Reflection

At the start of this course I was very intimidated. I began to feel overwhelmed with the weekly application assignments. At one point I wanted to give up on the course. I continued on each week and through the encouragement of Walden University advisors, my instructor and classmates I continued my journey through the course.
This course helped me develop my own technology skills through acquiring new knowledge on how to use different tools that I can teach in my classes. I am especially impressed with creating personal blogs. I now have blogs as a part of my curriculum. I feel very confident instructing my students on how to create blogs and how they will be used throughout their coursework. I have deepened my knowledge of teaching and learning process through learning how to use different technology applications and being able to instruct my students with these applications. One way that my perspective has changed from being teacher centered to learner centered is that I use a different approach when teaching my students. I allow more input from my students in which I can strategize from the students input while their learning from each other which makes it one learner-centered community. The knowledge that I have acquired on teaching will always be an on going process. I will continue to expand my knowledge of learning, teaching and leading with technology through professional workshops, continuing education and collaborating with colleagues to campaign for tools we need in our classroom to increase the use of technology. One goal that I will set is to have a classroom without using textbooks. I will try to overcome this obstacle by giving the pros and cons of eliminating textbooks. I plan to meet with the administrators at my school to show how eliminating textbooks could possibly save money.

Profiling the Students of Today

http://jbluton8.podbean.com/

Partnership for 21st century skills
The speed of technology is changing rapidly. The reaction I have about the website on Partnership for 21st century skills was a reality check. Today's educator's need to be more prepared, flexible, knowledgeable and able to multitask. There is a greater need for strong cognitive skills and analytical skills. Educators need to prepare themselves for the rapid changes that are taking place in the classroom. The information that I read was not surprising. The information on the website confirmed what I already perceived about integrating technology in the classroom. I need to prepare myself for the challenges that will take place using 21st century skills. It reinforces my belief that you can never stop learning. Educators must keep an open mind to change. What is useful knowledge today may be of little use in a short period of time. Educators must be aware that students need to be well prepared in both the classroom and in the workforce. Technological has allowed a smaller workforce to create a higher production capacity.

I would like to integrate a blog into my classroom. The purpose of the blog is to have a place where the students can view, comment and reply to others about their content area. I'd like to share some things I have experienced since I began the virtual classes at my school. The students are excited about being able to do their coursework on the computers. I have exhausted myself monitoring each student to stay on track. Some of my students began to drift away from the curriculum and began to navigate to other websites. This has become very annoying. I did a survey with my students about blogging. Like myself they were unfamiliar about how to get started. I mentioned to my students that Facebook, My Space, Twitter are blogs. I want to learn how to use the blog correctly before I assign students to create a blog. I think they would enjoy interacting with others about their content. I also think that it would cut down on students drifting away from their content navigating to other sites. I think it can enhance the lesson because they are reading comments from their peers.

Using technology in the classroom seem to motivate students to actively engage in the curriculum. This generation of students are technologically advanced. The early exposure to cyberspace has produced, in my opinion a generation of students that are competent in this environment. After teaching in a traditional environment for the past eleven years, I obtained a teaching position at a virtual school. I was excited to begin the new school year in a new environment. I had very little training with the program. I'm learning day-to-day and feeling more competetent with my instruction.