Blog Reflection #7

            

Meaningful education ultimately represents the task of enabling students to problem solve both in an individual and communal setting rather than simply regurgitating information. My responsibility and desire as an educator is to construct and implement innovative methods of instruction that will challenge my students to produce solutions to the dilemmas they face. While fundamental skills and knowledge provide a basic and vital foundation for my teaching methods, instruction based on trial and error, group think, and interactive problem solving shall encompass a majority of the methods I utilize. The 8^th-12^th grade students within my scope of certification face a particularly complex challenge of coping with a multitude of external distractions, so my focus will center on grasping their attention with thought-provoking tasks and maintaining that attention by encouraging them to think, work together, succeed, fail, practice, and theoretically pry their way out of an intellectual tight spot in the curriculum. The cornerstone of my education philosophy, however, is the fact that I ascribe to the idea that, as an educator, I am to be held accountable for the success and growth of my students both academically and personally.

            In order to more precisely identify my role as an educator, I must first define the expectations that I have of my students. While the educator is to be held accountable for the success of the student, learners should ultimately command their own path towards knowledge and content mastery. My meaning is that the effort of the educator does not qualify as a substitute for the effort of a learner. The role of a learner is essentially to meet the educator halfway by remaining attentive, putting forth significant effort, and taking beneficial risks in order to truly master the skills being taught. The role of the educator, however, revolves more around a sense of conscientious servitude and production. Effort does not encompass the entire scope of responsibility for educators as they must combine hours of research and study with innovative instruction that produces desirable results in the classroom. C.S. Lewis once wrote, “The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.” As educators, we are to take the barren desert that is the learner and provide them with the type of instruction and exercises that allow them to cultivate success on their own.

            Martin Luther King, Jr. asserted that the goal of true education was “intelligence plus character.” My ultimate objective as a teacher correlates closely with Dr. King’s notion in that I will strive to instill in my students both fundamental knowledge and moral integrity. I want to achieve a symbiotic relationship between core curriculum and lessons that teach moral responsibility. More specifically, in my teaching field of English and language arts, I plan on successfully preparing my students for both state-mandated tests and college-level writing. In 2011, the writing and reading scores of Texas public schools from state-mandated exams ranked among the lowest percentage of passing rates out of all the subjects tested. Therefore, my personal objective as an English and language arts teacher is to utilize more interactive lessons that will inspire students to readily analyze literature and individual attention that will prompt students to take pride in the creation and editing of their writing. Above all, I fervently desire for each one of my students to receive meaningful and relevant instruction from my efforts that significantly challenges them to actively learn each day.

            Technology has become an integral part in almost every aspect of education, today. Numerous online software programs exist for various purposes, such as subject remediation, reviewing and editing, and interactive learning, and are made readily available for school systems to subscribe to. I vow to utilize as many of these programs as possible because they not only appeal to the senses of the learners, but they also allow for a smooth and rapid flow of information between educators. By incorporating online instructional program within my curriculum, I can foster in a newfound acceptance for vertical alignment across grade levels. The new technologies within the classroom also serve to entice the students to take part in their own learning. I believe the two main functions of technology in today’s classrooms are to make instruction simpler and learning more intriguing to the learner. However, the purpose and effectiveness of technology only extends as far as the educator is willing to allow it to do so. As an educator constantly competing for the attention of students, I will put forth the effort to master and effectively implement the technologies made available to me in the workplace.

            Outlining exactly how I intend to implement certain educational technologies represents the most effective usage of planning for learning in the classroom. Many school districts employ a technology director to formulate a technology plan for each campus to follow, but I would like to incorporate my personal technology plan into my educational technology philosophy. I have quickly realized that students enjoy learning with tools that are both hands-on and interactive, so I will implement lessons and activities through SmartBoard technologies. I will also teach and allow my students to teach each other by using the online presentation software, Prezi. In order to help my students learn more actively and engage with other students, I plan to maintain an online class blog and podcast forum. The class blog and podcast forum will serve as springboards for student participation, communication, and creativity. Additionally, I plan to utilize an online class wiki as a source for important class announcements and information that the students feel the need to share. Along with the class wiki, I will utilize the online text messaging system, Respond 101, in order to keep my students up-to-date and organized in regard to upcoming assignments, due dates, and other necessary information.

