Reflection #7: Education Technology Philosophy (Final Draft)

The Digital Age is here.  From the Internet to smart phones, and blogs to podcasts, all generations are taking advantage of these technological tools; there is no escaping it.  Our young people from the Net Generation, however, don’t want to escape and seem to thrive on these discoveries much more than any other generation and so have been tagged ‘Digital Natives’.  Though our children and students speak the “digital” language and seem to have no trouble incorporating new technology into their daily repertoire/routine, they probably lack the critical knowledge and wisdom they need to utilize this technology to its fullest potential.  And so it is my responsibility as a future teacher to fill this gap by empowering students with the critical knowledge and wisdom they lack.

It is essential to fill this gap in students, but in order to do so I need to inspire and motivate them to be critical thinkers.  In my classroom I will incorporate concepts from the Reconstructivism school of thought where I will encourage and engage my students to get involved in our community, nation, and world.  This will enable them to practice and become familiar with real world situations and problems where they will apply new concepts, as well as, familiar concepts from the past.  Connecting via a computer, video camera, and microphone with a similar math class in a different country would provide inspiration in a very real and tangible way.  The Internet has become an integral part of our lives, and having a class web page is a must.  Classroom lessons, homework assignments, cool links, and questions from my students could all be found on a class web site. Students will be introduced to Blogs and Podcasts, utilize these e-technology tools and more fully understand their potential.  However, with class time limited and certain curriculum mandated, real world projects and/or applications involving technology can prove difficult and so the Realism school of thought rears its head.  It will prove difficult to not fall back on the habits of the past.  Standing up at the front of the class, teaching the next math concept from the book, assigning problems out of the book, and taking a test at the end of the chapter might meet the most basic criteria of education, but would severely disadvantage the students in this digital age.  I will challenge myself to erase these old schools of thought and step outside this comfort zone in my classroom.  This will broaden my students' knowledge as well as my own and put us all in a place for optimal advancement. This leads me into the school of thought which I relate to the most which is Pragmatism.

I believe education is life. I believe we are always learning and enriching our knowledge about the world around us, and we cannot do this alone. We must collaborate with each other, mold our beliefs, problem solve, and improve each and every day as educators and students. I believe this school of thought allows the limits we have put on our education to fade. It allows me to teach in a variety of ways, utilizing a variety of different tools and mediums. It is necessary to change up my teaching styles and methods and think outside the box in order to keep my students engaged and looking at problems from multiple angles. We will solve math problems which we can relate to, learn cool math tricks, engage with others outside the classroom walls, and incorporate e-technology tools and applications to enhance our everyday learning skills and knowledge.  Technology can prove to be more than just a tool we use to complete an assignment and our use of it can grow beyond the minimal usages we initially learned on our own. I want to learn and teach the new technology’s full capabilities and prove that it can empower us, makes us smarter, more efficient and effective. In this way education will begin to fill the gap between a basic utilization of technology and the ability to exploit it to the fullest extent.

Reflection #6

The article ‘A Teaching with TechnologyPodcasting’ really resonated with me.  Our students and especially teachers need to be careful when it comes to accessing, acquiring, and utilizing all the various types of technology out there, like podcasting.  Like Ashley Deal mentions, we shouldn’t use “technology for the sake of technology.”  If we do this, we’re just going to muddy the waters and lose sight of what is truly important:  the students’ education and learning.  The last thing I want to do is create a blog for the sake of creating a blog, or create a wiki for the sake of creating a wiki, or create a podcast for the sake of creating a podcast.  In the classroom, I think these internet technologies can be beneficial and have the potential to change up the sometimes mundane classroom routine but only when used for the purpose of enhancing the students’ learning experience to reach their educational goals.  The quality of the students’ education should not be sacrificed or replaced by the enticement of intriguing technology.

As Deal implies, college is not just a place to learn guided classwork, but also a place to learn prioritization, organizational skills, discipline, personal responsibility, and how to communicate and engage with one another.  All these fundamentals of life prepare us for the workplace, establish a strong work ethic, and promote a culture of accountability in one’s self.  If university students are not attending classes because they can just listen to their professor’s podcasts, then these life fundamentals might not mature and our students’ lives might be hindered greatly because of it.  We must proceed with caution.

I can see how podcasts as a supplement to teaching would be beneficial.  I like the idea of a flipped classroom and can see how a podcast could help capture some initial concepts of various math lessons.  The students could listen to the podcasts at home the night before and come to class familiar with the new lesson material.  The students would benefit by having a jump start on the next day’s lesson, they could come to class prepared with ideas and questions about the next lesson, and there would be more class time to explore new ideas, concepts, or to work additional problems.

