EDU 777: Reflection 1

 Reflection 1

Image Source: Adorama


The Process & Its Challenges

    The process of the "Learning Specialist/Instructional Designer" proposal has been an interesting one. As a 4th year teacher, being fairly new in the field of education, I have been integrating technology into my lessons since my first day in the classroom--student teaching semester included. However, I have never truly considered what the advantages/disadvantages were of certain technologies until I was in charge of my own curriculum and was able to see firsthand what worked for students and teachers, such as myself, and what sorts of technologies only prolonged the teaching process and made it difficult for my students to learn actively and effectively.

    Figuring out what technological piece my school is in need of was easy: a SMART board; it was the only practical thing I could think of since so many teachers in our building have had difficulty with their projectors and screens--not to mention that a handful of our teachers don't even have cart projectors in their classrooms, making it all that more difficult to show their students additional materials from their computers. Researching the SMART board was both easy and somewhat of a struggle. Seeing as SMART boards are quite new to the educational world, there hasn't been all that much research done on how it can be an effective technology in the classroom. I was able to find various interesting and engaging activities that other teachers have done in their classrooms with their boards, however, I had difficulty finding out just how effective this technology truly was in building interactive activities and helping students improve in content areas.

Overall Thoughts

    The journey itself has been very exciting. When I first presented the idea to our principal, I was excited to hear that he, too, had a similar idea and was in the process of getting his hands on the school's very first SMART board. Unfortunately, it's not going to be placed in the STEM room as I imagined, but the idea is to show the school board just how useful and effective a SMART board is for teachers, and how much teachers can do with it if they were to have one in each of their classrooms. This is definitely a positive aspect of this journey--taking the first step! The most negative part of this journey is figuring out the logistics such as supporting data and funding. Private schools are not as lucky as public schools and tend to run low on funding. We will be doing our best to reach out to private sponsors and donors to supply SMART boards in the future!


Image Source: Kleid Devotion Twins


Technological Guru?

    I've never truly seen myself as a leader when it comes to utilizing technology in my classroom. Again, I am a part of the generation that grew up as technology was being developed and updated, therefore I have more knowledge on technology, as well as the various ways of incorporating it in the classroom, than my colleagues do. When comparing myself to my students, I find that they are the true leaders of utilizing technology as they are the generations that grew up with technology and have a better understanding of how to use it creatively. I do enjoy collaborating with both my students and coworkers on newer ways for technological use in our day-to-day lessons. 


Image Source: Careers with STEM

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