Hello! My name is Sallee Clark and this blog has been created to reflect my thoughts and concepts learned in my ETEC 524 class at TAMU-Commerce.
For my first posting, I have created my educational philosophy that will be changing as I go throughout this class and throughout life.
Educational Philosophy:
The purpose of education is to learn new concepts and apply the concepts through interaction, collaboration, and experimentation.
The role of the educator is to introduce selected concepts to students, let the students explore the concept and learn how the concepts work, and then apply the use of the concept in the real world. I want students to learn through exploration and application. Through allowing time for the student to learn about the concept, explore the concept and apply their findings in a real world scenario. I think the student's own curiosity should be the driving force in their own learning; through exploration, collaboration, and application. Through these learning opportunities students learn how to desegregate information giving them the ability to understand what works best and how to apply the learned concepts in the real world.
I feel that the teacher's role is to teach the students about a new concept, expose them to different views and roles of the concept, guide students in exploring the concept and growing in their knowledge of the concept through activities that encourage exploration, group collaboration and negotiation. To capitalize on this learning the teacher should then provide an activity that encourages students to desegregate the information. Disaggregation allows the student to see how the concept is best used in real world experiences. I will expect my students to have an open mind, collaborate with classmates, desegregate concepts with classmates, negotiate concepts with classmates, and then apply their findings. Through exposing students to new concepts in many different ways students have had a chance to find validity in the concept through many forms of disaggregation and understand how and why to apply the concept in the real world.
The Benefits to an Educational Philosophy:This assignment was beneficial because I am able to see that I should not treat lessons involving technology any different than any other assignment. I should identify the concept to be taught, create the lesson involving technology that best fits how the concept is going to be taught, and then follow my educational philosophy of how to teach. Just because I am using technology doesn't mean that I change the lesson or teach the technology separately through automating the lesson.
Benefits to Blogging:The article read for class was from 2004 and mentioned the educational benefits to blogging and the things holding us back. I think we are still held back by these items. I know that in the library, I wanted to create a blog for the students to use; posting their thoughts and views on the posted book of the week. Through this forum, I still feel like I need to monitor their comments and am not sure that I am ready to let them suggest books to read through an open blog. I think that fear, ignorance of the technology, and lessons directing blogs are still ruling educators use of blogs in the classroom. But, I can say that I am not much of a blogger, but was inspired to create my own blog after completing ETEC 561 last semester with Dr. W. I really enjoyed writing to an audience each week and am looking for to writing a personal blog. So, I believe that I am a product of good integration of technology that has inspired to create and continue writing. This desire was reached through posting online in classroom discussions of our reading, thoughts, and findings. I loved reading my classmates blogs, finding support material for my blog, and reading the responses my fellow classmates left. In reflection of that I think that even with monitors in place and a writing prompt, we are still building a love of community, writing, and interaction in our lessons utilizing blogs.
November's Article:In this article we see six areas to think about in regards to educational technology. The idea that stuck with me the most was connecting the family to their child's education at school. The article mentioned putting video cameras with an online live feed in the classroom , which was at first appalling to me due to student privacy. Which I'm not sure if I'm ready for this step, but I did like one of the ideas about individuals being recorded and only family being able to view their progress through a sign in system online and the ability to interact through text with their child at school. The example was through a book report. The child completes a book report assignment and gives the report during class. The student is recorded and is protected online through a sign in given to their parents. The parents can sign in view their child and post comments for the child to see at school. Wow! I love this! I was a child who loved having my parents input and opinion. I loved them to attend all of my sporting events and the highlight of my night was replaying each move with my dad. I loved his comments and thoughts. Wow! If we could replicate this interaction and care in the classroom!!
My Expectations for this Class:A few of my expectations for this class are a chance to see how instrumental educational technology is to the classroom and how to effectively implement and use it in the classroom.
I think educational technology is integrating technology into students learning through interaction, experiences, connections, and relationships. Through frequently offering students the opportunity to think critically while utilizing technology in meaningful experiences they will truly learn and constantly build upon that knowledge.