Technology, like podcasting, can make a teacher’s life both harder and easier.  Setting up and recording each podcast is time consuming and tedious.  However, a great benefit is that once your lessons, supplemental material, or activities are recorded, they could be available to be used and reused for many years to come.  My fear is that technology can also make us lazy.  As teachers we must not become lazy, we must continue to reassess our prior “reusable” podcasts and make updates when needed. 

Reflection #5

I can’t imagine my life without Google.  Since entering college in 1996, I have followed Lycos, Infoseek, Excite, Yahoo!, and now Google.  Whenever I want to search for anything on the web, I bring up Google.  Google is a common word in our household since everyone is fairly computer savvy.  Danielle will ask us what something is, and my common phrase back is ‘Go Google it and see what you find.’  But even though I consider myself pretty computer literate, I did not know the answer to every question on the Information Literacy Quiz.  There were a few questions I did not know like ‘How do you find out who is linked to your school’s Web site?’ and ‘How do you find the history of any given Web site?’  I’m excited to add these tidbits to my bag of tricks, but even though I did not know the answers to these two questions, I still believe I would be able to recognize when a site is authentic versus not through common sense, experience, and skepticism.

For the MAPping Information Activity Technology Project this week I selected the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus website to dissect.  At first glance the web URL (www.zapatopi.net/treeoctopus) is suspicious because ‘zapatopi’ might be a person’s name.  When analyzing the links embedded in the website, I found that a good majority of the links connected me to somewhere within Lyle Zapato’s personal website.  Other links navigated me over to unbelievable amateur videos capturing various sightings of this Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus.  When utilizing the link command, I found there were a number of external websites warning viewers that the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus website is a hoax and is not to be believed.  Now my suspicions are pretty much confirmed that this website is not to be believed and should not be used for factual information.

Also, when searching for Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus in Google’s, Yahoo!’s, and Excite’s search engine, all three of these search engines returned pretty much the same URLs.  The first website returned was always the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus’ original website.  The following websites were all sites warning viewers that the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus website is a hoax and is not to be believed.  Few advertisements are returned with the search results which makes sense since the search topic is not credible or true.  The advertisements which were returned made no sense and were not relevant to the original search criteria.  When identifying the publisher/author of the website, the www.easywhois.com website returned the registrant, administrative, technical, and billing contact all to be the same person.  And even though the history of the website, which is depicted via www.archive.org, proves the website has been maintained since 2003 and updated quite frequently, it is not enough to prove this site has legitimate and trustworthy information.

In conclusion, even though the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus website is a well put together website at first glance and moderately well maintained, its primary use should be to educate our students that not all sites should be believed.  Students need to analyze the site’s content, links, publisher/author, and history to help them determine whether or not the site is to be believed.  If the site is a hoax, then all it’s good for is a couple of laughs.

Some of my favorite sites that I frequently use are www.imdb.com and www.allmusic.com.  Both sites have been around since 1996 and are impressive databases of movies and music respectively.  However, because these sites’ information is user maintained (much like Wikipedia), the viewer needs to read the information with a bit of skepticism.  And when needing more proof, it is always good to compare notes from another source/website.

Week 4 Reflection

Several questions are posed in relation to technology not just being an age related phenomenon. Ask yourself and answer the following:

1)  Are you more comfortable composing documents online than longhand?
I am definitely more comfortable composing documents online than longhand; I don’t even remember when I last wrote a document out longhand. I believe I’ve been composing documents on a word processing tool since third grade. One of the great things about composing documents online is the ability to edit your document as you go. No more cross outs, spaghetti maps of arrows to new edits, and eraser smears! Also, having a spell checker and a grammar checker guide you as you type is a must-have tool that no one should live without!

2)  Have you turned your “remembering” (phone numbers, meetings, and so on) over to a technology device?
Most d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y! I absolutely could not live without my Google calendar. Google got it right with this app! I have at least five Google calendars that help me track everything from my schedule, Danielle’s school/band schedule, when our bills should be paid, insurance claim information, to football games. It’s awesome! I just hope Google never decides to hang up their calendar app. My iPhone contains all my contacts with detailed notes including related websites, email addresses, and such. I can also link contacts with other contacts by a relationship! Also, because we have a teenager in the house, my memory is not as superb as it used to be. To help with this, I have downloaded an app that alerts/reminds me to take my pills or remind others to take theirs, give our kitty medicine, when to perform maintenance on various appliances in the house, when to check various accounts, and there’s even a reminder to check when a particular seasonal beer hits the shelf. Again, awesome! I definitely rely on all these apps to get me through my day! And thank goodness for backups to the iCloud! Heh, technology is great!

