I am GROWING, Hear me ROAR!!!!

Growth involves realizing how much you need to learn.  This course has allowed me to see what I am not familiar with and how far I need to grow.  It also showed me how much I need to improve upon so I can be a better educator.  I have learned about new resources like Prezi, Webquests and how to create my own web page.  These are my greatest areas of growth.  I am excited to continue to develop my knowledge.  This also motivated me to find other technologies that will benefit me and the staff at school. 

I will be able to reach more students and parents utilizing the technologies I learned and created in this course.  All of this will help me spread information about careers so parents and students can make more informed decisions.  Speaking about careers is an important part of my position at my school, so to find new ways to make it happen are exciting and extremely motivating.  I am excited to begin using Twitter to connect with professionals in other fields so I can ask questions and learn more about careers and pass that information on to students, staff and parents.  It is an exciting time to be an educator with the new advancements in technology.  I am looking forward to continued technological growth!

Technology Pool....Dive Right In!

Pushing someone who does not know how to swim into the deep end of the pool seems cruel and unusual.  However, this is the only way to get someone out of their comfort zone and into perhaps something they will become good at.  Using technology can be looked at in the same way!  So how would I get people to integrate technology?  I would throw them in the deep end!

You want to make sure they are comfortable with what they are using.   I feel by demonstrating it works and allowing someone to use it without piling more and more on them is the most effective way.  Go slow and you can convert your fellow teachers to using technology in the classroom.

The best way in my opinion to serve as a teacher leader is you have to be the one who goes out and finds ways to use technology and be able to present them to staff.  You also have to be available to help them with it and demonstrate it uses in the classrooms. 

Our school has gone to a Technology Policy in which students will be able to use tools like Twitter as an educational tool.  My fellow classmates will be able to help as many of them have more extensive use of twitter than I do.  So I will lean on them to gain the knowledge needed to utilize this in my school.  I will also use Webquests in my work with Career Awareness.  I am very excited to use the one I created for my class.  We will see how it works!