Technology and Online Inquiry Reflection

During the past 8 weeks I have grown as a professional and a person. Taking this class has made me evaluate the lessons I want to use when teaching.


Students need to be taugtht different skills then what I was taught in school. These are called new literacy skills. When it comes to teaching these skills, I find that it is more difficult than I thought it would be. I use technology every day and incorporate technolgoy into almost every lesson I teach but just incorporating is not enough. I need to vamp up my lessons so that the students are getting the most out of the lessons and learning the literacy skills.

The class has reinforced the idea of project based learning. Not jsut the project itself but all the details that go into a correct project for students to learn. One item that stands out is asking the questions. I have never had the students ask questions before and think about the project ahead of time. I usually just introduce the project and let them work. Something else I learned was assessment. The use of a rubric is important but it needs to be set up correctly and you have to really think about what skills you are assessing. Are you assessing the content only or other 21st century skills like communication or presentation skills?

I am currently working on my curriculum. I am going to have my program students for 2 years instead of a year and a half. As I go through each standard my goal is to include 21st century skills and incorporate the new literacy skills into my program. The first step I will take is to plan out projects that include research or simulations using the computer and internet. I will introduce the new literacy skills before giving the projects. Another stepis to reinforce those skills throughout the entire program.