6.1: Continuous Learning:
|
Artifact: Internet Tools in the Classroom Blog Reflection: I populated and moderated the Internet Tools in the Classroom Blog weekly for a full semester. The goal of this project was to demonstrate the power of blogging as a teaching tool (Richardson, 2010) as well as to document my developing appreciation for and knowledge of proven and emerging technology tools as well as how to most effectively, ethically, and legally implement those tools in a multicultural digital age and classroom environment. Although the blog posts were composed solely by me, the commentary provided by my peers helped me to consider the finer points of issues relevant to technology implementation, and such collaboration cannot be discounted. The course exploration of current and emerging technologies and concepts contributed to my knowledge of specific internet tools and created a base of internet tool category knowledge that has benefited my personal productivity and professional practice. For example, Jing, a screencasting tool, has become integral to my personal and professional life. I have used it to screencast directions for using the collaborative platforms I introduced to the church ministry in which I am most active; I have used it to provide essay feedback for my tutoring clients; I have used it to demonstrate the workings of internet tools to teacher friends. Likewise, I now use Diigo, a social bookmarking platform, daily to save and categorize internet content relevant to several categories that interest me personally and professionally. By far the most powerful and useful tool that continues to impress with useful innovations is Google Drive, a cloud-based platform designed to emulate the Microsoft Office Suite. I use it for everything from collecting research to co-authoring texts and gift list spreadsheets. Standard 6.1 also requires that candidates in the Instructional Technology Education Specialist program demonstrate continual growth, and this blog, read from the oldest to the most recent blog post, demonstrates the development of my technological skill set as well as my knowledge development. During the course, as evidenced in increase in blog post quality, I learned to hyperlink content, add interesting graphics, videos, and podcasts, consider the tenets of Universal Design to chunk content into manageable and appropriately-labeled sections, use images legally through Creative Commons licensing, and troubleshoot HTML code. The development of this artifact would have been ameliorated with an increase in social sharing of the blog posts, an effort that could have generated conversation in the comments sections on each post. The content is enthusiastic and thorough, and neglecting it in this way is akin to sticking one's art in the closet. I will share my blog with my colleagues this fall, and I hope that the blog posts' enthusiasm for technology tools and my own coaching during collaboration sessions will encourage teachers to try some of the technology tools detailed therein. Though large-scale impact would be difficult to assess in terms of this artifact, the artifact's usefulness to educators could serve as barometer. References Richardson, Will. (2010). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Publishers. |