The final reflection # 8

I just finished reading all of my post looking for change or directional shifts in my thinking or processing. And, it was there, I saw where my philosophy had adjusted to incorporate technoogy in a greater way.  I saw where I was challenged to view education and technology in a combined manner and I saw where I still agreed with my mind map but saw it differently. I saw where I was challenged to implament technology as the floor of the lesson and then build upon it. I saw where I was able to address the society fact of the "Digital Nativeness" of our younger students and then understoond to a greater degree their own connection via technology with society. I saw where I incorporated new technology into my own life and then impacted the lives of anothers with its usage and controlled a time issue with student presentations that had dragged on and on and a chatty co-worker.  I also saw when I previewed my portfolio site that some things I thought was going to be there from off of the Goole apps weren't but they were on my Blog instead.  So, I've got to figure that one out.  I also learned that just because the camera records to a disc does not mean that it is going to cooporate with your computer..Arrrgggg!!  That will bug me until I get the podcast that I really wanted worked out.   I wish that I had a webliography page of all the sites we went to during the semester so I could copy it to my own docs and not have lost them all because the online program closed. I enjoyed the opportunity to be challenged and to grow plus learning all the really cool stuff!!

Thank you,
Kathrine Garza

My end of semester Ed tech philosophy review

Kathrine interviews herself again on her Educational Technology Philosophy

Okay, here we go again:

I believe the purpose of education is to bring an individual to an enlightenment of the application of various venues of society selected training and an understanding of the individual’s role within that society which is going to include a firm grasp on negotiating at least minimal technological functions.

I believe that the role of the learner is to question, investigate,  acquire/acknowledge, practice and finally apply the mastered tenets of a given topic.

I believe that an educator has the charge to direct a student’s line of learning through the discovery of, and acquisition of a giving topic.

My classroom objective as a teacher is to take a ‘cold turkey’ subject, introduce it using as many differing avenues as possible to deliver the information to a learning diverse class and the student to each other, then engage the student into its depths and challenge them to broaden their world with the subject matter and exit the class a more enlightened individual from having encountered the subject and a better understanding of the components of technological delivery methods. My campus wide objectives are to help the student gain confidence and skill in being a more successful student by using the subject matter to address a couple of areas that many students struggle in, test taking and public speaking, both manually and online or presenting with the support of a selected program. My professional objective is to give the teachers to be in my classes, and other professionals who may have to be trainers, an example of a portion of their careers in action by often explaining my methods and reason quickly before beginning a select activity the first time. I can expand this by modeling technological proficiency as well.

I use many different methods depending on the course of activities and area of subject focus selected from that day. One method you could call the “Frog in the pot of water on the stove” or dependence weaning and facing/reducing your fear of public speaking.  I bring the students through a select pattern of fear reductions in order to bring out the true best of the student in two high stress areas of education.  1) Test taking, 2) Public speaking. I can do the same thing with progressing students who are backwards in their technological applications via outside assignments.

Because I teach college, I expect my students to be pre-read for class, to challenge themselves to do better with each attempt, to explore, to genuinely try, do their assigned work, do college level research and presentations, show respect for their classmates and me, and be on-time, and show proper classroom comportment. However,  because I teach an open level class in a small regional college I fully expect to have students that are un-disciplined in how to succeed as college students and are unprepared for the rigors of a college classroom subject or technological use base requirements.

It was interesting to see how this philosophy become melded with my focus and usage of technology within and on behalf of the class as it becomes anchored to the purpose of class as well as melded within the subject matter.

And the move goes on!!

Check it out!  One of my students used the Jing and Screencast to do her self advancing ppt for her country presentation.

http://www.screencast.com/t/UD96oIE18wAz

Week #7 reflections on a lesson plan

Week 7 - Reflection #7

The learning objective I developed was for the purpose of presenting a concept and then challenging the students to think outside their small town box and on into the global community and then expand that thinking.  My rationale for selecting the technologies used was for modeling as well as expanding their own technology usage range.  With the three levels of advancing difficulties, I would expect that most will do well with the finding of the items requested, and do well with the blogging portion. As normal with the freshmen in my open classes some will struggle with the composition portion still and generally bemoan the ‘imposition’ of having a critically thinking assignment put on them.  

My view of instruction for this lesson found that it was different to be thinking what technology could I cause the students to use, beyond the standard word program and then pushing them to also expand areas of usage.  Since I discovered Jing I’ve pushed my students to use it, but I want more for them and for me and I can see how my lessons can be even richer with the helps from both the Google apps and elearning apps.

The iGoogle looks cool and like a lot of fun. I know I want to have a cool home page to link from out of Bb for my students. So between what I have learned in this class and in Dr. Espinoza's class, I feel well armed to go forth and prosper (what to guess what kind of theme I might have? Be sure to look for me around the etech corner somewhere.)