            My approach to teaching combines the pragmatist and idealist schools of thought. The methods and instruction that I utilize incorporate both the real-world usefulness of pragmatic problem solving and the devotion to classical thinking, literature, and history of idealism. In order to accomplish the desired outcome for each lesson I implement, I plan on drawing from both of these schools for inspiration and organization. Each and every concept that I teach should undoubtedly possess some functional purpose within the scope of the learners’ curriculum and standards. These concepts should also remain true to the significant lessons provided by the classical canon of literature and historical texts. By combining the pragmatist and idealistic aims of education, I believe I can effectively inspire my students to better understand themselves, their social surroundings, and the nature of truth in their own lives whilst still remaining true to a core curriculum.

            Identifying what he stands for, wishes to accomplish, and how he intends to do so embody the three most essential components that an educator should consider. By defining my flexible parameters for these three fundamental ideas, I can then build a specific curriculum designed for active learning upon my personal foundation of educational philosophy. Before I know what and how I should teach my students, I must first know what I believe in. I place my faith in a fusion of classic material and interactive, group-based learning. I will resolve to implement new teaching strategies, software, and innovative technology in my instruction so that students under my watch will constantly be intrigued with the prospect of learning. From this basic philosophy, I can begin to discover myself as an educator and hopefully become a catalyst for active learning within the classroom.

Blog Reflection 6

I truly appreciated Deal's article on teaching through podcasting because of its functional value and application. Almost all noteworthy scholarship possesses information that the reader can use, but exceptional scholarship informs and inspires the reader on how to utilize such information. Deal's article provides the reader with a multitude of possibilities for the implementation of podcasting inside and outside the classroom. Personally, I basically am only aware of the concept of podcasting and have maybe used the technology once or twice to listen to a lecture in an online class. However, the article goes into great detail on the specifics of podcasting, how to create podcasts, and the possibilities for educational instruction with podcasting.

One characteristic of the article that I really appreciated was Deal's explanation of the differentiation between simply uploading media files to the internet and podcasting. To my understanding, podcasting is much more scholarly in its approach and maintains documentation of source information similar to that of electronic periodial databases. I was unaware of this differentiation and now have a greater appreciation for the process of podcasting. The article highlights the topic of podcasting lectures for review, and I certainly subscribe to this idea. As a new teacher, one of the most frustrating obstacles to deal with is student absences. You must stay on schedule with the rest of the class but also concurrently catch the absent student up when he or she returns. By recording all of my lectures or class discussions and uploading them into a podcast portal, my students would be able to access class periods that they missed or simply wish to review. As the article states, recording lectures is a very old practice, but I have never thought of recording and podcasting my lectures as a means of review for my students. This would be a fairly easy process that would end up saving my students and myself valuable time and energy. I even have an application on my iPAD that allows me to record my lectures an a Quicktime audio file, email the audio file to myself, and upload into an online databse for podcasting.

Overall, the article continually builds up the argument for implementing podcasting into classroom instruction and review. Like all new technologies, educators will have to familiarize themselves with the format and sacrifice the time to make and upload audio files, but the results reported in the article make the entire process seem absolutely worthwhile. As Deal states in the article, "Podcasting does not contain any inherent value," so educators must depict the application's worth by putting time and effort into utilizing the technology (12).

When I first starting taking undergraduate courses as a sophomore in high school (2006-2007), most of my online courses utilized podcasting in order to distribute lectures. The technology is already widely spread and used, but I foresee podcasting transcending the realm of higher education and reaching into grade schools as students become saturated with technology at a younger age. I also think that, as more secondary school teachers begin to model their instruction after college courses, they will begin to utilize podcasting for discussion recording and review, class discussion, student projects, and video podcasts. I can also see video podcasting becoming a source of teacher evaluation and peer resource.

