Week 8 Reflection- Integrating Technology Across the Content Area

While looking back on the last seven weeks the one thing I notice the most is my confidence level has increased in terms of utilizing technology in my classroom. I was utilizing technology before this class but through the use of the GAME plan I have a better understanding of technology in terms of how to use it more effectively to meet my goals and benefit my students. I feel the GAME plan allowed me to take a more critical view of what I was doing and focus my energy on accomplishing something concrete and beneficial. It basically put things in to focus in terms of content standards and technology standards. I was also really introduced for the first time to the NETS-T and NETS-S standards for technology in education and feel these are skills students need today. These gave me solid goals to implement into my lessons and helped incorporate real 21st century skills into my everyday teaching to allow my students to benefit from skills they will need to use effectively in the work place after they leave school.
I feel that I have made adjustments already to many of my existing lessons and this class has also helped me create new lessons and activities for my students that I have never tried before but now feel more comfortable and confident in doing so. I am implementing more activities to encourage in my student’s self-directed learning and collaborative skills that they seem to enjoy more than me trying to force the content upon them like I may have done so before. I am excited about what the future of technology in education holds and will continue to push myself to stay on top of the current trends and opportunities to expand my student’s realm of understanding utilizing technology that they will encounter daily as they go through life.


References

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.