Pattyjane’s Weblog

My last ejournal is intended to be a reflection on the end of the course and final project. I’m sad that the course is ending. As I said in the beginning, I expected my learning curve to be huge, if not humongous and that has largely been true. What’s nice about this is I’ve started noticing that people are sort of perceiving me differently in regards to technology. I’m getting compliments on my computer ablilities and even my daughter doesn’t really know what a wiki is, so I’ve learned a few things that even digital natives don’t yet know or use. And I’ve found this to be true at work also. 99% of the people at my district are not aware or not using many of the digital activities and skills we learned in class. This gives me the feeling of having an edge in technology, something I surely didn’t have before. I have also noticed that district computer people are far more willing to work with me on technology related projects because I know a fair amount and I know what I want to do and accomplish with the technology. So now, I can present a project (as I did in our last class) and get it going and my computer tech person helps me teach it and helps me work out the kinks in the lab.

At work, we have extended the students’ writing to include a piece written about the Tanglewood environmental camp experience we had last week. We have requested that the computer tech director for our district authorize a link to the site from the main SAD #34 site or the Nickerson School site, so parents and students can visit it. Hey, this is so exciting–and I’m the only one doing it! This prospect does bring to mind a problem that exists in most districts, which is, the computer tech people will fix things, tell you what you can and can’t do or access, and/or they’ll teach simple things in the lab to your students. But we are not learning how to really use technology as part of our teaching. That important part of the technology in education piece is definately missing. I think you called that job a “technology integrator” (as opposed to a technology coordinator). Now that I have a sense of what I can do with technology and my curriculum, I want someone, more like a technology integrator to teach me more useful and helpful things I can do so I don’t always have to come up with it on my own. Also, we need to get more technology for the teachers to use in their teaching, like an LCD player.

One thing I underestimated about my class’ web site is how motivating it would be for students and their attitude toward writing. Having a site on the web is extremely cool to them, provides them with the illusion of having a large cyber audience–sort of like a MySpace page. Now they want to put more on the site than I was going to require. What I need to learn, now, is how to upload pictures onto the main page and their links. Our site needs illustrations and pictures to make it look more exciting and “professional.” If you get a chance, please check it every now and then to see the changes and if you have any advice, let me know. Over the summer I will probably be taking more computer classes, create some power point presentations, and create some lesson plans using online videos. Thanks for everything. It was a fun, great class and I learned a lot.