Professional Learning Plan

My most important goal as I set forth to accomplish in CEP 810, 811 and 812 was to find meaningful ways to incorporate technology into my classroom.  I've seen many teachers over the years use "technology" as a buzz word without really understanding what it meant.  I realized I didn't want to be one of those teachers who simply said they used technology, but didn't have evidence of its use.

I feel that I am working hard towards three of my original goals that are intertwined with each other.
1.  Discover and create ways in which to usefully incorporate technology into my classroom.
2.  Incorporate technology into activities and units which I already use in my courses.  (long term goal)
3.  Develop new activities which usefully incorporate technology in my courses. (long term goal)

An example of how I've pushed my envelope for these goals is creating videos of labs and activities as a part of my WPP.  These videos give absent/suspended/homebound students the chance to view what occurred during our labs and have similar experiences to the students who were in class.  Before this course I had never created a video or screencast with a voiceover.  Now I can't imagine how I survived before them :)  I need to continue to work on this set of skills as I can see how useful it will be in a science course.

The biggest lesson that I have learned over the course of these three courses is to make the use of technology meaningful.  If students don't see the importance of the technology portion of a lesson, the entire content can be lost.  This is also the most important idea that I want to bring back to my department and we continue to work on planning for this year and next.

As I look forward to the rest of this year I want to continue working on incorporating technology into my classroom.  I don't want to forget what I've learned over the last 5 months or move away from using my new skills because its easier to fall back to what I've been doing for years.  In times of stress we fall back on what is easiest for us - I want to be stressed (in a good way!) about finding as many ways to connect with my students thought technology as possible yet making them meaningful.  As I've tried new things this school year, I see a definite disconnect with learning the content when the technology used doesn't fit.

I've enjoyed my work over the past few months and I think that is why achieving my goals has come easier than other goals I've set for myself in the past.  I don't think that my technology goals are easier by any means, I think that I see value in them and as a result they are easier for me to work towards.

The next item from my original goal set that I would most like to work on is to bring my skills gained in these courses back to my department/school in order to reinforce my skills and apply what I've learned.  I have had the pleasure of giving a tutorial on Weebly to my fellow Curriculum Leads and it has been neat to see each of our departments use both websites and wiki's as a way to communicate.

Based on what I saw accomplished from my Goals, I created a short Prezi.  I liked how the format allowed me to keep my ideas simple and to the point.  I've already printed out a copy of it and put it on the cork board by my desk to continue to remind me of how far I've come.