Week 5 Reflection

Tecka Mobley
Education 5352 – Instructional Leadership


Reflecting back on the beginning of this course, I am not sure what outcomes I had envisioned. I do know that when this course began I hoped to acquire enough knowledge and skills to help my campus reach its technology goals. I also hoped to gain the ability to analyze and facilitate the use of technology to enhance teaching and learning. I would have to say that I did achieve the outcomes that I envisioned, because the knowledge and skills that I have gained in this course has prepared me to confidently design and apply skills for monitoring and evaluating change the will allow me to make the needed adjustments to achieve my campus technology goals. As a leader it is important to be able to promote the success of all students through my leadership. The actual outcomes of this course aligned perfectly with those that I had envisioned. I was able to learn how to recognize the needs of digital – age students, as well as the strategies and tools needed to meet those digital needs. I was also able to analyze different data sources, such as the STaR chart to help me make informed decisions about the technology needs of my campus. These outcomes that I have achieved are extremely relevant to the work that I do in my school because the world is changing and the students that I will be leading are digital learners. They need more than the traditional methods of teaching. The outcomes I have achieved through this course have already helped me in my work today, and will only make my work as a technology leader that much easier to accomplish. As I reflect back on all the proposed outcomes of this class, I would have to say that I achieved all of them. I would however, like to be more knowledgeable about the key components of the Texas Lone-Range Plan for technology. I feel that having a better understanding of these components will help me be more confident in my decision making when it comes to the technology needs of my campus.
As I reflect back on course assignments from this class, I realized that although there was great frustration involved in completing each assignment, the feeling of accomplishing them was even greater. I was successful in carrying out each assignment for this course. Week one assignment was somewhat discouraging because the instructions were somewhat vague. Once I received clarification I was able to complete the assignment with great success. I have to say that looking back at the assignment from week one, creating a blog, seemed overwhelming to me. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it actually was. It was fun too. I was successful in carrying out week two assignment, but was a little discouraged on trying to upload my STaR chart power point to my blog page. I was able however to create a successful presentation that outlined the strengths and weaknesses in technology at my campus, and upload it to my blog. I have to say that week three did not pass without discouragement, only because of the time it took to complete the interviews for the assignment. I was able to complete the assignment, but only at the last minute, and that was discouraging and frustrating at the same time. When I think back to last week, and the assignment for week four, I can remember being somewhat frustrated. I had to really think about all the things I had learned in this class. Creating the action plan for professional development was difficult for me because I feel that my knowledge of technology is somewhat inadequate to make meaningful decisions. I was able to come up with an action plan that was very beneficial. I think back now about the last four weeks and I feel that I was successful in carrying out each week’s assignments.
As I reflect back over the past four weeks in this course, I realized that I have learned a lot about myself, about my technology and leadership skills, as well as my over-all attitude about instructional leadership and technology. When this course began five weeks ago I felt like my knowledge of technology was inadequate. I wasn’t sure that I could be successful in implementing effective technology leadership strategies in ways that would improve learning because I was uncomfortable with the whole technology leadership idea. What I learned about myself is that I can actually do the things I was unsure about. I found out that I could successfully create my own blog and upload data to it. I also learned that I can create meaningful technology strategies that will help improve learning for teachers and students. From the Technology Application Inventory Survey I learned that I need more practice and knowledge in the areas of foundations, information acquisition, solving problems, and in communication. I feel that this class has given me more of the knowledge I need in these four domains. As far as my technology skills, I learned that I can actually do more than I first thought. I learned about different technology applications that are available, and how to utilize those applications to improve learning in the classroom. As I think back about the staff development action plan assignment, I can remember being worried because I didn’t feel I could come up with effective strategies for professional development. What I learned was that I can be a good leader and I can facilitate the design and implementation of curricula that enhances teaching and learning. When I think back about my attitudes about technology, I realized that I had a very negative attitude. That attitude stemmed from my lack of knowledge in technology applications. After this class, I feel that my attitude has changed. I now look at technology as a necessary learning tool. I am excited about the knowledge I have gained and the outcomes I have achieved in this course.
Today’s students need to be able to think and operate in ways that traditional education cannot prepare them for. Through this class I have learned that one way to achieve this is through the use of blogs. I never thought about blogging having an educational value until now. Blogs provide a communication space that teachers can utilize with students whenever there is a curriculum need to develop writing, share ideas, or just reflect on work being done in the classroom. I believe that blogs are valuable to education because they give students a genuine and potentially worldwide audience for their work. This can result in feedback and greatly increase student motivation to do their best work. Blogs also give students ownership over their own learning as well as an authentic voice allowing them to articulate their needs. I also learned through this course that a great value of blogs to education is that they foster the development of a learning community through collaboration.
Although there are many educational values to using blogs in school, there are just as many concerns. Reflecting back on the readings and my interviews, I have learned that a major concern with using blogs in school is the threat of cyber stalkers or predators. Inappropriate sharing is also a huge concern since students themselves are creating the on-line content. There are several risks to inappropriate sharing such as fraud and theft, where students become victims of a crime. I feel that as an administrator it is my job to make the best decisions for my students. Reflecting back to the readings for week four, I learned about intellectual property. I can see where this would be a concern when using blogs in education due to the ease of copying materials on-line.
There is always going to be educational value and concerns when using technology for education, and blogging has its share of both. One thing I have learned for sure about blogging is that is fosters collaboration. Blogs can be used to communicate with all school stakeholders. As a school administrator I would use blogs to post announcements, projects, photos, calendar, and to communicate with the entire school community. Blogs can be used as a building blog to the school website, where each department could have their own blog and update it when needed. The blogs can also be used to continue dialogue between meetings, or even used to archive minutes from meetings. Another way blogs could be used to communicate with stakeholders is to use the blog for classroom newspapers to parents and for internal communication to staff.