The Inception of a 21st Century Educator: My Course Reflection

In this reflective post, I will be discussing how my learning throughout my educational technology course at Walden University will better prepare me to be a 21st century educator. During the course, we studied three web 2.0 technologies (blogs, wikis, and podcasts) that are becoming pervasive components of classrooms today. This essay will discuss my growth as an educator with respect to these technologies and how I plan to incorporate them into my lessons over the next two years.

My technology skills were deepened throughout this course as my colleagues and I were granted the opportunity to experience the aforementioned technologies in realistic settings. I was able to keep a professional blog, work collaboratively with my peers on a wiki, and create my own podcast. These experiences allowed me to not only deepen my own technology skills, but also to give my ideas on how I may use them with my students in similarly realistic scenarios.

The course resources along with my own observations over the last few years have taught me that the structure of instruction and learning is changing, and it most cases, for the better. While I have been drifting away from my math textbooks for years, I still ran my courses in an old-school fashion where I was the essential provider of knowledge through direct instruction. This year, I have made a pledge to allow my students to utilize the powerful technology they have at their fingertips in order to discover a good amount of the information I have previously spoon fed them. Although this may be difficult for me, I must be willing to hand the reigns to my student and allow them to discover and present the information to one another. Not only does this make sense from a learner’s standpoint, but it will give my student practice with several 21st century skills that are being sought by colleges and employers alike. I am eager to teach my students how to learn rather than what to learn as my role changes from omniscient being to learning facilitator.

As a 21st century educator, I can use the very same tools I am teaching my students to utilize to further my own education as it pertains to technology. I can us my RSS aggregator to stay abreast of new technologies and 21st century teaching practices; I can read the blogs of other educators and learn how they are utilizing technologies and practicing 21st century learning. My colleagues and I can create a collaborative wiki in which we can share ideas and resources with one another. There really are no boundaries when it comes to learning at this time in my life. I simply must continue to learn as technology and new ideas will not wait for me.

I plan on accomplishing at least two long term goals relating to technology and 21st century learning within the next two years. As I was new to some of these technologies and ideas prior to taking this course, I aim to start small and gradually build upon these ideas as the years go by. The first idea is to either use my new school web page as a blogging platform or else use my Edublogs account in order to create a classroom portal. Here I will post assignments for my students, post the daily notes, require students to respond to some posts in which I may ask them to find helpful resources, and even have my students partake in some online discussions. The second goal will be to utilize a wiki in my AP® Calculus class in order to create a virtual textbook. While I would like to eventually do this with my underclassmen, I feel this group of students is mature enough to handle the assignment and allow me to work out the bugs I am sure to encounter. As I gain experience and confidence, I hope to expand the wiki creation to my geometry students as well.  Both of these tasks can be done with little to no obstacles in my way, therefore, there is nothing preventing me from reaching my goals during the next two school years.

During the first week of this course, I took a survey which assessed my current familiarity and proficiencies with various technologies, some of which were mentioned above. I must admit that in week one, I responded “sometimes” or “rarely” to many of the statements. Unfortunately, since I was on summer vacation during this course, my answers did not change because I did not have students who could experience my newfound expertise. However, I expect that as begin to expose my students to the aforementioned ideas and technologies, many of my answers will change to “often”.

In conclusion, this course was a valuable and refreshing learning experience that gave me exposure to a technological mindset which I fully embrace. I am excited to add blogs and wikis to my repertoire, and to also deepen my curriculum by adding learning experiences that allow my students to attain valuable and necessary 21st century skills.