Reflective Synopsis

The last 7 weeks have been a very interesting journey for me in my learning of all things digital.  I have always struggled with ICT so to say that it has been an easy 7 weeks for me would be an understatement. However I have thoroughly enjoyed the new learning that this course has brought to my understanding of how exactly technology can be used and integrated into every class and not only support student learning but improve it. This is especially important with teaching Generation Z and the huge impact and requirement that this new generation rely on technology in their life both at home and at school. This makes digital technologies paramount in my teaching and my pedagogy.

Whilst discovering and investigating the different genres of technologies that have been presents to me over the last 2 months of this course, I have come to the conclusion that students’ knowledge and ability is far beyond that of teachers in reference to all things technological. In fact many teachers are perhaps apprehensive and overwhelmed with the thought of using technologies in their classrooms; me being one of them (however a lot less after this course). This obviously needs to change as technology is the only way forward and it will continue to grow and become even more pertinent in today’s classroom.

We are moving away from the traditional classroom and traditional teaching methods. Once upon a time technology was occasionally used whereas now every lesson involves some form of technology. This forward movement will ultimately result in all teachers adapting their pedagogy to include ICT in their classroom in every lesson. As a teacher, it is our job to scaffold our students learning and therefore paramount that we too move with the times and ensure technology plays a vital role in every classroom.

Something that has surprised me is how user friendly ICT really is. Until now I have always thought of ICT as being something that I would never be able to accomplish using myself. Throughout my weekly reflections I was surprised at how often I was able to make comment about the use of ease of each digital tool that I chose to investigate further. Not being technologically literate at all, I was pleasantly surprised to find the ease of creating and using the different tools. This was comforting and built my confidence in my ability to be able to actually use this ICT regularly and not just a once off in this course.

The SAMR model was a valuable tool for me and one which I will endeavour to refer back to in my teaching.  I initially found it quite difficult to understand the concept of the last two stages. On reflection whenever I had thought about using ICT in a classroom it would have fallen into the ‘Substitution’ or ‘Augmentation’ stage of this model. Therefore it would not have enhanced my students learning but just replaced. This was a valuable insight that I gained and how that using technology needs to go above and beyond that of just replacing a traditional method.

When completing my SAMR table each week I was intrigued to see how I could make it work in a Manual Arts classroom. I had never really thought of Manual Arts being a discipline subject that ICT would be very well used in. My only thoughts would be when students would use computer programs such as CAD etc but not necessarily seeing the difference between students using ICT in learning rather than for learning. Certainly when I was at school, Manual Arts was indeed that – Manual. Whereas now ICT plays a very important role in any classroom, Manual Arts included. Using the SAMR model really opened my eyes into the implementation of each digital tool in my classroom.

An aspect of my learning journey that I was very unaware of was the Legal, safe and ethical issues surrounding technology. It was not something that I had considered that much before now, especially the use of images and YouTube videos and the copyright laws that surround them. This is definitely an area that I will need to investigate further and ensure that I follow these laws and issues at all times. This will also need to be explained in detail to any students as well.   

        

I am very much looking forward to next term and completing my second prac and being able to implement what I have learnt into my teaching practice. Seeing how my students respond and engage will be very rewarding. Although there are still massive gaps in my learning and understanding, I now feel that I am more prepared and willing to explore ICT and use it at every opportunity I have and see how my students benefit from this.

Collaborative Reflection

I commenced the weekly blogging activities just over 6 weeks ago with some reservation about the benefit I would receive out of participating in them. Having never participated in this kind of activity and ICT before now, it was a very new learning journey for me, especially with the amount of ICT I was going to be using. However I enjoy writing so was looking forward to recording my thoughts and learning each week.

I was unsure about the idea of everyone reading each other’s blogs from the point of view of marking and being graded. My initial thoughts were that people may just copy ideas and thoughts from other people and not do their own work and use other peoples writing. However I soon saw that this was just a different way of learning and being educated and one that I see true value in.

Other students having the ability to read and comment on my writings each was were exciting and daunting at the same time. It was exciting to see what other student’s opinions of my ideas and thoughts about the various ICT’s were, but at the same time daunting as it was not only the lecturer who was viewing my work but everybody. Although daunting this had its benefits as everyone has different viewpoints and so you are not only gaining feedback and a point of view from one person but many which resulted in a greater understanding of each task.

I also found it great to read other peoples blogs, especially if they were studying the same discipline as me. This way I was able to gain an even broader understanding of how that particular ICT could be used in my classroom and form part of my digital pedagogy and expand my knowledge base even further.  This was also beneficial in the later weeks where we were choosing one out of the three options to blog about as there was such a variety of different methods and ICT’s used.  I found reading the SAMR model of different blogs very informative and it gave me a variety of ideas and ways to integrate ICT in my students’ lessons and for them to achieve a higher level of thinking.

As a teacher I will continue to explore online learning communities and gain an even greater understanding of the benefits of them and I will ensure my students participate in this form of advantageous collaboration.