Week 8 Reflection

This last 8 weeks has been by far the busiest I've been during the long last year and several months of my Masters program, and I won't lie and say that I'll miss it! Throughout this course, we had the assignment to create a G.A.M.E. plan for self-directed learning and have followed that plan through as much as possible. My G.A.M.E. plan was to learn more about several different basic computer programs in order to be able to seamlessly integrate them into students authentic, self-directed learning. While I was able to mess around myself to learn a bit and was able to get some help from computer-savvy friends, I didn't reach the level of understanding that I had originally set out to accomplish. Largely, I think that many factors played into this, but none larger than the fact that we were not in a teaching situation (as it is summer break) to implement what we had learned. Blume tells us that the best way to learn is to teach, but since there were no students to teach, there wasn't a way to satisfactorily learn these programs. I do have a much better understanding of the Windows Movie Maker software now than I did prior to my G.A.M.E. plan beginning, so I don't think that my goal was completely missed.

The largest change that I will make come August and those bright smiling faces arrive back in the classroom came from Dr. Ertmers suggestion in our Week 2 video "Enriching Content Area Learning Experiences with Technology". As a part of the four variables to integrate technology effectively, Dr. Ertmer discussed knowledge, confidence, beliefs, and a supportive culture. Within her discussion of beliefs, she described how teachers were not the sole source for information anymore, and how teachers were going to have to be willing to give up some control to students. This is a huge part of Problem Based Learning strategy and will help students become the independent, creative thinkers that the United States desperately needs. I will relinquish much of my control next year, as I have students utilize technology more so than I have in the past to learn the curriculum.