Reflection

Before this class, I thought that as long as I was using technology in my classroom, students would be better off because I was using technology. I have come to learn that it really depends upon how you use that technology as a teacher that will determine how effective the technology will be. This course made me rethink many aspects of my teaching methods. For example, I never thought about how a person or student remember information or how the brain works. Today I think about certain aspects of how my teaching will affect the learning process of my students on a daily basis and it has changed the way I teach many different lesson thus far.
In my science classroom, I use a projector with a PowerPoint presentation often. I always have a summary of what the students are supposed to be learning about up on the screen. I have come to realize that this is not always the best way for students to learn since I am (or the students) just reading the words off the board. What I am doing now is that I only put pictures up on the board that show the students what I am talking about and this allows me, as the teacher, to elaborate more on the picture. This makes the PowerPoint presentation a learning tool rather than an instruction tool, which allows the students to better understand the information presented (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010) . Another tool that I use is a SmartSlate. In the past, I rarely let the students use this tool on a daily basis; however, I have learned that if the students use it more than I do, this instructional tool becomes a learning tool.
Two technology tools that I would like to use with my students in the future are blogs and VoiceThread. I would use blogs as a homework assignment, where I would post a question in the beginning of the week and the students would have to post their thoughts by Thursday and we would discuss as a class by Friday. By having the students post their thoughts on the blog, they can see what they think and what other students think and can create great discussions. VoiceThreads are a great tool that I would like to use in the near future. They will enable me, as a teacher, to make an application that is very similar to PowerPoint but I can insert my voice along with videos. VoiceThreads also let people comment on certain parts of the thread as well, which can be used as a very powerful tool. I would use VoiceThreads in two different ways: one way would be to introduce a project, and another would have the students make a VoiceThread on a topic that we are going over in class.
My long term goals over the next few years are very simple. The first one is to use PowerPoint presentations as a learning tool instead of a instructional tool. My second goal is to have more web 2.0 applications projects throughout the year in my classroom. The way I am going to make sure that I am going to fulfill the first goal is I am going to save all of my old PowerPoint presentations to a USB drive and put the USB drive at home, then delete them from my school computer. This will ensure that I will not use the old presentations in the up and coming years and will hopefully encourage me to make new presentations that have very little writing and are mostly pictures. For my second goal, I am planning on making one web 2.0 project per year for each class I teach. If I make one project a year within a few years, I will have many web 2.0 projects that I can use in my classes.



References
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010). Bridging Learning Theory, Instruction, and Technology. Baltimore, MD: Author