Understanding the impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society

I am finishing my last week in the course: Understanding the impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society. This course, alone, has been a wonderful reason to pursue my Master's degree. I have learned a tremendous amount about technology and how to use it in the classroom. It has truly opened my eyes to a whole new way of teaching.

I have been a "blogger" for a little over a year. I use my personal blog to share photos and stories about my family. However, this professional blog gives me a space to share with fellow professionals. It gives me the ability to share with teachers all over the world! How Wonderful!!! Something new that I have recently learned is how to create a wiki. Before this course, I had never heard of wikis. I just finished creating one for our Elementary School. We are going to use it as collaboration space. A place to share research based materials to use during our RTI time. I am still learning about podcasting. I really do enjoy the process, but I am still learning the mechanics of how to do it.

This course has given me a great foundation and starting point. I still have a lot to learn about integrating technology into the classroom. I will use the information that I have been given and expand my knowledge. I have set two long-term goals for transforming my classroom environment into a place where technology is integrated seamlessly to meet instructional goals. I will begin these goals next year, when I move back to a regular classroom. Creating these goals was difficult for me, because I teach younger students. However, I want to integrate these because technology really allows the students to break down the classroom walls (Krucli, 2008). My first and most exciting goal is to use podcasting in my room on a regular basis. I want my students to podcast their plays, handwriting, artwork, ect... I hope my students will be able to do this with me facilitating them. Again, I want it to become a "normal" part of our classroom routine. My second goal is to integrate Distance Learning. This is a program that I was taught and certified to use in my undergrad studies. Unfortunately, I have never had the opportunity to use it. It allows students to take field trips to the zoo, other countries, classrooms around the world, ect... without leaving their desks. It is an exciting way for technology to help students make more connections.

Technology is going to allow me to bring something that I enjoy, into the classroom. All of my students have different learning styles and technology is another way to help facilitate these styles. I am very excited to start this transition!

Thornburg, D. & Davidson, H. (2008). Bringing Fun into Teaching with Technology. [streamed video].

Profiling the Students of Today

Hi everyone, I posted a new episode to my podcast, Megan Harrells Podcast.

Please click the link below to view it.

http://smharrell17.podomatic.com/entry/2009-12-17T19_51_26-08_00

See you there!

- Megan

Partnership for 21st Century Skills

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills has emerged as the leading advocacy organization focused on infusing 21st century skills into education (Partnership for 21st century skills, 2004). Their website http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/ is full of great information explaining 21st century skills and technology in the classroom. Again, they have a great amount of information that is well organized (even graphs). However, I felt their website to be very boring and unappealing! I felt “forced” to read it, although I wanted the information.

I was surprised by the low number of states participating in the PL2 Leadership State program. According to the website (Partnership for 21st century skills, 2004), “the programs prepare students with the 21st century skills they need to be successful in school, work and life.” Why hasn’t every state signed up yet? I wasn’t surprised that Indiana isn’t participating. We seem to be the last state to do anything helping education!

I did not agree with the list of Core Subjects and 21st Century Themes. The website (Partnership for 21st century skills, 2004) states, “ Mastery of Core subjects and 21st century themes is essential in the 21st century”. I don’t think that World Languages or Arts are essential in the 21st century. Even though I was involved in arts (band/music) in High School and College, I don’t think that was essential for my teaching degree.

I do feel that our school is doing a wonderful job at teaching the Core Subjects & 21st Century Themes. We also teach Learning and Innovation skills, even at the elementary level. Our High School teaches Life and Career Skills. I can’t say how well, because I’m not in the building. However, the whole corporation is failing to teach Information, Media and Technology Skills. We do have a few classes in place. Unfortunately, they are not using updated technology or teaching the students 21st century technology skills.

Is Blogging Appropriate for my Classroom??

I am currently the Reading Recovery teacher at my elementary school. I work with Tier 3 students (one-on-one) these are my RR students. I also work with Tier 2 students (group work) these are my CIM students. RR lessons and CIM lessons are very scripted. I have a 30 minute block of time to work on reading and writing. My goal is to help these struggling students get back on grade level - so they are not referred to special education.

Here is a picture of my RR part of the classroom….















I feel that using a blog as a class portal is appropriate for my classroom. From a teaching standpoint, having a place to publish the course curriculum, syllabus, class rules, homework assignments, rubrics, handouts and presentations makes Web log a powerful course management tool (Richardson, 2009). We are currently required at East Washington to keep a website showing a continuum of education. We use the websites to prove that we are still educating students if we are shut down for the H1N1. I think that blogs would be a much better way to prove continuing education.


Knowledge management and articulation is also an appropriate use of blogging in my classroom. I attended a workshop today with the RTI team at our school. We loved all the ideas that the presenter had for our team, but our biggest issue was time. When will we possibly have time to have these extra meetings - we are already out of the classroom enough! According to Richardson, (2009) “ School committees and groups that meet on a regular basis can use a blog to archive minutes of meetings, continue dialogues, share lings to relevant information, and store documents and presentations for easy access later on.” What a great idea! However, this does mean that my colleagues would have to “buy” into blogging.

At first grade level, I don’t think that blogging is appropriate for my students. However, it is appropriate for me to use to contact parents, and collaborate with colleagues.
Do you have any suggestions on other ways I can incorporate blogging into my classroom?