At the moment, I am not exactly sure how I will implement podcasting in my current classroom. The inconvenient truth of my situation is that I teach freshmen in a low-income school district. Most of my students do not have access to a computer or the internet at home despite our culture's saturation of technology. In fact, while I would consider young people today to be among the most technologically-savvy people in our society, my students struggle with instruction on technology and software. So, I am not sure how they would react to using an online podcasting site so early in their high school career. My hope is that I can eventually create a model video podcast of a presentation on a novel and then have my students view my presentation and create their own. By completing this project, I would have recorded documentation of my students' presentations for future reference, and they would have something to be proud of and share with other students, teachers, and parents.

Blog Reflection 5

I chose to analyze the "Victorian Robots" website, and based upon an initial glance of the URL's structure, I would conjecture that the website represents an amateur source with good intentions. I really know nothing about Victorian robots, and I assume that the entire subject is a little far-fetched. However, the intermittent grammar mistakes and poor formatting within the website lead me to make the initial assumption that I should take all the information on the site with a grain of salt.

As for embedded and external links attached to this website, all of them seem to be funneling to a comic book company source website. All of the attached links' formats and designs appear the same as the "Victorian Robots" URL, so I am assuming all of this information was composed and posted by the same entity. For me, this lowers the degree of credibility for the website. While all of the information seems to be based on comic books and science-fiction/fantasy, I usually do not trust unfamiliar websites that only provide links within their own database or infrastructure. I want to see where all of the information is coming from outside of the source.

After performing a search on "Victorian Robots" in Google, Bing, and Yahoo!, I found that all three of the search engines produce my chosen URL as the top source for the topic. The list of links and information then goes on to provide images relating to the search (some located on the original URL) and additional websites focusing on Victorian robots in descending relevance. Among the three search engines, the results were basically formatted and presented the same; however, both Bing and Yahoo! produced millions of more URLs than Google. I am not sure, but I would venture to say that this disparity in amount of sources has to do with Google's increased screening and filtering of websites. Basically, I would guess that Google has the least amount of hits because it refines the search the most thoroughly. Bing was the only search engine that produced any advertisements stemming from the topic. On the side of the search panel were two insignificant links to "Victorian Boot" sales from shoe venders. I would imagine the shortage of the usual advertisements can be explained by the oddity that is my search topic. Advertisements from search engines feed off of relevant hits from your topic, so not many contemporary advertisement hits will show up for 19th century robots.

I attempted to identify the publisher, which I am pretty sure is bigredhair.com, but the domain of the URL was not yet registered with easywhois.com. In order for me to register the domain and receive any information on the URL's publisher, I had to pay a fee of $15. However, the simple fact that the domain is not registered and doesn't bring up any information lets me know that the website probably isn't credible enough for academic purposes.

From what I can gather, the purpose of this particular URL is to essentially inform viewers about the mythical/historical data behind robots during the Victorian period of history. The URL seems to be a spinoff or small portion of the much larger parent site of bigredhair comics. I am still unsure whether the true purpose of the site is to promote the parent website's comic sales or simply to inform viewers about this particular topic. The entire website and all of its links were created by one woman, so I must take every piece of information presented for granted. Ultimate, I believe the "Victorian Robot" website was created simply to function as a fun link from the parent site. The parent site, bigredhair.com, is set up like a carnival where every link is a new ride or adventure in a sense. So, the Victorian robots URL seems to simply be a side-show. Since the purpose of this URL is essentially to present information, I cannot necessarily label the site as credible or trustworthy because it has one author whom I am not familiar with. There are no links of justification or research backing the information presented. The website seems to combine entertainment with information, and, while I feel like this site is harmless and fun, it probably isn't the best source for legitimate information regarding 19th-century electronics.

