Stakeholder Communications

Teachers can blog information about her classroom to her students’ parents. Teachers can also blog assignment information, post documents and post lecture notes for her students. The administration can post important information about the school, such as unexpected early dismissal or an emergency evacuation. The school board could post their meeting minutes for the community to read. The administration and teachers both can use blogs to gather data. A user can post a poll and readers can vote on an issue. I posted a poll on my assignment blog to see how many parents or students were viewing the blog and how often. When the administration wants the input of the community, the can use blogs to gather the data.

Blogging Concerns

With everything in this world, there is always a negative side. There are concerns about blogging that is evident. One of the biggest concerns is that our students post anything and everything on their blog. They forget that their blog can be read by anyone all over the world. A middle-aged man half-way across the world can be reading the blog of a middle school age girl. That man is able to carry on conversations with the girl as someone else. Sometimes our students post too much personal information on their blogs. Blogging allows our students a sense of freedom in what they can say and boldness in how they say it. They are removed from the situation. Bullying is much easier online and is harder to do something about.

Educational Blogs

The value of educational blogs is high, and it is extremely important to the 21st Century learner. Our students today are already confidently blogging about their social lives. Why can’t they blog about their educational lives also. Blogs allow our students to connect with people all over the world, people who have different cultures, ethnic backgrounds and socio-economic status. In social studies, our students don’t just have to read about China. They can actually carry on conversations with Chinese students their own age. Teachers can use their blogs to post assignments, documents that were handed out in class and even their PowerPoint lectures. Information is readily available for our students who use blogs.

What I Learned

Through this course, I learned that my teaching and education philosophy was outdated, useless and detrimental to the future. When I first started teaching, my philosophy was, “If they way I was taught was good enough, then why isn’t it good enough for these kids.” I couldn’t see why we had to change how we were teaching when this way had worked for me and so many others. I also learned that I am a digital immigrant, not a digital native. I always thought I was a digital native because I knew more than my parents did and most around me, but sadly I did not know enough. I am now educating myself on the newest technologies so I can be as close to a digital native as a digital immigrant can possibly get. I believe that it is important for a leader to know that a change is needed and is willing to make the change when necessary. I have changed my teaching and education philosophy from looking to the past, to looking to the future.

Course Assignment Success

I had a lot of success in carrying out the course assignments. There was only one time where I struggled greatly, when I was asked to analyze and respond to the STaR Chart. While searching for the data, I realized that there wasn’t any. My school had not completed the assessment for the past two years. I ended up having to use data from a local school who is one of the most advanced in integrating technology into the classroom in our area. Whenever I had questions about technology, I went to the middle school technology teacher and website manager for help. She was able to help me solve all of my problems. I believe that it is a good trait of leader to ask for help when they come across something they don’t know or when they come across a problem they can’t solve.

Achievement of Outcomes

Through this course I learned a lot of technology jargon. I feel that I could hold an intelligent conversation with the technology teacher and understand the majority, if not all. I also learned about what is available in the world of technology. There are safety programs available. There are websites that allow a user to share their documents. There are sites that can be applied to the desktop to make finding your documents easier. I learned about all the various types of open-source technology. An outcome I feel I did not achieve is application of these technologies in the daily life of the leader and in the daily life of the teacher. I believe that something that is brand new and innovated is introduced to people, there should be specific examples. In this course, I learned about all these new technologies, but I am left unsure of how to use them. As a leader, I believe that it is important to know how the teachers can apply the new trends in their classroom. Again, there were no specific examples of what could be done that I could take back to my teachers.

Outcomes Relevant?

The outcomes that I hoped would come from this course are still relevant to the work that I do in the school. A leader needs to be able to speak the language of those with whom they are conversing. During a conversation about technology use in the classroom with a teacher, I need to be able to understand what they are talking about. I cannot help solve a problem or give suggestions on a situation if I do not know what they are asking of me. This skill does not apply just in technology. I need to be as educated as I can be in all aspects of education. A lot of the technologies that were discussed in this course are relevant in the classroom also. We discussed blogs during the course. I believe that each teacher should use a blog, as well as myself, the leader. It is an immediate access to all information that I want the stakeholders to know.

Course Outcomes

At the beginning of this course, I did not have any goals or outcomes in mind. I really did not concern myself with the title of this course. I had no clue that I was taking a course on technology until I sat down to do the first week’s assignments. Initially I was overwhelmed by the course and the work load. As a leader, I have to know what is going on. I have to be prepared. If I was prepared and knew what I was going to be doing in this course, then I would have been able to manage my time better. After the first week, I did set some general outcomes that I wanted to see occur. I wanted to become more familiar with technology jargon, know more about what is available to use, and what teachers can use in the classroom.

Action Plan

Week 4 Action Plan

Action Plan

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