3)  Do you go to meetings with your laptop, iPad, or tablet?
If I had a laptop at my last job, then I would have attended meetings with it when necessary. Most of the company had desktops, but those who had laptops did attend meetings with them. This was beneficial to the Business Analysts because it allowed them to edit their requirements document during the meeting or update meeting notes, etc. Also, if the laptop is hooked up to a projector, the meeting attendees have the benefit of seeing the presentation on a screen. This is extremely helpful when walking through a new application or new functionality of an application. Laptops and other devices did become annoying in meetings when people would pay more attention to them than to the business at hand.

4)  Are you constantly connected? Is the Internet always on whether you are at home or work? Is your cell phone always with you?
Yes, our computer is always on and the internet is always up and ready to go. And, now, since I have an iPhone, I am also constantly connected when on-the-go.

5)  How many different activities can you effectively engage in at one time?
Well, that’s a matter of opinion and also depends on my definition of effective. I think we might be able to do one or maybe two things effectively at a time even though we try to do three, four, or even more. At times, I catch myself switching between work, reading through personal emails, updating or adding event(s) to my Google calendar, checking various account(s), and googling various topics that have come up in past conversations or popped into my head. But, in the end, the primary thing I should be effectively working on is probably not getting as much attention as it should.

6)  Do you play video or computer games?
I wouldn’t necessarily consider myself a gamer, but I definitely like video games. I go through spurts of playing our Wii. I really enjoy it when I am playing and can play for hours. I’m quite good at most of the games we have and rock at Super Mario Bros!

7)  What generational category do you fall in or are you a mixture of a few?
I fall on the later end of the Generation X generational category, but because of my indoctrination to technology at such a young age, I think I possess some of the Net Generation’s characteristics as well. When it comes to the Generation X characteristics, I definitely find myself being independent and skeptical and wanting to have a work-life balance. As pointed out before, I definitely attempt to multitask on a daily basis in an effort to complete my tasks sooner. I enjoy freedom and definitely dislike hype. As for the Net Generation’s characteristics, I would definitely say I’m determined. I’m probably not up with the latest technology as much as the Net Generation, but I am also not afraid to jump on the bandwagon when need be. Since I am a skeptic, I can’t say I’m extremely hopeful. And while I like some things to be fast paced, I wish the world would slow down a bit.

The article 'Is it Age or IT: First Steps Toward Understanding the Net Generation' focused on implications primarily for higher education; however, the characteristics for the Net Generation remain true for students in K-12. What and how do we need to change?
I believe we, as teachers and adults, need to adapt cautiously to our student’s and children’s learning needs. I mention the word cautiously because everyone is different. We can’t just teach with the most popular method(s) students indicate on a poll. Each of us is different and no one fits into a mold perfectly. So even though you might have been born between the years 1965 and 1982, you might not fit the Generation X mold perfectly just like I do not. We all have traits that span widely between categories researchers have tried to quantify. However, we need to change with the times, be our own researchers of our classroom, come to conclusions about our students’ learning skills and methods, and adapt. We should rotate through various classroom structures, have individual vs. group projects, allow the students to define how they want to carry out a project, work problems out by long hand and via technology, teach with pictorial slides vs. writing on the board, etc. The world will always be made up of a mixture of people, personalities, and generations. We can’t just throw out the traditional ways of doing things because we all have to work and adapt to one another at some time in our lives.

Week 3 Reflection

The article you were asked to review, Electronic Portfolios as Digital Stories of Deep Learning, focused on the difference between assessment for learning and assessment of learning and identified 10 research based principles related to AFL - assessment for learning. Which tenet did you most relate to and why? What potential if any, do you see for portfolio assessment? What do you think the creation and development of your portfolio will do for your learning?

