Reflection

In this course Instructional Leadership: The Technology Link has allowed me to see the importance of technology in schools and the importance to being an active leader in it as an administrator. I must be honest, before this course technology was not on the top of my list as a concern for improvement for my campus until now. As I entered this technology based class I was envisioning myself walking away with ways that a teacher and leader can incorporate digital tools into their classrooms and ways that administration can help support their staff to embrace their visions and goals. This class has aligned with what I have envisioned plus some, but in the same since, this class has left me with an uneasy feeling as I have learned of the Technology Long Range Plan for the 21st century. We are a long way from even beginning to put a dent in that plan. As I trudge forward on my quest as a future administrator the information gained in this class will also help me currently in my classroom today. It has allowed me to see the injustice I am providing my students, by not using digital tools more often in my classroom. I am currently the grade level chair and during curriculum sharing days I am asking teachers to offer ways into incorporate digital tools and technology into lessons. One avenue I would have like to see more explored was way to innovatively pull from other funds to acquire money to improve technology on campuses. Funding always seems to be a major barrier for administrators achieving technology overall visions.

During this course I was successful in carrying out the course assignments. I have never done blogging before, so it did take me a little longer to get use to the requirements of uploading documents from different programs, but I learned a lot by trial and error. The most consuming requirement from this course was the discussion forum. I understand that we were promoting communication with other members of the class while analyzing readings, but I just did not benefit from it as much as I did from the actual readings. The PowerPoint presentations allowed me to refresh my skills in the program as well as analyze very important data from the Star Chart. I have never considered myself to being even technology savvy. I have a lot to learn from my peers, students and administration.

As this course drew to an end I acknowledged the importance of technology in the classroom for the 21st century learners. I now have a clear understanding of what Texas Technology Long Range Plan is and the objectives they want to achieve. I have learned to use viable tools like the Star Chart to assess technology goals and improvements for our campus and staff development needs. Incorporating technology and digital tools into our core content areas can boost participation and engagement in classroom assignments. It is our job as educators to keep up with technology and model constant learning in that field. Technology has many avenues that can be beneficial for students ranging from distant education, radio broadcasting, to simple research. The sky is really the limit when it comes to ways we can incorporate it into lessons. We must although keep in mind that we must also teach our children the rules, ethics and procedures to protecting themselves online while staying safe.

Blogging can be very beneficial for the 21st century. It can allow members to post comments over a certain topic related to class. They can be used for book studies, projects and much more. Blogging has many positives and as well as negatives in education. One negative is that anyone can start a blog or post comments to blogs. It is hard to monitor or shall I say control what other say on them. We can teach ethical standards and internet policy, but we cannot control those who we do not have in class. Another issue that we are faced with in our district is that blogs are blocked by our network server. We are unable to access them from anywhere in the district. If we were going to implement blogs we student would have to participate with them from home. Blogging has been known as a good tool to communicate with all stakeholders of the schools, but I feel it would not be beneficial in our district. I teach in a Title 1 School and unfortunately majority of our students do not have access to internet outside of the school, so using blogs to communicate with parents and students almost seems unrealistic. Let’s face it most parents are not as technology competent as their children. They did not grow up in the digital world. To communicate more efficiently with these stakeholders I believe that text messages would be more beneficial than blogging, but even then it would not reach all parents. Is our goal to communicate efficiently with some stakeholders or with all stakeholders?

Overall this class was beneficial for me as a future administrator. I will put technology staff development at a priority for my campus. I plan to participate more on technology committees as I broaden myself with technology applications and software that can be beneficial for our children. We are now living in a digital world full of technology applications; therefore we should be preparing our children for the world that awaits them.