Assignment #6- School 2.0 Ecosystem

I really enjoyed learning about the "School 2.0". I have heard many things this year about 21st century skills and the HCSD. I have not had any formal instruction on this and it was great to learn more. I am impressed by how current our district is with technology and the community. Our teachers use blogging, websites, elmos, smart boards, wikis, podcasting, twitter accounts, cell phone polling, etc. for our students. We recently opened the parent portal for grades. This is another great example of how we are continuing to "move forward" with technology. I liked everything that was on the map. I would like to see the textbook dollars reallocated and given to technology. I would love to see every student have their own laptop. I think this would be amazing.

I would like to see a way to hold all parents accountable for learning the technology and getting involved. I know that we recently opened the parent portal at MW and some parents do not know that it exists and how to use it. Their children know that it is there, but the parents do not. I think that we need to educate all parents and community members. We need to hold them accountable for the education of tomorrows leaders.

Assignment #5 Podcast Review

After listening to Dr. Zhaos' podcat, a variety of things ran through my mind. I think that the most important thing that I took out of all of the podcasts was this- "Kids who can not use technology are now being viewed as the new illiterate"- similar to how our generation viewed people who could not read. This has honestly stuck with me. I can not stop thinking about how true that statement is and how realistically I see it everyday. I am so motivated to stay current with technology, and now realize that it is my professional responsibility to help my students learn as much as possible-using technology and being aware of all of the resources that are available to them.

I could really connect to his podcasts. He gave great examples of teachers being scared to try new things (like the art teacher who thought it was her job to teach art and not technology- but after learning more-she realized that even thought they were two different things, she could infuse the two together and make them connect- hence making in more meaningful for students.

He spoke of how kids are motivated by technology and how teachers are scared of it. I could relate to the teachers that stayed after school late, learning as much as possible, but still feeling scared and ignorant.

The community involvement was important in his work. I liked the movie project and how the community got involved. It was inspiring.