What Have I Learned?

As this class comes to a close, I think back on everything I have learned from Curriculum Technology Integration. Before this class, technology integration had a very different meaning to me. I knew some of the benefits of technology in the classroom, but it was simply a supplemental tool to enhance lessons. When I thought about technology integration, I thought about presentation software, word processing, and search engines. Now I understand that technology and Web 2.0 tools can create a truly 21^st century classroom and prepare our students for the future.

Web tools can create classroom community through collaboration and communication. Classroom blogs can encourage students to express themselves while peers, teachers, parents, and other community members are able to view and comment. Blogs can include discussion of content learned in the classroom, or teachers can pose questions to get students thinking about a topic that will be introduced. This encourages reflection and metacognition. Blogs are also a way to simply allow students to write whatever they want to write about in order to build writing and communication skills. Wikis involve collaboration as students work with peers to create a piece of work for others to use as a source of information. Web tools give students an opportunity to have a large audience for their work. There are also tools that can connect the school to the community and create awareness and interdependence.

Technology can no longer be used as a supplemental tool in the classroom. We must move toward a technology-rich curriculum that uses 21^st century tools to engage, teach, and assess modern students. When thinking about a topic for this blog, I wanted to write about something that concerns me as an educator. One of the ideas that have stuck out to me most in this class is how our current methods of assessing students are often very outdated and an ineffective measure of what students have learned. Technology and Web 2.0 tools give us the opportunity to teach our students in a more meaningful and relevant way. It also gives students more flexibility and individuality in how they showcase their learning. We are able to assess deeper learning in a way that a written test cannot.

Web 2.0 tools are not only beneficial to students, but for teachers and administration as well. Administration must lead the way for teachers, and teachers must lead the way for their students. As awareness increases and more people understand the importance of teaching these 21^st century skills, I hope that our schools will become places that guide students to become effective and valuable citizens for the future.