Blog Reflection #4

First of all, I completely agree with the manner in which the text describes the Next Generation of technological learners. Even though the blog reflection outlines talks about this phenomenon not necessarily consisting of an age-related issue, I do consider myself part of this new class of learners simply because these students are my generation. I am only 21, so even though I separate myself from my students professionally, I consider myself one of them as far as learning habits and preferences go.

As for the questions posed by the text, I found most of them to be situational regarding my preferences. Even though I enjoy interacting with many different types of technology, I do also prefer the old-school approach to learning in various situations. There are times when I would much rather open up a book with yellowed pages and small print than stare at a computer screen or video. Other times, I strive to look for new avenues of learning and communication, such as blogging, video chat, online courses with new portals, and video-streamed discussion, that I can utilize to interact with other learners in new ways. For ease of use, I am just going to list my answers to each question so that I can more easily refer back to each one.

1. Are you more comfortable composing documents online than longhand? Yes, I am, but this has not always been the case. When I was 18, I competed in U.I.L. Ready Writing at the state level, which is an academic competition in which contestants have an allotted amount of time to compose a scholarly essay. Almost every student used a laptop computer to compose their essay so that they could type faster, edit easier, and organize their thoughts more efficiently. I, on the other hand, found that handwriting my essays was more pleasing to my nerves. It was not until college that I began to regularly rely on word processing software. Personally, I do not utilize or enjoy a certain technology until I have made it my own by mastering it... much like new vocabulary.
2. Have you turned your "remembering" over to an electronic device? I have not fully subscribed to this idea or practice yet, but I am certainly headed in that direction. I own an ipad, so I use the calendar and reminder functions for some of my planning. However, I do not own a smartphone, so I don't have an electronic device with "remembering" capabilities constantly on my person. I still rely on sticky notes and plain, old memorization for the time being. Although, I feel this will all change once I purchase the Iphone 5 in the coming months.
3. Do you go to meetings with your laptop, tablet, or Ipad? Occasionally, I do bring my Ipad to meetings for note-taking purposes, but I still find comfort in using pen and paper mostly. A legal pad will never crash on you or make embarrassing noises. The more I utilize my Ipad, the more comfortable I become with it in new avenues of learning.
4. Are you constantly connected? Is the internet always on at home or work? Is your cell phone always with you? I would say that I'm not always connected, but my cell phone is always with me. I don't own a smartphone, so that is much of the reason why I am not fully connected most of the time. I come from the texting generation, however, so my cell phone is constantly buzzing throughout the day. At home, my laptop does stay open and online but mostly for ease of access.
5. How many different activities can you effectively engage in at one time? The answer to this question truthfully depends on the type of activities I am trying to juggle. If we are speaking about activities associated with technology, then I feel fairly confident in my multi-tasking abilities. I am able to work on a powerpoint or paper in Microsoft Office while surfing the internet with several different tabs- all while listening to music on Spotify, checking Facebook, and paying my bills online. When it comes to more hands-on tasks, however, I have to maintain sole focus on the task at hand in order to be effective. It seems that technology changes this for me as it makes organization and access much simpler.
6. Do you play video or computer games? Since I am from the younger generation, I do own a Playstation 3, and I often play video games to relax and unwind. While I have never really been too enthralled with video gaming, I do find it enjoyable, and I consider myself knowledgable with all types of gaming systems and their technologic capabilities. I can stream my Netflix account, Facebook account and every one of my email accounts through my Playstation's wifi capabilities directly to my TV.

