After having
completed the vast majority of this course, I feel that I have accomplished
much more than expected upon joining. That is not to say that I completely
underestimated the course, however I will admit that I expected my tech-savvy
nature to lessen the "weight" of the course. While having some
technical prowess didn't hurt along the way, I must say that this course
shifted my technological focus. I now know more about how to use the internet,
social networking, and other online tools as a professions, as a teacher
(and not, as I usually do, as a consumer). Most of my experience with
technology revolves around making my own personal life more easy and
interesting, or for personal communication. This has come in handy for being
able to, say, set up equipment or
prepare computers/software for classroom use. But I really felt that I've needed to
learn more about using classroom tech in more effective ways, with more
pedagogical creativity and range. This course has certainly opened my eyes in
that regard. It will take some long-term practice and implementation to
solidify what I have learned, but this experience has laid the groundwork for a
great beginning. I have a wide variety of options to explore in front of me,
and at the same time have a great basic foundation (i.e. a blog, twitter
account, about.me page, etc).
Speaking
of variety, I certainly identified with the idea of changing things up
regarding the modalities of all of this technology. There are visual learners,
audio learners, tactile learners, and so forth - much like we ought lend
attention to Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, we ought also to
extend this line of thought toward our implementation of classroom tech. I
liked that our assignments laid this out for us, in that we were spending some
weeks focusing on audio-centric activities, and later visual, for example.
Technology is best when it expands, and doesn't limit, our horizons.
Finally,
this course has shown me some more extended, professional usage of social media
that I've hitherto ignored. Generally, I've used things like Facebook for
personal news among my personal social circles, and Twitter for a personalized
news feed (in fact, my personal twitter account STILL reads 0 tweets - it's
used for intake only!). But I can see the utility of using social media from a
professional standpoint (perhaps with separate, professional accounts - worlds need not collide, and such). You can
reach your students in so many ways, and furthermore you can create
professional networking opportunities with other colleagues in the education
profession. All of that said, I'm still wrestling a bit to find my personal
comfort zone with social media in a professional setting. I keep my personal
social media fairly conservative (undercover, if you can tolerate some
hyperbole), and have a mind for personal privacy that I cannot ignore. As
harmless (or even beneficial) it may seem to google my name and find a bunch of
teaching-related correspondence, I just flat-out don't like that notion. I'm
the curmudgeon who would go to the effort to un-list my number from the phone
book if it were still a relevant thing to do in this day and age. And yet I'm new-school enough to be a cord-cutting, cell-phone-only
technophile. Nevertheless, I'm sure I can figure out how to have my cake and
eat it too, and it will just require some careful planning regarding usernames,
privacy settings, and so forth. I'm sure you all have your own perspective on
this matter, and hopefully you're able come to your own comfort zones without
having to resort to the -dare I say - "cop out" cutting off all ties
to social media or technology completely.
Thanks for everything you've all shared in this course, and
hopefully you were able to enjoy my contributions as well. Feel free to keep me
in your G+ circle for future contact if the necessity ever arises!
-Matt Goldhawk
