Issues and Advances Metareflection

Issues and Advances in Education Technology, through Seattle Pacific University, allowed me to experiment with a number of web 2.0 technologies that I didn’t know even existed. Through trying these out, both in this class and in my own classroom, I gained valuable skills and additionally began to meet many of the ARC program standards.

For example, I began using Moodle in my class about a month ago. My students spent half of a class period learning their log in and trying the system out with myself and the school’s head of technology. For a week after that date, the students responded to two prompts and to two student responses by Friday. Before taking this class through Seattle Pacific, I had not heard of Moodle before. While learning about it in class, I got the opportunity to use it and thus address many standards of the ARC program. By using a 2.0 technology that students enjoy due to their proficiency on the internet, the lessons become learner centered (L1). While it is also content driven (S1) as I focused on causes of the Civil War, the standard T really gets addressed through this class. Students experienced a unit of study that utilized multiple instructional strategies (T3) and was informed by technology (T4).

As I move forward from this class and into my continued teaching career, I see many other 2.0 tools that I can utilize. I anticipate using Voicethread or other digital storytelling tools to enable students to tell the story of an individual in history using images and quotes. This will allow students to see history as a story rather than a collection of facts and people. I definitely plan on using Moodle again for prompt-driven reflections and I want to experiment with podcasts as well. I certainly can see a way to have students make their own websites through Google sites as we did in the class. I feel like the possibilities are endless.

While I anticipate the great lessons that use these 2.0 tools, I am not going to rush into anything. I know that the best lessons are intentionally planned (T2) and will use 2.0 tools to enhance the content, rather than replace it. Nevertheless, I see a great future for my students at Seattle Prep and 2.0 technology.