Course+Reflection

What outcomes had you envisioned for this course? Did you achieve those outcomes? Did the actual course outcomes align with those that you envisioned? To the extent that you achieved the outcomes, are they still relevant to the work that you do in your school? Why or why not? What outcomes did you not achieve? What prevented you from achieving them? Were you successful in carrying out the course assignments? If not, what prevented or discouraged you? What did you learn from this course…about yourself, your technology and leadership skills, and your attitudes? ||
 * Assignment 11: Course Reflections **
 * I envisioned passing this class so that I could finish my degree and continue being an Assistant Principal. I hope that I have achieved a passing grade. I have really enjoyed the activities in this class. The articles that we were required to read were informative and relevant to my job. I appreciated doing the STAR Chart assignment because that is something that we are required to do each year. I now have a better understanding of why and how we use the STAR chart data. I knew about Wikipedia and Blogs, but never set up an account. I really liked the assignment with the Wiki, I have thought of several ways I can incorporate it at our school. I will have to see whether or not I’ll use the blog. I’m thinking it would be a good way for the head principal and myself to communicate with parents. We could set up a link from our Middle School website to our Blogs. Overall, even though I hadn’t really envisioned any outcomes for this course, I found it very informative and fun. I really wish I had done more online courses, if they are anything like this one. I feel as though I was able to learn more, doing things on my own time, than I do sitting in a classroom. I must be one of these bored students that the articles keep talking about!!!! ||
 * Yes, they will definitely be relevant at school. The articles have given me some good ideas on how our teaching staff can incorporate technology in our classrooms. We need to make it a priority at our school. I have saved all of the articles and will revert back to them in the future. I will also use many of the skills I learned from this class this summer as I set up our Middle School Website. I will also revisit the information on the STAR chart and the Novemberlearning website. Those both contain very good information that can help our school be more successful using technology. I liked the information on the Novemberlearning website a lot. The easywhois link will prove very useful as our website grows. I am going to require our technology teacher to teach the students how to look up the publisher of the website and decide whether it is valid information or not. ||
 * I like the information that I learned in this class. I wish there would have been more technology classes like this one in my degree plan. This would have been a great beginner course for technology, with one or two other courses after it, really building on the information and skills that we learned. I believe the information that I learned in this class through the readings and the activities will benefit me a lot more than the information that I have learned in several of my other graduate level courses. Since technology is so pervasive, we should take more classes like this to make sure we know more than the kids. ||
 * I believe I was relatively successful in carrying out the assignments. The only thing that prevented me from doing more quality work was the fact that I overextended myself this semester. I taught an afterschool math class 4 days a week until 5pm, and stayed with our students who needed to complete their work until 7pm on Fridays. I was also the head coach of our Guys and Girls Powerlifting team that both went to State, and competed all over Texas and Louisiana every Saturday. This was all while being an Assistant Principal dealing with a school and home that was flooded in Hurricane Ike and my child being hospitalized with pneumonia. I probably should not have taken 9hrs with all of that going on. The format of this class did allow me to work around my busy schedule. I know everyone taking graduate classes are all extremely busy dealing with the same things I am, so it is nice to be able to do an online course that allows us to work around our busy schedule. ||
 * I learned that I have mixed opinion about technology in the classroom. On one hand, I like the idea of teaching in a digital world. I believe that the students are bored and do need to be challenged with relevant work. They need to be proficient in technology and learn new ways to incorporate technology into their education. They should learn how to discover information, and to decipher the information. However, I believe that they should also be taught work ethic and discipline. They need to know that there is time to put down the IPOD and pick up a pencil. They need to learn how to make themselves stay focus, organized and on task. There are things that students need to memorize, and they do need to know how to write and spell. Therefore, I have become a firm believer that our schools need a balance between technology and the more conventional ways of teaching.