Week 3 Reflection

After reading Dr. Barrett's article and analyzing her ten research-based principles of Assessment for Learning, I decided that the sixth principle, "AFL should take account of the importance of (and foster) learner motivation," represented the tenet that most closely correlated with my personal philosophy. I am currently reading a novel for educators by William Glasser entitled, Control Theory in the Classroom, and one of the initial ideas that Glasser writes about is the necessity of student motivation for active learning. By definition, Assessment for Learning is a "process of seeking and interpreting;" thus, the entire foundation of understanding this principle is based off of educators realizing the process is both active and reflective. However, all the effort in the world on behalf of the educator will not amount to much unless the educator can find a way to successfully motivate and foster self-motivation within the learner. I have found in my first few weeks of teaching that the toughest battle in the classroom is not teaching the content or disciplining my students... it is simply inspiring them enough to be self-motivated to complete the task at hand. Essentially, in order for educators to guage student learning, knowledge, and success by way of AFL, they must equally understand the impact of their teaching methods on the motivation levels of their students.
First of all, and Dr. Barrett highlights this point in her article, in order for any significant amount of potential for electronic portfolios as tools for AFL to be recognized, educators and learners must understand the electronic portfolio has to represent an on-going process. Electronic portfolios will be of little to no value to an active learning process if they are simply constructed for the sake of construction. Rather than completing an electron portfolio for the purpose of a collection of work and data, these portfolios should represent ever-changing reflections of the student's process of learning. Dr. Barrett points out that the first characteristic an effective AFL electronic portfolio is that the learner and educator agree upon the purpose of the portfolio. I find this tenet to be clearly indicative of any type of potential for electronic portfolios as learners are given the freedom, and conversely- the accountability, to dictate what the portfolio will mean to their learning career. Personally, I would love to see some type of online database that houses an expansive and detailed electronic portfolio for every student in the district. Not only do I teach English I, but I am also the campus 504 coordinator for Winnsboro High School, so an electronic portfolio database that houses both information from educators and students that details how each learns would make my job much more meaningful. Ultimately, the potential that I see for electronic portfolios is accomplishing what educators have desired for so very long... a concrete, yet tranforming, roadmap of each student's academic and personal progression that replaces impersonal data, test scores, and charts.
In the past, I have not practiced efficient portfolio habits as Dr. Barrett would probably suggest. I have not taken an active and on-going approach to documenting and analyzing my own learning. However, by formulating an AFL portfolio for my own learning process, I believe I will retain much more of the skills that I practice.

Week 2 Reflection

The information, research, and opinions that I came across while completing this assignment gave me some significant insight into how the educator's view of technology and learning personality combine with the learner's view of technology and learning personality to create either a cohesive or detrimental learning community. Perhaps the most profound idea that I have come up with through this exercise is that all of these factors surrounding education technology are interwoven with the priority and effort each party utilizing the resources designates for them. Without significant effort and communication on behalf of the educators, educational technology cannot reach the learners. Without significant effort and interaction on behalf of the learners, educational technology cannot be utilized to its full potential and both the educator and learner experience a disconnect in learning through that particular lesson.

As for searching for information on the internet, I have always been very skeptical of any information that I find, and it has been my default practice in electronic research to rely solely on scholarly articles found in periodicals. However, it is undoubtedly apparent that our first inclination as scholars is to turn to the internet... primarily Google... for answers and research. The research that I use from the internet will always be well-documented, peer-reviewed, and legitimate published work because every piece of scholarship that I turn has my academic reputation attached to it. Therefore, I will be very judicious in screening and selecting the information that I search for and implement on the internet. Because of the intensive research background that my undergraduate background provided for me, I feel very confident in both my research habits and the information I have used. As I stated previously, I have always relied on peer-reviewed, published scholarly articles for research materials, and I feel that these are the most legitimate forms of electronic data.

First and foremost, if we fail to teach students how to properly conduct research online and utilize educational technology to its full extent, then we are certainly setting them up for disappointing failure in post-secondary school and the workplace. Research skills and technology mastery are above and beyond the most essential skills for students to have in today's world outside of secondary school. Even if a student never has to conduct research for an assignment, they still need to grasp the concept that, in order to solve the problem in front of them, they must locate, analyze, and implement the proper technique or procedure for solving their problem. Also, if we do not teach students how to discern what is credible or moral or legitimate content on the internet now, they will fall into a pattern of trusting every bit of information that they find online. This can lead to financial debt, moral bankruptcy, identity theft, plagerism, and misguidance among other things.

