Class Reflection

As I started Instructional Leadership: The Technology Link I was very excited about getting to learn new facets of technology. I was hoping to learn more bells and whistles for things such as Power points and Excel, but instead ventured into the world of blogs and wikis. I did learn some new aspects about Power points. The ability to post it to a blog was something that I had no idea how to do. This is going to be a great asset in the future. I can see blogs taking away the need for mass e-mails in the future. The course outcome did not align with what I thought we would be learning, because I did not expect to tackle blogging. However, I was very happy to learn more about blogs and hope to better use them for my class and hopefully my staff one day.
Blogs are not relevant in my school at this time. I do think that the time is coming soon where administration and teachers will use blogs everyday to communicate. I also think blog use between students and teachers will start to pick up in the near future. The main concern I have is how to monitor what students write on the blogs. I want them to feel free to express their opinions, but want to make sure they are following proper etique while posting their views.
One of the things I would have liked to been able to learn more about was Excel. I know the basics of the Excel program, but wanted to learn more about charts and graphs. I was hoping we would get some pointers on how to make our graphs look better or those special functions they do not teach you when your covering basic Excel in college.
I was successful in carrying out the assignments for this course. I was a day late on the Week 4 assignment and that was all my fault. I just couldn’t get going during week 4. Keeping up with the discussion board during this course was very time consuming, but all in all the discussion board helped my knowledge. The discussion board also helped give me other points of view that I had not really thought about and that lets me understand that when I become an administrator I need to be open to everyone’s opinion.
The main thing that I learned from this course is that technology is not going away. I already knew that, but I guess this course showed me new ways to use technology that just strengthed the argument. I learned that I really enjoy using technology in the classroom. I also learned the benefit of using technology when I become an administrator. I hope to be on the cutting edge of technology and inspire staff members to jump on the technology bandwagon. Really and truly I just want staff members to embrace technology and not to be overwhelmed or scared of it. Again, technology is here to stay!
Blogs have a place in education. I believe that moving forward with blogs in the classroom is only going to help student participation. Some students are far more likely to voice answers, ideas and opinions in a blog. The chance for them to be embrassed is far less in the blog than in the normal classroom setting where students could laugh at them. The question is how to use blogs and when could blogs be appropriate for class use?
The concerns of blogs or blogging in education is pretty much limitless. I have several concerns that will keep me from using blogs in my class until I come up with concrete answers. First, if a student post something unappropriate or even unlawful can I be held responsible if I created the blog for my class. I did not post it the student did, but is their any way that the students action could come back on me. Let’s face it, we have to protect ourselves as teachers now days. Next, I think blogging is ideal for use outside of the classroom. As we know all students do not have access to a computer or internet outside of school. How do we fix that problem and level the playing field for all students? I cannot answer questions on a blog if every student does not have the opportunity to benefit from it. That would not be fair to my students without computer access. Last, is good old fashion ethics. Who teaches ethics about what to post on the computer? The parents? The teachers? Today ethics is falling under the job of the teacher more and more. How do we teach this? Students can be bullies on the web just as easy as in the classroom. To use a blog as part of my class I have to be able to find good answers to all of the concerns.
I think blogging is the future of communication with school stakeholders. Instead of exchanging several different e-mails with people questions can be answered and viewed by all people involved. This will save time for administrators and people who have a question and might not be inclined to ask it will still get their answers. I think blogging is a very important component of education going forward.