As I write my final reflection post for LIBE 477, I can’t help but think about when I first started this course six weeks ago, I thought I would simply be exploring different ways to integrate technology into the classroom/library. Fast forward six weeks and I am leaving the course with SO much more. Starting with the “Why School?” readings, I quickly came to realize that ICT education is imperative, and it is my job as an educator to implement it in my classroom. I also realized that educating adults to be technologically proficient is the first step in order to help our students develop those same skills. As a millennial, or digital native (a new term I learned during my final vision project), I have always been fairly comfortable about using technology in my teaching practice. I have also always loved helping other educators in my school with their ICT questions or issues. Each of the blog posts I completed in this course left me with a feeling of inspiration and an itch to do MORE with myself, my students, and my colleagues and community.
https://morethingsjapanese.com/
My biggest takeaway from this course would be the importance of collaboration and connection in the world of ICT. I feel inspired to take on a leadership role in my school so that I can help others learn about and integrate ICT in their teaching practice. Rather than simply helping teachers troubleshoot, I would love to find ways to teach them new skills, while learning new skills alongside with them. For example, initiating professional development by inviting guest speakers, or even leading a workshop myself.
For my final Vision of the Future, I wanted to find a way to integrate all the valuable lessons I have learned into one all-encompassing project. I had difficulty narrowing down a specific topic and artifact, and started and scrapped almost a dozen projects in the timespan of a few days. I finally decided to go back to the beginning to revisit my idea from the start of the course. I know that I am passionate about critical media literacy, that there is a gap in knowledge with my students, and that I could add more dimension to my earlier ideas by using what I learned in this course. In my final Vision of the Future project, I was able to integrate the various lessons I learned in this course, and focus the project on collaboration. I hope to connect and collaborate with my colleagues with the Critical Media Literacy Tool Kit (the artifact), show them how to use it, work together to deliver lessons, and initiate a school-wide initiative to develop a more fluid ICT curriculum.