Course Reflections

During my participation in Walden's Understanding the Impact of Technology course, I have learned alot about the types of Web 2.0 tools that are available for use in learning and how to use these tools. Blogging, wiki's, and pod-casting were all new things for me that I was able to gain experience with through this course. I have gained enough knowledge and experience with blogging and audio pod-casting that I can stop thinking so much about how to do them, but focus on how to use them with my students to enhance their learning. I gained at least some basic experience with wiki's and though I am still not very comfortable using them, I feel like I have some basics to explore the use of them further on my own.

A few ways in which I feel I can continue to expand my knowledge of technology integration include continuing my education with Walden University as well as doing more exploring on my own. I can work on exploring the use of wiki's further. I am also interested in experimenting with video capabilities and uploading video. I have a digital camera that takes video, but I have not yet tried to upload videos to the computer or to the web. Attempting to do this is one thing I want to try in the very near future.

My first long-term goal after completeing this course includes incorporating blog assignments into my curriculum to encourage critical thinking about the core concepts being taught. I have already taken the first steps in doing this by setting up a class blog page for my biology course and incorporated a blogging assignment into my last unit. I plan on slowly incorporating more blogging assignments into my lesson plans, by creating at least one blogging assignment for each unit. I also plan to create a course blog for Anat/Phys class and begin incorporating blogging assignments with them as well.

My second long-term goal is to explore additional use of web 2.0 tools in my classroom. I plan on spending more time exploring the possibilities of wiki's to see if I could find a way to use them in the future. I want to be able to create some sort of web page that students would be able to upload projects to or create projects on, whether that be through a wiki or through an actual web page, which is another thing I currently have no experience with. I am also interested in incorporating pod-casting into my lessons as well, but before I can do so, I need to do some brainstorming on how I would use the pod-casting for student learning.

Reaction to 21st Century Learning Partnership web site

Being a teacher in West Virginia, the second state to adopt the 21st Century Learning Program statewide, I was already at least somewhat familiar with some of the content contained within this site. Seeing how this program has been transforming my school over the past few years has me excited to see that more states have been adopting this program as well. The changes have not been taking place over night, and more teacher training and classroom internet access is needed to really effectively incorporate this program, but the change is happening and it has been allowing us to access many new devices and updates to our aging buildings to bring our facilities into the digital age. Some examples of these changes include the introduction of TI-Inspire calculators into our math classes, Labquest data collection devices into our science classes, on-line journaling in our English classes, smartboards into all of our classrooms, additional ethernet hookups and computers in many classrooms, new computers for our computer labs, and our district is also in the process of installing wireless internet access in our schools as well - though that is still a work in progress. The district has also been making available a number of technology teacher trainings. Some of these have been mandatory with compensation, but others have been completely voluntary, after school on our own time and a bit more few and far between than what I believe is really needed as many of them I would have liked to have attended, but was unable to.
If anything surprised me at all about this site it was the number of resources that were available, although they appeared to be resources more geared towards implementing the program on the district and state level rather than focused on the classrooms and teachers themselves which is probably why my district had not really pushed our awareness of this site and its available resources, but rather provided us with hard copies of the resources they felt were the most relevant to us.

Ideas for future blog use in my classroom

One way I would like to use blogging in the future in my classroom would be in conjunction with the topic that I was covering with my biology students just yesterday. That topic being genetic engineering. Learning activities I currently use or have used with this lesson include assignments that allow my students to explore some real world applications of genetic engineering that are already being used to benefit society including the production of human insulin to treat diabetes. Though my students know that this insulin is produced in a lab somewhere, they until this lesson they are unaware that it is actually produced by bacteria cells which have been genetically altered to produce human insulin. Most of their previous exposure to genetic engineering has been limited to the ethical debates that get the publicity and many have the pre-conception that it is all bad and dangerous and kills fetuses and such. I have also had my students do internet research on genetic engineering and write reports describing their opinions on whether genetic engineering should be allowed or not or what restrictions should be placed on genetic engineering based on their research. Having them post their research backed opinions on a blog rather than in a report to turn in to me would allow them to then take what they've learned and discuss and debate the issue with each other and others on the web.
Blogging would also allow for similiar discussions and debates over other scientific theories they learn about in class such as the theory of natural selection and evolution.

Another way I would like to apply blogs would be in their lab reports. This would help to reinforce writing their lab reports in such a way that their experiments can be replicated should their results be published. This is an area where they struggle a little even though they are taught that for scientific knowledge and theories to become accepted scientists check each others work and repeat each others experiments and design new similiar experiments to further test each other's theories and deductions. Posting their lab reports to blogs and evaluating each other's reports would make their lab reports part of that scientific collaboration rather than just more writing for a grade.

A way I would be interested in using blogs with my Anatomy and Physiology students would be to help them apply what they are learning about the body to medicine and medical research on treating diseases. Although, I am a little less sure about how I would set this one up.

Starting Out

Ok so I'm just getting started with this blogging stuff. This is a totally new world for me. I am doing this as part of the graduate degree I am pursueing at Walden University. My degree program is a master's in education with a specialization in integrating technology in the classroom. In the near future I want to be able to use blogging and many other technology tools in the classroom with my students to enhance their learning in Biology and Human Anatomy. This is my learning blog, where I will am learning how to blog through blogging.