Week 8 Reflection- Walden course - EDUC-6712I-4

Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom Week 8 Reflection

• Describe the most striking revelation you had about the teaching of new literacy skills to your students as a result of this course.
• Describe how the knowledge and experience gained in this course will influence your teaching practices going forward.
• Identify at least one professional development goal you would like to pursue that builds upon your learning in this course and develops your own information literacy or technology skills. Describe the steps you will take to accomplish this goal.

I think the biggest revelation I experienced through this course is to do a better job with technology integration, I need to do a better job with setting up a good lesson. I have been stressed about the burden of adding more to my plate. I have been cutting out all the great stuff I used to do, so that I could try new technology ideas. I have now switched back to setting up a good lesson. For example, I now give my students an opportunity to act out a skit in science to explain a concept, a great idea right? But before I would have cut this out and instead done a voice thread. Now I have my students create a skit and then post their video to voice thread or some other medium. I now use technology to add to my classes, not take away. I really enjoyed Dr. Warwicks comment from this weeks video “It’s not about the technology” (Laurette, 2008)

This course has given me the confidence to maintain my create lesson and to improve upon it with Technology. Dr. Warwick mentioned in his video that technology provides an opportunity for sharing newly created knowledge. It provides a purpose for creating. Students no longer need to create something for the teacher’s eyes only, to be later thrown away. People can use technology to interact, respond, and learn from each others mistakes or excellent products.

For a professional goal, I would like to set up an electronic portfolio for our middle school. I have been doing some research on it and have looked at the ease of use Weebly.com provides, but I am leaning towards using google and all its products as I think they will continue to be around in 20 years when our students go back to look at their resume of work they have created. Does anyone have any suggestions on setting up an electronic portfolio...I am still not quite sure what I want for an end product, any suggestions on format, layout would be appreciated. I have talked with my grade level team, and the other grades. Everyone is on board, but do not know how to make it happen. I think I will start it with my grade 6 team and work it on up one year at a time.

thank you, it has been great working with you all.


Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008). Program eleven. Its Not About the Technology. [Motion picture]. Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom. Baltimore: Author.