Completing a final reflection is always a somewhat anti-climactic event. I feel like I am supposed to synthesize all my knowledge and thoughts about a certain course or topic in a couple of paragraphs, but usually fail to put what I’ve actually learned (or how I’ve changed) into my sub-par style of writing. But I’ll try – here we go.
This course has been difficult and frustrating at times, but has helped me develop a new view of technology and how it can best be utilized in the educational setting. If I’m going to be completely honest, I had a negative attitude towards technology, specifically towards using technology in the classroom, before this class. I think that this attitude came from watching teachers use technology as a way to keep students “busy” in class rather than “engaged.” Many teachers I know assign students projects like “complete a web quest”, “make a PowerPoint about…”, “create a website”, etc., etc. to fill up time during the class period so that the teacher could grade papers or plan a sports practice or catch up on e-mail. I don’t agree with this practice and think that this is a disservice to students.
About halfway through this course I realized that I developed a negative attitude towards technology when it wasn’t the technology’s fault – it was the teachers fault. Those teachers knew that they could carve out time for themselves if the students were “busy” working on a project during class time.
After further reflecting upon what I have learned in this course, I realize that it’s definitely not the technology’s fault, and maybe not even the teacher’s fault. It could be that the teacher never received necessary professional development in order to effectively utilize technology in their classroom. I certainly know that I never received professional development on how to utilize technology into my classroom. Many of the technologies that I’ve learned in this course (Diigo, VoiceThread, Livebinder, blogging, wikis, etc.) are difficult to use the first time. I have spent a lot of time in the last three months trying to figure out how to use these technologies. The first time I used any of them it took a long time and was frustrating. In fact, it became so frustrating and time-consuming that I would put the assignments off until the last minute just so I didn’t have to become frustrated. It was party a good thing that I did this though, because I had no choice but to push on through the frustration and learn the technology (otherwise I may have stopped halfway through). Here’s the thing, though, the second time that I utilized these technologies they were super easy to use. I did not become frustrated. I did things quickly and efficiently. Perhaps we all just have to get through the frustration of the first time in order to utilize these things effectively. Perhaps other people are just like me and will put off learning technology because it can be frustrating and time consuming. Perhaps it is the job of school administrators to provide teachers with professional development opportunities and time to learn how to implement good technology into their classrooms. Perhaps. These are thoughts that I will both not forget tomorrow and work on applying to my job as an administrator.
Since learning how to use these technologies I have become a more effective communicator and a more organized person. Who knew – my wife has been asking me to become more organized for years. After experiencing this, I realize that teachers (and students) deserve professional development and training in current technologies so that they can correctly implement them in their classroom. Perhaps this means that my initial frustration towards teachers should have been directed towards the administration for not providing enough professional development opportunities. Now that I am an administrator and this is part of my job, it is necessary that I provide this opportunity for teachers.