I strongly relate to the sixth principle listed stating that assessment for learning should take account of the importance of (and foster) learner motivation.  After reading the ‘Electronic Portfolios as Digital Stories of Deep Learning’ article and the updated article titled ‘Researching electronic portfolios and learner engagement: The REFLECT Initiative’, I did not feel a desire or motivation to start thinking about creating my own portfolio.  Nor do I wish to set up and maintain portfolios for each of my future students.  I definitely would be among the students who after their high school graduation threw their portfolios into a bonfire.  I think most of my ambivalence and demotivation comes from my prior eleven years of working in the corporate IT world and being forced to create and maintain a half-hearted career portfolio.  My company thought it was imperative for each employee to create goals, have performance reviews, and show measured improvement of our career oriented skills and personal development.  Twice a year, they would require us to write/update our goals and assess our progress.  But in the end, our managers would end up adding many irrelevant company required goals that did not pertain to the work I contributed (and were often skipped over during review) and override any assessments we gave ourselves.  None of this seemed worthwhile or meaningful to me since it was contrived to look like it was for my benefit but was actually designed to provide justification for whether or not to reward bonuses and salary increases.

I suppose after rambling on about my utter dislike of my Corporate IT career portfolio and assessment, you might think that I am a mediocre co-worker or student.  That assumption, if made, would be far from the truth.  I was top of my class throughout school, always set high expectations for myself, enjoyed learning, and continued setting the bar high in my career as a QA Analyst.  At my last job before deciding to make a career change to become a teacher, I was repeatedly told by my peers that I was the best QA Analyst they had ever worked with.  I care about my skills, I want to continue learning and applying what I’ve learned to my life, and I encourage my peers to assess my abilities so I know and understand what I’ve done right and what I need to work on.  On the contrary, though, I do not like being forced by my superiors to create a portfolio which includes goals and points that are contrived and which in the end are manipulated and updated to meet their/the company’s needs.  This would definitely be an example of using portfolios for assessment of learning and not for learning.

I believe there is a fine line between portfolios used for assessment of learning and portfolios that support assessment for learning.  If we want students and teachers to utilize educational portfolios, then the portfolio must not be contrived or forced.  It must not be made to fit some mold or resemble other peer portfolios in any way.  Once students and teachers come to the belief that the portfolios are primarily for the benefit of their superiors and not themselves, the portfolio will lose its personal touch and purpose.  If the portfolio is not contrived or forced and is driven by its creator’s own motivation, then I can see the benefit to maintaining one’s own portfolio over time.  I can also see the benefit of a mentor or counselor sitting with the author of the portfolio and offering guidance or forms of assessment.  This would allow the author of the portfolio to discuss their thoughts about their portfolio and reflect on them with someone they deem as respectable and safe.  If this is accomplished, then the motivation to learn and grow is genuine and not contrived or forced.  I hope my past experiences with assessments and portfolios do not taint my future ones. I know I too could benefit from a portfolio which is not forced or contrived, and that promotes assessment for learning.

Concept Mapping and Week 2 Reflection

After completing the mapping information activity, what are your reactions to your findings?  What will you do differently while searching on the Internet for information now?  How confident are you with the information you’ve used in the past (as part of your college career and/or your profession)?

I was a student when advanced computers and the internet were just taking off.  When I was in elementary, middle, and high school my personal computer was loaded with games (some educational), a word processing tool, and a printshop-type program that could print banners, greeting cards, and signs.  When I was a senior in high school, chat rooms and the internet were just getting started.  My freshman year in college was where I truly got introduced to the internet and all of its possibilities.  No one really taught me how to use the internet or what the “rules” were to using it, I just figured it out on my own, and I spent hours on it.  Being in Corporate IT for eleven plus years has allowed me to mingle and talk with computer “geeks”.  These are the people “in the know”.  So basically all my knowledge comes from my own self and others like me.  I had already had the mindset that you have to be skeptical when reading the internet and only trust sites that are well documented and reputable.  With that said, I would consider myself somewhere between a Digital Native and a Digital Immigrant.  Having a teenager at home and a fearless attitude towards technology, allows me to not only be open about new technological ideas, but also to seek them out.

What are some implications for the future of our students if we fail to teach them these skills in school?

Our students have access to technology during all hours of the day and even of the night.  Because technology is rapidly pushing into our schools, it is our job as teachers to educate our students in their understanding of how to use this technology appropriately even though we are the Digital Immigrants.  We need to arm our students with appropriate ways to utilize the technology they have access to.  If we do not arm them with this knowledge then our students will only use the technology in the ways they understand it.  This will result in not using the technology to its full potential and possibly in not using the technology correctly.  Or, even worse, if teachers do not educate our students in the correct usages of technology, than our students will grow up with misconceptions and wrong ideas about technology and pass along their misconceptions and ideas to the next generation.

Do you see any advantages for organizing your information via a concept mapping tool?  Which one did you choose to use and why?  What are some ways you think you could use these tools in the future?

