Reflection: Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society

Final blog posting for Walden University course: Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society

This course has helped me to broaden my understanding of technology because it forced me to create, for the first time, a blog and a podcast, and participate in the creation of a wiki. These were things that I was familiar with but had never used.

This course has helped me to take a step back and see that many of my students are multi-tasking, using technology, and learning differently than I. With this understanding came the realization that I as an educator must change the way I present the content set in our curriculum and do so in a way that my students can relate to and to can take ownership of. I do many varied activities in my classroom from interdisciplinary lessons, to cooperative learning, to web quests and research. This course showed me that I can not only look at the different ways a child learns but I must create completely student centered, student lead lessons which incorporate the technology my students are familiar with and the 21st century skills needed for them to succeed. Not and easy task and one that will take time and a great bit of creativity on my part.

Two goals that I have set for myself along with the revamping of my lessons are:
1. I have spoken to the IT person and the school where I work and I have asked him to download Audacity to a set of computers in our library computer lab. I plan to use this program to have my students create podcast that they can download
2. I plan to get more familiar with the use of wikis and incorporate them into my lessons.

Podcast Survey: The Use of Technology by High School Students

Hello,
I created my first Podcast in the form of a survey which you can hear if you go to the following site:

http://baur.podbean.com/

Enjoy my first ever attempt at podcasting.
Ciao