Final Reflection

For those who did not know before, this blog was part of a project for my Educational Technology class at Albright College.  I walked into Educational Technology with no real understanding of what I would be learning.  I thought it would be months of SmartBoards, but instead I learned so much more (though SmartBoards were included).  I learned how to utilize technology I already understood, but how to use it in the classroom and how it could be modified for student-learning.  I learned brand-new technology like Diigo, Glogster, and a plethora of other websites that I will definitely use in the future.  I learned how connected teachers are.  There are millions of resources out there already created and shared for free.  There are online educational videos and social networking sites to connect teachers across the world.  I don't know how much I will use the technology learned here in my day-to-day life, but once I am in a classroom, I will use it all the time.  And that's the point; educational technology is so much more than a multimedia class.

#Literacies

Today I watched the Literacy chat on Twitter.  The theme to this chat was how to teach English and literacy in the age of Common Core.  The chat was hosted by Troy Hicks, who added questions throughout the chat.  The group seemed really social.  People kept introducing themselves and saying where they are from and what they do.  Most of the people in the chat were English teachers. 

One question was how are the common core standards being interpreted across the country.  Many people thought the standards were limiting.  The felt a sense of pressure to limit time and resources spend on material not being tested.  Others commented that the standards had more to say about nonfiction than fiction, and few standards about writing, so perhaps they are not so limiting.  Some teachers complained that the administrators were interpreting the standards very literally, allowing less room for creativity.  This brought the discussion into how risky was it to a teacher to broadly interpret the standards?  Many commented that there is a culture of fear among teachers- fear of being different, fear of being fired, fear of taking risks, and ultimately fear of failure.  I can relate to this.  In all of my education courses, I am constantly warned of things not to do because I could get in trouble.  This makes me nervous, not of teaching, but of administrators.

This chat was very conversation based, which I enjoyed.  Only one person shared a link: Common Core Ate my Baby and Other Urban Legends found at http://bit.ly/VbgNfX