Lessons+Learned

Ashley Gutierrez EDUC 538

Lessons learned

Throughout this quarter I learned a lot from this course. I am walking away with a new outlook on technology in the classroom. I came into this course believing that technology in the classroom was very important but I feel even stronger about it now. I was especially interested while looking at the learning paradigms of the industrial -age and information-age. It’s so weird to look at our grandparents, parents and us in respects to technology. Technology to my parents and grandparents has a totally different meaning than it does to me. My grandparents can’t seem to understand why I would prefer to text message people than call them on the phone. They still love to use their VCR to record shows and movies. In another respect they love to e-mail and be on the computer. It takes them much longer to do anything on the computer than people my age but they try, so I give them credit. I just find it so interesting that technology is moving at such a rapid pace. I often wonder what the world will be like in ten years in terms of technology. This brings me back to the discussion that we had in class on this matter. It was interesting to hear what people thought. Technology in the classroom is also taking off. The typical classroom today in terms of technology is very different from the classrooms that I attended grade school in. We have gone from chalkboards and overhead projectors to white boards and document cameras. I plan on teaching for a long time so I can’t wait to see the changes that will take place throughout my career with technology. I feel as though it is our job as teachers to keep our students up to date on technology. If we are not we are failing as teachers. Technology should be incorporated into our classrooms just as mathematics and reading are. Learning the web 2.0 tools was very beneficial for me. I am walking away from this class with a lot of great tools that I can use to make my teaching more effective and beneficial for my students and myself. I wish I would have known about these tools last year when I had my own classroom. Tools like RubiStar and Survey Monkey would have been great assets to my classroom. In the future I will have all of these tools tucked away in my mind to readily use. I truly believe that having your own blog, as a teacher is very important. In today’s society we are all very busy. Parents are less and less involved with their child’s education. I don’t think this is by choice I think it has to do with work and other obligations in most cases. A classroom blog is a great way to communicate with parents. They can check the blog from work and still feel like they know what’s going on. I am sure that at some point in my career I will have a student who cannot be at school due to a health issue, a learning space would really benefit that child. I also think that it’s just important to have a learning space to give the students something new and fun to work with rather than just giving out worksheets and things of that nature. All in all I am going to be a better teacher after this class because I will be able to incorporate everything that I have learned to be the most effective teacher that I can possibly be. Lastly, I also hope that I can take what I learned and share it with staff. I think that colleagues would appreciate learning some of these tools and find them very useful as well.