I do see several advantages to organizing information on social bookmarking tools. I chose to use the first website, www.bubbl.us, simply because I wanted to try a new site that I had never used before. The most significant advantage that I see to these sites are the user-friendly interfaces that make sharing ideas and information associated with our profession so easy and quick. Within minutes, I can share a concept map with a learning community that spans the entire nation or world, so, in the realm of communication, I see vast and numerous advantages to social bookmarking sites. I believe I will use this site within the coming weeks in my English I classes to give my students an interactive method of mapping plot diagrams for narrative essays. I encourage my students to map out all of their ideas before they begin any essay, and sites such as bubbl.us provide a stimulating alternative to writing on paper that students can play around with, upload to social media, and share with other students.

Educational Technology Philosophy

      Meaningful education ultimately represents the task of enabling students to problem solve both in an individual and communal setting rather than simply regurgitating information. My responsibility and desire as an educator is to construct and implement innovative methods of instruction that will challenge my students to produce solutions to the dilemmas they face. While fundamental skills and knowledge provide a basic and vital foundation for my teaching methods, instruction based on trial and error, group think, and interactive problem solving shall encompass a majority of the methods I utilize. The 8^th-12^th grade students within my scope of certification face a particularly complex challenge of coping with a multitude of external distractions, so my focus will center on grasping their attention with thought-provoking tasks and maintaining that attention by encouraging them to think, work together, succeed, fail, practice, and theoretically pry their way out of an intellectual tight spot in the curriculum. The cornerstone of my education philosophy, however, is the fact that I ascribe to the idea that, as an educator, I am to be held accountable for the success and growth of my students both academically and personally.

            In order to more precisely identify my role as an educator, I must first define the expectations that I have of my students. While the educator is to be held accountable for the success of the student, learners should ultimately command their own path towards knowledge and content mastery. My meaning is that the effort of the educator does not qualify as a substitute for the effort of a learner. The role of a learner is essentially to meet the educator halfway by remaining attentive, putting forth significant effort, and taking beneficial risks in order to truly master the skills being taught. The role of the educator, however, revolves more around a sense of conscientious servitude and production. Effort does not encompass the entire scope of responsibility for educators as they must combine hours of research and study with innovative instruction that produces desirable results in the classroom. C.S. Lewis once wrote, “The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.” As educators, we are to take the barren desert that is the learner and provide them with the type of instruction and exercises that allow them to cultivate success on their own.

            Martin Luther King, Jr. asserted that the goal of true education was “intelligence plus character.” My ultimate objective as a teacher correlates closely with Dr. King’s notion in that I will strive to instill in my students both fundamental knowledge and moral integrity. I want to achieve a symbiotic relationship between core curriculum and lessons that teach moral responsibility. More specifically, in my teaching field of English and language arts, I plan on successfully preparing my students for both state-mandated tests and college-level writing. In 2011, the writing and reading scores of Texas public schools from state-mandated exams ranked among the lowest percentage of passing rates out of all the subjects tested. Therefore, my personal objective as an English and language arts teacher is to utilize more interactive lessons that will inspire students to readily analyze literature and individual attention that will prompt students to take pride in the creation and editing of their writing. Above all, I fervently desire for each one of my students to receive meaningful and relevant instruction from my efforts that significantly challenges them to actively learn each day.

            Technology has become an integral part in almost every aspect of education, today. Numerous online software programs exist for various purposes, such as subject remediation, reviewing and editing, and interactive learning, and are made readily available for school systems to subscribe to. I vow to utilize as many of these programs as possible because they not only appeal to the senses of the learners, but they also allow for a smooth and rapid flow of information between educators. By incorporating online instructional program within my curriculum, I can foster in a newfound acceptance for vertical alignment across grade levels. The new technologies within the classroom also serve to entice the students to take part in their own learning. I believe the two main functions of technology in today’s classrooms are to make instruction simpler and learning more intriguing to the learner. However, the purpose and effectiveness of technology only extends as far as the educator is willing to allow it to do so. As an educator constantly competing for the attention of students, I will put forth the effort to master and effectively implement the technologies made available to me in the workplace.

