Reflection: Final Blog Post

This course,Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education,Work, and Society, has helped me develop several technological skills as a professional teacher. One of these skills is the ability to create blog sites that enable me to incorporate learning not only for my students, but also for the parents of my students. I have also learned how to follow other relevant blog sites that are beneficial to both me and my students. I have learned the function of wiki sites and ways to incorporate the students in participating in this process. Finally, I have learned how to create a podcast in which I did a demographic profile for my class. It was really cool for my students to hear themselves on the podcast.

This learning process has greatly deepened my knowledge of the teaching and learning process because these are tools I previously was unable to use. Because of this, my perspective has changed greatly from teacher-centered to learner-centered. It is evident that these tools allow lessons and learning to be centered on the student rather than the teacher. My role now becomes one of a mediator/facilitator instead of the traditional role of presenting information to students for them to absorb. Using these tools students have the freedom and flexibility to "learn on their own" and help their classmates learn along the way.

I think I now have the basic skills to easily expand my knowledge of learning and teaching with the aim of increasing student achievement because I have found ways to convert the normal classroom experience to a 21st century classroom experience.

In my ninth year of teaching PE, I have experienced a few obstacles that will not allow me to instantly implement some of the technological tools I have learned in this course. The main obstacles are students access to computers and the time involved in trying to get into the computer lab. Being that I am in the gym or outside on the track the majority of the time, it is very difficult for my classes to implement the technological tools that I have learned in this class. A long term goal I have is to have equipment put in place that will allow students to exercise and play games interactively. Of course, the obstacle to doing this is finding the financial resources to make this happen, but perhaps I can hold fundraisers, such as open gym where the students pay a dollar to play basketball for an hour before school, in order to purchase this equipment. Another goal I have for transforming my classroom environment is to create a class blog that my students will be able to access and fully participate in. Not only do I plan to have activities posted on it, I also plan to have nutritional facts for parents and students. Another section would allow students to research sporting events and activities and also be able to contribute to the site.

Podcast Assignment: Profiling the Student's of Today

After surveying and interviewing my middle school students, I have learned a lot about their interests and understanding of technology. I have recorded a podcast of the demographic profile of my class, along with interviews with three different students on podbean. Please click on the link below.

http://roderickrussell.podbean.com/

What is the website http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/ all about?

My reaction to this website is a very postive one. I am amazed at the commitment that has been made to incorporate 21st century skills to some students in our country. I found out that the “business community, educational leaders and policymakers” are working together to see that the students of today come out of school with the “skills needed to be effective citizens, workers, and leaders in the 21st century”.

I am very impressed with the amount of members in this partnership. However, I am very surprised though that only 14 states are currently involved with this initiative. Knowing how important and how technology is growing and becoming more advance, you would think that more states would want to convert and start using these skills while teaching. My state, Georgia, is not one of them. Wouldn’t you think this should be a national partnership? Why are more states not involved with this? After all, these skills are going to be what our students are going to need in order to compete in the working world, as well as, with machines. I feel that more states should already be making the initiative to incorporate these skills.

It is refreshing to know that there is a place for educators and students to go to for guidance and support in order to teach and learn 21st century skills that are increasingly needed in order to close the gap between our students and those from other countries. I think it is to an educator’s advantage to take the time to study this site. There is a lot of useful information that will support the teacher in providing their students with the 21st century skills they will need. How hard would it be to nationalize something like this Partnership? I am not talking about the funding but the general ideas of the whole framework. I think starting off in the same direction would be a step forward instead of each state working as an individual. We all need to get in the same book, if not on the same page.

Using A Blog In Physical Education/Health

After much thought, I came up with an idea of how I would like to implement the use of blogs in my middle school physical education/health classes. Diseases is a major health unit in our middle school curriculum. First, I would assign a specific disease to each student in my class. Next, I would have my students research their particular disease via books, magazines or internet. After all their information is gathered I would take my class into our computer lab and teach my students how to create their own blogs on their assigned diseases. Each of their blogs should contain facts about their disease and even a picture of what the disease looks like. I was thinking that after each student's "disease blog" is created then all the students could go post their links on a links board and subscribe to each of their classmate's blogs. I could have the students use the poll gadget and every day for a whole week each student would post a multiple choice question about their particular disease. Each student would need to visit each of their classmate's blogs to read about the disease and answer the question in the poll. Hopefully, this would be a fun and exciting way to learn about all of the many diseases!