It is difficult to get where you want to go if you don’t plan your route… though side trips and tangents can often be some of the richest parts of the journey!
Professional Context and Experiences
Practicing as a classroom teacher within the Kamloops/Thompson School District since 2005, I have been teaching full time in a variety of settings (Kindergarten-Grade 7) within numerous schools (both rural and urban). As recently as Friday, I was informed that I was accepted into our School Districts Leadership and Development Program, an extensive 2 year program where I will be given release time every week to further develop my leadership skills and work on a plan to support the integration of technology with some of our schools who are challenged with a wide range of technological issues (ex. infrastructure, professional collegial conversations around best practice with technology).
Currently, I work as a Grade 7 classroom teacher in a very progressive elementary school of 430 students. As a leader within the school in regards to technology integration, there have been numerous experiences and opportunities to be a successful coach, mentor, and teacher throughout the school with students and staff. Our school has (as recent as two years ago) received a very technologically driven administrator who is in full support of inquiry based learning and the significant contributions it is having in both challenging traditional pedagogical practice, and promoting 21st century learning opportunities for students. As technology can be a very successful component of inquiry based learning within constructivist classrooms, our administrator has set some very high goals and expectations around technology integration. He has brought our school from one lab dial up to a wireless, fiber optic school with the infrastructure to support multiple integrations with technology in classroom settings. As it stands today, we are currently working with multiple technologies in a variety of settings, including a 2:1 ratio of chromebook devices in our intermediate grades. The current levels of engagement are being tracked, suggesting that student enthusiasm within the learning process is at an all time high. Our administration in conjunction with our technology coordinator were instrumental in ensuring that our district brought in Google Apps for Education, and as a result I have had opportunity to share my areas of expertise through professional development opportunities with staff from various schools.
As I continually move through the MET program, I have seen many direct correlations to Inquiry Based Learning and the Constructivist classroom. Further to this, I am now very interested in looking into the successes that Connectivism is having on the constructivist classroom. As a classroom teacher it is amazing to see the Inquiry Based learning model in effect. Students are socially constructing their experiences in the world through communities of practice. As such, Siemens (2004) suggests the central principles of connectivism as:
Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources. When specialized nodes and information sources are composed of digital, electronic, online resources, learning and technology and inextricably linked.
- Learning, and consequently knowledge, rest in diversity of opinions.
- The ability to perceive connections between numerous perspectives, opinions, and concepts is central to learning.
- Developing and maintaining connections is necessary in order to facilitate continuous learning.
- Evaluating information prior to engaging with that information is a meta-skill that is applied before learning begins. These evaluative decisions regarding the worthiness of learning specific information represent a learning process.
Currently, this is my fourth MET course and I have been thrilled with the opportunities to learn about the affordances that technology has in supporting the constructivist learning environment. I believe that I have a very sound background with technology, which is quickly being enhanced through the coursework that I have taken within the MET program.
Formulate your individual goals for this course: outline what you hope to learn during the course, what skills to improve in working with technologies, which technologies and/or digital tools you plan to start using;
Individual Learning Goals:
What Do I Hope to Learn During the Course:
- Develop a better conceptual idea of how assessment and technology bridge together
- Discover how I can further implement technology in both a synchronous and asynchronous manner
- Develop a stronger understanding of best practices when selecting technological affordances to better support authentic learning in the classroom
What Technology Skills to Improve Upon:
- Become better acquainted with the variety of Learning Management Systems (LMS) available
- To improve upon the integration of these LMS’s in direct relation to face to face teaching instruction
- Create a toolbox or repository of technology tools that are successful at challenging students in relation to their different learning needs and levels
- Become better acquainted with WordPress as I have been consistently working with Weebly
- Use of social media as a means to engage students in authentic learning opportunities
Which Technologies and/or Digital Tools Will I Plan to Start Using:
- I plan to start using WordPress more frequently, analyzing how the interaction supports my own learning (Is the platform more user friendly than Weebly for example?)
- As there is a myriad of technologies and/or digital tools available to educators, I am more looking at this moment to build my repertoire and skill set
- Social media tools
References
Siemens, G. (2004), “Connectivism: a learning theory for the digital age”, available at: www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm (accessed May 24, 2015).