            My approach to teaching combines the pragmatist and idealist schools of thought. The methods and instruction that I utilize incorporate both the real-world usefulness of pragmatic problem solving and the devotion to classical thinking, literature, and history of idealism. In order to accomplish the desired outcome for each lesson I implement, I plan on drawing from both of these schools for inspiration and organization. Each and every concept that I teach should undoubtedly possess some functional purpose within the scope of the learners’ curriculum and standards. These concepts should also remain true to the significant lessons provided by the classical canon of literature and historical texts. By combining the pragmatist and idealistic aims of education, I believe I can effectively inspire my students to better understand themselves, their social surroundings, and the nature of truth in their own lives whilst still remaining true to a core curriculum.

            Identifying what he stands for, wishes to accomplish, and how he intends to do so embody the three most essential components that an educator should consider. By defining my flexible parameters for these three fundamental ideas, I can then build a specific curriculum designed for active learning upon my personal foundation of educational philosophy. Before I know what and how I should teach my students, I must first know what I believe in. I place my faith in a fusion of classic material and interactive, group-based learning. I will resolve to implement new teaching strategies, software, and innovative technology in my instruction so that students under my watch will constantly be intrigued with the prospect of learning. From this basic philosophy, I can begin to discover myself as an educator and hopefully become a catalyst for active learning within the classroom.

            

Reflection

      By having a rough draft of my own educational technology philosophy available, I can readily refer back to the origins of my goals, expectations, desires, and plans. This educational philosophy will serve as my in-depth mission statement as well as a foundation for all of my decisions within the classroom. In many ways, an educational philosophy acts as a road map for educators to envision where they want to go whilst documenting where they began. As for the future of technology within the classroom, having my philosophy already prepared will assist me in keeping track of all the various manners in which I want to employ available technology. For instance, I state in my philosophy that I will strive to take advantage of all the newly available online software programs that both provide curriculum over state-mandated concepts and chart the progression of learners for all educators to share. By having my goal down in writing with this particular technology, I can hold myself accountable now that I have actually started teaching. 

      Blogging, as defined by Downes' 2004 article, seems to possess much potential in the area of rapid sharing of information. One of the uses that I foresee with blogging in education is teachers all over the nation following each other and sharing ideas with mere keystrokes on one blog community. Blogging, like other forms of social networking, has the potential to unite virtually any people group no matter what expanse of distance lies between them, so I can certainly conjecture that blogging could provide a structured realm of idea sharing for the education community. If one blogging database could register every educator in America and effectively unite all of us, the possibilities of communication, problem-solving, learning, and idea-sharing are limitless. I do not think that we have even come close to the full potential of blogging or other forms of social and educational networking, but I do believe we are beginning to create a culture of professionals devoted to the mastery of new technologies. We seem to have transcended the realm of reluctant usage of technology out of necessity to a thirst for more innovative uses of the technologies we possess. In that sense, we are on the right track, and blogging can be fully utilized the more we connect with each other through the tool. Inhibitions about software not being user-friendly and learning new programs seem to be the main obstacles for us when it comes to realizing the full potential of blogging. 

      In November's article, the point about choosing not to make technology plans in place of technological communication plans really struck a chord with me. If a school district devotes a majority of its time, finances, and manpower to obtaining and installing new technologies as opposed to organizing how such technologies will be used, then what is the good in that? November essentially points out that acquisition of innovative technology does not necessarily constitute successful learning- organization and planning of communication between educators and learners does! School districts need to plan how they will teach and what they will teach within the scope of available technologies before they ever attempt to plan what technologies should be made available. 

      I expect to encounter a challenging interface filled with instructors, fellow educators, and teaching candidates that will push me to both develop the necessary skills to become an effective teacher and learn to be accountable for my own methods and theories. I expect to have my views challenged, and I also expect to have to constantly provide evidence and support for the opinions that I post within our course. Since this course focuses on educational technology, I specifically expect to learn new methods and uses for the technologies that I am both familiar and unfamiliar with.