I most definitely see advantages for organizing information via a concept mapping tool.  Coming from the world of Corporate IT, flowcharts were almost always included in the requirements documentation to help convey the functional requirements to the developers and QA analysts.  These flowcharts were always helpful and seemed to clarify what the business analyst expected the new functionality to do.  The flowcharts, much like these concept maps, take text and place it into a graphical view.  I am a very visual learner, so flowcharts, concept maps, diagrams, graphs, and pictures have always helped me further understand what the text was conveying.  I chose to use the www.bubbl.us concept map design because I could group and tie the educational technology concepts together more easily and in a way that made sense to me.  And once complete, at a glance, I can tell what the high points are and the ideas that surround each one.  When teaching mathematics, I could see possibly using the concept maps depicted on the IHMC website.  This type of concept map would allow me to outline the steps needed to solve similar problems.  I can see how the Mind concept maps would be useful in an English class to help capture primary themes, characters, and events in a novel.  Because of my organizational style, I am not comfortable using the Wordle concept map other than in an artistic setting.  Creating concept maps to teach from, or even having students create their own concept maps, would be beneficial because it would open another avenue for understanding and grasping the ideas being taught.

Create a digital concept map which pieces together the following concepts:

• Your definition of educational technology
• Today's learner
• The reality of education/training today
• The potential impact technology can have on education/training

Educational Technology Philosophy (Rough Draft)

I want to inspire my students to enjoy learning, but just as importantly, I want to partner with their parents to raise their children with values like kindness, respect, and honor. I believe when we are all living with this in mind, then limitations fade and there is no end to where our minds will take us and what we can accomplish. But I think today we may be losing sight of these values because technology has isolated us and we no longer relate to each other with all of our senses. Children are easily assimilated into ever advancing waves of technology, leaving some parents and teachers feeling bewildered and unsure of how to engage with, and guide their children through this confusing and sometimes dangerous world. These technology advances have in a sense raced off full speed ahead with our children in hand while blindsiding our parents and teachers.

Today children are divided by age and placed in classrooms for 13 years to learn the curriculum set before them. Some limitations faded when technologies, especially computers, were introduced into the schools. I not only want to use the technology we have in the ways the teachers are being trained, but I want to use the technology in the ways the students are learning and using them too. However, I'm not stopping there. I want to do my best to remove the limitation that says curriculum and rules are taught in school, and how you live your life and serve those around you is taught at home. I want to blend these two worlds together by bringing parents and the community to the classroom, and enthusiasm to learn, respect for authorities, and problem solving skills to the home. If I can inspire and engage my students and parents, then a seed will have been planted and a lasting connection will have been made. I believe people of all ages long for connection. When these connections are made, I know my students will come to class with enthusiasm, ready to share their thoughts with respect, and embrace learning.

In my classroom I think I will take beliefs from the Reconstructivism school of thought where I would engage my students to get involved in our community, nation, and world and not only learn from it but apply what they have already learned. Connecting via a computer, video camera, and microphone with a boy or girl half way around the world and asking them what they are learning in their math class would be exciting. For me to connect to their teacher would be even more exciting. We would all inspire each other! I think it’s going to be difficult to move away from the Realism school of thought because this is what we all know. When in doubt, stand up at the front of the class and teach the next math concept from the book. I’m sure almost every day in the lesson book will be based on this way of teaching because this is what feels most comfortable. I want to challenge myself to step outside my comfort zone each day in my classroom and broaden my students' knowledge as well as my own. This leads me into the school of thought which I relate to the most which is Pragmatism. I believe education is life. I believe we are always learning and enriching our knowledge about the world around us, and we can not do this alone. We must collaborate with each other, mold our beliefs, problem solve, and improve each and every day.

I believe the Pragmatism school of thought allows limitations to continue to fade. It allows me to teach in a variety of ways using all different tools and mediums. I believe it is necessary to change up my teaching styles and methods and think outside the box to engage my students. But I also think it is necessary to do so in order for my students to stay engaged and approach problems from multiple angles. We’ll solve math problems which we can all relate to, learn cool math tricks, engage with others outside the classroom walls, and even have one of the students be teacher for the day!

Our children need to be inspired and our teachers and parents need to partner together. Alan November writes that we need to invest in collegiality, and make thoughts like "these are my students in my classroom" disappear. Limitations of past routines need to be erased and communication lines need to multiply between teachers, between teachers and their students, and between teachers and parents in order for optimal advancement to occur.

How is having your philosophy down in writing helpful to you?

