Final Journal – Summary of Course Learning Experiences

I was pretty surprised and pleased by what I learned from this course. I knew that I came into the course with a decent background in the technical aspects but was looking for ways to use the technologies in the classroom and ways that this was presented and taught to teachers. There were some things that I didn’t know anything about and was looking forward to finding out more about them, like blogging. And there were many topics that I thought I had an understanding of but was surprised to find out that they were quite different than what I thought, like WebQuests and online projects.

There were many online resources that I will share with others. The WebTeacher.org website is one of the better resources, although we all noted how many times we ran into bad links. I bookmarked several of the resources on e-mail, netiquette, internet history, etc. so that I can share them. I think I’ll add a section to our district Tech. newsletter of good web resources. I created the webpage of listservs and e-mail subscription newsletters for the web project and added it to the Teacher Resources section of my district website as “Online News Sources”. And the final project of a webpage of online projects will be a section of my district website.

November’s book was particularly illuminating to me. I looked over some of the topics: information literacy, expanding relationships, emerging roles, primary sources – at the beginning of the course and didn’t really understand how technology can alter the learning environment. Prior to this course I was viewing it simplistically as teachers needing to learn computer skills but I am slowly (but surely) learning about transforming the classroom environment by expanding relationships, using primary sources, etc. and how the use of technology may provide opportunities that wouldn’t be otherwise available.

There were subjects taught in this class that I’d like to encourage more teachers to use but I haven’t figured out a good way to teach and encourage them to try. I’d like to see some of our teachers try using penpal connections, blogging, IM, or discussion groups. Maybe I’ll try to hold a workshop on “Internet Communications” and at least show what’s available and how it works. I really want more teachers to learn about WebQuests. I plan to work on that this year holding workshops and putting resources together. To think that my sons may graduate from high school in the next two years without having ever been exposed to a WebQuest doesn’t make me happy.

One the most valuable resources to me for this class was the discussion forum. I truly enjoyed some of the topics we discussed and hearing the opinions and perspectives of the others. And some of them write so well. The only problem was with those participants that weren’t timely in posting their pieces. I tried to go back and read their posts later, but once I’d moved on it was harder to stay involved in what they were saying. I figured this was particularly hard over the summer because people had vacations and those kind of interruptions but it was disruptive to the sharing process. It’s been an interesting experience overall – I do feel I know some of my classmates as well as I would have if we’d been in a room together. And the requirement for everyone to post allows you to read what everyone writes where in a classroom, only certain students may speak up. There are always some that never speak up. And it was interesting that some people posted that they're more likely to post opinions on the forum than they would have in person. It’s really interesting to me how the computer/internet medium can have positive and negative aspects.

I found it interesting how you, as teacher, responded to each of our posts and journals with thoughtful comments and interesting feedback. It enhanced my learning and engagement in the material. I have taken tutorial online classes and if they weren’t too long and I was very motivated I learned a lot. I have taken a few online classes that had a teacher that wasn’t anything more than a monitor – they made sure you handed in your assignments on time but there was no feedback. Particularly in a subject that was new territory to me, I quickly got lost and lost my motivation to continue. It has been helpful for me to experience these different levels of teacher relationships and learn what makes a good teacher online. Some traits are the same as a good teacher in any other environment – creativity, organization, dedication, time and energy – but others are particularly important and I think the availability is more important online than in a classroom.

I liked the assignment to explore and learn to use the Lesley Library. It’s nice to see that the curriculum for the TIE program is well planned and thought out and units like this are included in an early required course. I had learned about online databases a year ago in our district and was amazed at the resources available to us online. In NH, the state library purchased licenses to EBSCO for all residents through all public libraries and school libraries. Many of our town libraries are not that great, nor are many of our elementary school libraries. The middle and high school libraries tend to be better. But the paucity of good local resources makes an online database with full text documents even more important. I had many teachers who were insisting on “non-internet” research for projects so now the research requirements are spread across websites or EBSCO or newspaper/magazine/book resources. Interestingly, our Library Media Specialists are our best resources for technology in education – probably because they’ve received their advanced degrees recently.

I learned about technologies that I wasn’t familiar with (i.e. blogging) and I learned many ways to use telecommunications in the classroom and I have many resources to share with administrators and teachers. Instead of focusing on teaching computer skills I understand we want teachers to expand the classroom environment and the internet and telecommunications provide opportunities to do this.

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