Program Outcome Essay

The Master of Science of Education Program experience at Walden has enhanced my teaching strategies and stretched my capacity and expectations as a learner. It has equipped me with the technological tools to experience learning in various modes, develop my personal voice and understanding, and draw from the experiences of my peers. It allowed me to collaborate with educators of all grades, content and geographical locations and gleam from their expertise and utilize their ideas. This course challenged me to research, document in APA format and utilize technology tools that I did not know existed a year ago. In the beginning, I struggled with online resources and printed off every document or resource that I needed. During the third class, I discovered that I was able to utilize technology to store, read and write more proficiently through blogs, wikis, and document files and save work through Google docs and digital portfolios. This is evident from my use of the Taskstream Portfolio and professional blog Lewis Tech Quest (http://lewistechquest.blogspot.com/ ). My blog shows how I have expanded my understanding to not what technology I implement in my class, but what I have empowered my students to develop and implement for their own technological journey. My class web site now displays what my students have created and request to empower their own educational quest. My portfolio has expanded to include VoiceThreads, Wikis (http://waldenu6713.wikispaces.com/ ), peer reviewed research, 2 grant writing projects through Donors choose- a classroom library and flip camera project http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=563613 and finally a teacher made digital game -Space Decoder and a learning module through Edmodo. I was so excited to implement the many new ideas and technologies that I developed an after school computer club to experiment with and soon discovered learn from their journey of technology discovery. We are now exploring virtual worlds with Whyville.com.

The most important thing I have discovered is that this journey must be a learning and developing experience for both teacher and students. In order to engage all learning styles and personalities, I must provide them with the tools to create, express themselves and communicate in various modalities and experiences. The students do not want to be entertained by the teacher or awed at their expert made PowerPoints and Smart Board activities but they want to the opportunity to create and discover hands on first hand. I have also learned that technology can be used to assess, diagnose, remediate and enrich each child’s learning experience regardless of age, ability and background knowledge. My students love when they are able to show me how to utilize the program, software or tool more efficiently. This revelation has freed me to experiment, implement and utilize collaborative projects through Skype and ePals without fear of failure.

This course has enhanced my ability to communicate more effectively with my students and colleagues. I have implemented a computer club, more collaborative technology projects and research with my students through Skype, Voicethreads, learning modules and Sketchcast. My principal has asked me to provide professional development for my peers on grant writing for technology tools and implementing blogs and wikis in the elementary classrooms. He was impressed how my students have excelled in their writing and research skills due to our many projects and implementation of communication tools. Last week, the students showed him how to create a narrated Photo Story 3 project and upload to our website. Their willing to take risk and self discover new ways to display and implement what they know shows my growth and enhancement in the field. If my second project with Donorschoose is funded, we will have five Flip cameras for the students to document their creations of discovery and expressions through various medias. I am also writing a grant to Ning to add netbooks to our third grade team for collaborative global projects and communication.
My future goals include implementing learning modules for our districts Home Bound program through Skype and other collaborative projects and tools. I would like to create and implement more expert connections through the use of virtual field trips and experiences for my students. I want to pursue more technology courses to enhance my reading program through eBooks, podcasting and other media tools. I would like to pursue my media and technology certification in order to work as our school media specialist.

The greatest challenge I plan to pursue is the implementation of mobile tools for my students to create and express themselves in various media modes. I am looking forward to our new mobile labs that will have iPod production studios for our students to create Vodcast and Podcasts media. We have also received a gift of a class set of iPads for our next school year. I am looking forward to learning how to incorporate their use in our new core standards and curriculum to provide more authentic learning artifacts and experiences. These tools will allow me to “enrich, enhance and expand” our learning in and out of the classroom walls (Johnson, Levine, Smith, Smythe, 2009).

References:
Johnson, L., Levine, A., Smith, R., & Smythe, T. (2009). The 2009 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.