Week 8 Reflection

Describe the most striking revelation you had about the teaching of new literacy skills to your students as a result of this course.

During this course, I originally thought that this was going to be a very difficult task, because educators have so much on their plate as it is. However, after completing this learning experience I learned that it can be integrated within normal instruction. Students can still learn about the content and learn about the new literacy skills at the same time.

Describe how the knowledge and experience gained in this course will influence your teaching practices going forward.

Overall the knowledge gained in this course will help me incorporate more teaching of the new literacy skills. This course showed me that there is so much that we have to prepare the students for other then normal content areas. By teaching students to utilize technology, as well as technology resources, it will only make them overall better students in the future. As educators, we have a difficult role ahead of us. We really need to prepare students for an unforeseen future. The only way we can succeed is to constantly adapt to different instruction methods. Over the past few years teaching methods have changed immensely in the classroom. Who can tell what the teaching practices will look like in ten years.

Identify at least one professional development goal you would like to pursue that builds upon your learning in this course and develops your own information literacy or technology skills.
Describe the steps you will take to accomplish this goal.

Due to the reason of intense change in education I would like to stay abreast of the changes as much as possible. My goal that would build upon the learning of this course would be to stay current to the changes by continuing my education with profession development and perhaps a doctorate program. In order to accomplish this goal I would have to work with my current school district to find opportunities to learn about the new technologies that are emerging. The scope of education is almost business like when it comes to the new technologies. Currently our school district has gone under large changes. We almost have a SMART board in every classroom. All of our high school students have laptops. Many of the teachers are setting up online courses. To reiterate my point, how does an educator stay on top of all the emerging technologies? The only possible response is to further educate ourselves in order to further educate our students.