeing how I went through a two-hour group tutorial on how to do electronic state testing for writing and then completely messed it up when the actual event occurred.
So what are my goals? The deficits seem so huge I almost don’t know where to start. Learning about Webquest and finding a way to incorporate it into my lesson plans is a good start. I know a little about Powerpoint, but haven’t seen many good examples that actually create engagement, so being able to do that is also a goal. I think the most important thing to learn is what technology is out there, analyzing what will add to my classroom, and then taking the time to learn it well enough that I can do it without struggling with the small details. Those are some current goals.
How will I meet those goals? Doing the assignments from this class is an important first step. I need to be sure to ask questions as often as I need to –which may be a lot! I also need to really strive to find relevant topics to feature in the homework I am assigned. If I’m just trying to complete assignments as fast and easy as possible and not really striving to make it relevant, I won’t be seeing the big picture of how it can help me in teaching. The time a project takes needs to be equal to the impact it can make on a classroom, and that is up to me.
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