Times are ever changing with new teaching ideas and concepts, new technology advances, my own growth and learning, and society in general. With these changes taking place, having my educational technology philosophy written down and readily accessible allows me to capture my thoughts in the current time and then allows me to revisit it at a later time.

People get caught up in a daily routine (or rut) that maybe they themselves didn’t choose. And by having my thoughts captured in a carefully thought out philosophy, I will be able to remind myself of the ideas I captured and then choose to realign my goals to my original vision. In addition, after time passes, I will be able to incorporate new ideas that I have encountered, thus making my philosophy more like a living organism.  And doing so will allow me, my students, and the educational system to advance.

Reflection on Stephen Downes' article on Educational Blogging

I am someone who enjoys solving puzzles, working with my hands, helping those around me in my community, and listening to music. So on the flipside, I do NOT enjoy reading or writing of any sort in my spare time. After reading Stephen Downes’ article and Will Richardson’s point of view about blogging, I began to question why this might be. I completely get Richardson’s point that assigned blogging in schools is contrived. And once school is over, the “students drop blogging like wet cement.” Wow, this was my thought exactly when it came to reading assigned novels and articles and then being forced to write papers about what I had read. And beyond that, I was expected to be passionate and write something creative when I knew all along that this was just going to be judged by one person as an assignment for a grade. So when school was over, either for the day or for the year, I dropped books and writing “like wet cement!” How can we expect creative and passionate writing in a school setting...at least from the students who are not naturally creative and passionate about reading and writing like me? I am willing to try blogging cautiously in my math classroom. I could post cool puzzles or neat math tricks which I have come across, but I would not make responding to my blog posts a grade and I frankly would not expect my students to respond. I would give them the opportunity to respond, but if they felt like this was a boring math assignment, then my blog would be a failure and their enthusiasm would be diminished.

Reflection on Alan November's article 'Creating a New Culture of Teaching and Learning'

Coming from the Corporate IT world as a Quality Assurance Analyst for more than 11 years and for most of those years being the team lead, collaboration and team work were a way of life, at least amongst the IT teams. I not only had to collaborate with my own teammates, but with other teams as well, such as the Development teams and Business Analyst teams for each of our applications. Over the past 3 years, the company started integrating vended applications with two or more of our in house applications. This was a daunting task and the company struggled throughout the entire process. After one and a half years of integrating a new third party application, the company threw the project in the trash. Needless to say I wasn’t very happy; I believe the project was thrown in the trash because each team had their own idea as to what the finished project should look like and no one was sharing their ideas until the delivery date. In other words, collaboration outside the IT department was nowhere to be found.

This reminds me of the traditional tree swing cartoon which illustrates the marketing, sales, engineering, manufacturing, field service teams’ ideas and how they are all different from not only one another but from what the customer wanted in the first place. There’s evidence that this cartoon was circulating in UK offices since the 1960’s, and so after fifty or more years, this cartoon still hangs in Corporate IT cubicles today. It infuriates me that we haven’t caught on yet and learned!

Due in part to these experiences, I certainly agree with Alan November’s last point that the “best thing to invest in right now is collegiality.” The groups in the education world noted in the article (i.e. the trainers, the teachers, and the students) should not be isolated nor collaborate only among themselves. If we never collaborate with one another and live in our isolated boxes, then Education will follow the Corporate IT mistake pointed out above. I think Corporate IT and Education understand that we need to collaborate amongst ourselves in our own teams (trainers with other trainers, teachers with other teachers, students with other students). But we can advance so much further if we collaborate together and stretch beyond our own team and bring everyone into the same room. I love the idea of bringing two or three students in for training right alongside their teacher. Students will probably catch on quicker and have insights that never cross the teacher’s minds; and therefore, will be able to drive the new idea/technology forward where it needs to go without being hindered by old routine. I think our educators and education will surpass our expectations if we do as November says and practice collegiality!

Concept Map explaining my understanding/definition of the field of educational technology

What are some of your expectations for the class?

In the time since I was a student, technology has advanced a great deal. There are many opportunities as well as pitfalls to be faced in harnessing this technology for educational purposes. I hope to learn some valuable lessons and ideas from those who have gone before me. But since I have never worked in the education system and have never been a teacher before, I’m not quite sure what to list as my expectations. This class has already exceeded my expectations because I was not expecting to enjoy the assigned readings and writings. I am excited to say I have already learned new ideas that I would have never thought of if I had not taken this class and read Stephen Downes’ and Alan November’s articles. Both of which intrigued me and kept me reading. I’m now excited to read other articles that will teach me more new ideas and skills!