Professional Development Profile

Strengths and Weaknesses

As I read through the NETS for teachers I discovered a few things I have done well in trying to integrate into my teaching pedagogy and a few things I will be working on. As a teacher I feel one of my strengths is facilitating and inspiring student learning and creativity. I completely support and want to encourage students to be innovative thinkers and problem solvers. I am a firm believer of understanding real-world issues and using the resources we have in advanced technology to solve them. I also understand that it is important to promote and model digital citizenship and responsibilty. All through school and especially high school and college I've been taught about the importance of owning your work and giving credit when it's due. I also know that with the rapid rate that technology is advancing it is a great and important tool we can use in diversity and and communication. I am huge advocate of collaberation.

A few things I would like to work on invlove the advancement of technology. Though I understand most of the technology tools we have right now there are still many things I don't know. On the first day of class some of the things we were talking about I had no idea what theu were or how they worked. I don't want to be stuck in a technology box because I really believe technology can be a great tool in education. I'm glad every day to have the internet and tools to do research and have a social networking site that I can use to keep track of people and a place to share my life with others. There is so much information held at your fingertips with all of these tech tools. It always amazes me. I would like to work on how I can model digital-age work and learning. It's hard for me to take what I know and apply it to the new advances that will be happening when I don't feel my knowledge is adequate enough to be an example of it. I have a feeling that if I don't work on this my third grade student will be showing me how to use new technology. Who wants a teacher that doesn't understand that? I want to be relatable.

Two goals that I now have are to branch out and explore more of my options in the technology field and to be aware so I can be a better advocate for technology in a classroom. I plan on learning more about technology by keeping up on research and being more hands-on with it. It my goal this semester to start using things as simple as Picassa for my pictures and Drop Box for my documents. I have to do the baby steps so that later on I can leap. I want to keep up on these things because my other goal is to be an advocate for technology. If I understand more of the importance and the kinds of tools we can use to benefit the students in our class then I can share that information with people who aren't from the net generation but from generations before who don't quite understand it.

Lessons Learned

Educating the Net Generation. I think I learned more about myself than anyhting else from this powerpoint. I didn't realize exactly how much more we used technology than the generations previous. It makes sense though. My mom knows all about computers and the programs she works with on a daily basis but sometimes if she's using a new site or even looking on UVU's site I have to guide her through. I'm only one generation ahead of her and it blows my mind how much more I know about technology than my parents. I can only imagine what my kids are going to have. I picture see-through desks where it's just one giant touch screen and a picture comes up in 3-d and who knows what else. I thought it was also interesting about how much we text compared to other generations and the ages of the kids with cell phones. Some first and second graders have cell phones. That blows my mind. I was eighteen when I got my first one and it barely took pictures. Now phones have internet and can do anything and more that a computer can. It's amazing! I need to keep up with all of these advances. I already feel like I'm way behind.

21st Century Learning. Communication and collaberation are key. These things are mostly now done through the advancements of technology. Nowadays we have to have knowledge in the media and constant changing of technology tools. It's true. As the time changes our curriculum needs to change as well. Integrating these skills will help with vital parts of preparing students for real life. I learned a lot from this short information and it makes sense to me. I also learned that creativity and innovation as well as critical thinking are very involved in technology. The more we understand it the better we can improve those skills because they are needed to function successgully in todsay's world.

Games and Simulations. This link was not available when I tried to locate it.

Why Integrate? I thought this article was very interesting. There were some very valid points to the positive consequences of integrating more technology into curriculum. It talked about misbehavior decreasing, increasing problem-solving skills, having connections to real-world experts, and collaberating with others. I think technology is a very important part of curriculum. When I was in school we took one computer class and did boring projects from a book that mostly involved word documents. I didn't learn much. I can see by reading this article that there are more opportunities to incorporate technology in other ways and actually using it to help students understand and grow more accustomed to life in the "real world." The only thing I have a concern about is knowing how much technology to incorporate and how much freedom to give. It seems like more and more teenagers are interacting more in fantasy online worlds and thorugh their cell phones than they are in person. How do we know how much and when?

WWW. This was probably one of my favorite articles. It just answered the question from my last paragraph. I believe and understand the web can be a great tool in education I just want to be able to find a good balance. I love the idea of a ClassAct website. By asking your students what they are passionate about and  being more involved in their interests and integrating the internet is a great way to get them engaged in education. You can provide a site where they can work with each other and see their assignments and go to links to find more information. That is working with modern technology and great education. You can still be a great educator and incorporate the interests of a student and it doesn't take very much technology know-how to incorporate it into your curriculum. It makes it easy for teachers who are not so educated on recent technology.

Did You Know? Video. I loved this video. It went kind of fast for me but I was blown away by the information. I didn't realize how much other sources of media like newspapers and even television were becoming obsolete. Less people are watching the news on television because they can get the latest updates on their phone. I can't believe that a computer chip will be able to fit in a blood cell in the next twenty-five years. Not only that but that it will be able to do a lot more than a computer can do now. The world has taken off in technology in such a short period of time. My Space and Facebook and Twitter reach 65 million people and they haven't even been around six years. The internet has opened up so many amazing possiblities. I can't even imagine what will be available to people in the next ten to thirty years. I have to admit, I got a little overwhelmed will all that information because I feel like I don't understand as much as I should about modern technology but I am really excited about it. I learned a lot of facts about our use of technology today, especially the teenagers and igeneration.


Beliefs

I am still trying to figure out exactly where I stand and how I will manage the amount of use of technology young students use today. I know it is a really important part of real life today and it will continue to grow. As an educator I want to be able to use real world situations and tools because that's a great purpose for schools. We are supposed to help our students be prepared for a successful life out of school and our world is technology-based. I predict everyone will have a cell phone by the time I start teaching and I am going to have to know how to utilize them in a positive way but keep control in the classroom as well.
I want to make technology a positive experience but I don't want to use it for everything. So many great things come for the internet and apps from and ipod touch or an ipad but there are still many dangers on the itnernet. I don't want to be completely reliable on technology and I want students to be able to have self control and function without it's reliability on it 24/7, I'm excite to continue to learn about integrating technology and using it as a tool in the classroom because I want to create a good balance and be the kind of teacher who is relatable, can engage her students in learning, and keep up technologically with the modern world so I can help my students succeed.


Workshops

Creative Teaching with Games and Simulations

Date: June 23 at Noble & Greenough School
http://www.edtechteacher.org/workshops2010_videogames.html

I chose this workshop because I would like to know more about games and simulations. I'm not a gamer and I have never used simulations but they can be a fun and creative way to teach about many things like weather conditions, recycling, and real life situations. I think it would be an engaging way to teach older elelmentary age students about the world and I need the help as well.

Digital Storytelling

Date: June 21 at Noble & Greenough School
http://www.edtechteacher.org/workshops2010_digital_storytelling.html

I chose this workshop because I am a huge fan of reading books and I love children's books. Helping students to creat their own stories and using technology would be so fun for them. They could feel a sense of accomplishment creating a movie and a story with a plot, conflict, and resolution and do it while becoming familiar with digital story-telling programs. This activity could accomodate many kinds of learners in the classroom. I would love to know how to make my own digital storytelling media and use them in a classroom setting.