This document discusses the experiences and reflections of a student taking an education technology course. While initially thinking they were tech savvy, the student found the course challenging at times but learned new skills like creating a blog. Some desired topics like current research on principal technology use and budgeting were not covered. The student feels the course helped develop their leadership and technology skills and they want to share knowledge with teachers to help students as 21st century learners.

1. After learning the title of the course, I didn’t think it had any relation to technology. After going through the articles, lectures, and assignments, then I knew that this class was primarily going to be dealing with technology. I was pleased at first because I do think that I am somewhat tech savvy. However after working through the course, I soon found that I got frustrated at times. I also used technology often when I was a classroom teacher and tried to incorporate it into any lesson that I could. Now, being out of the classroom, I have more time to create a variety of lessons that teachers can use in their own classrooms. I hoped that the articles we would read would be recent and showing latest trends with technology, up to date ways that classrooms and teachers are using technology, etc. I had also hoped to get more ideas of creating lessons, or reading about other people who use technology in their classrooms, and learning more ways to incorporate technology across the curriculum. Another thought I had that we would learn is how a principal decides about using the budget for technology purposes. Some of the outcomes aligned with what we did throughout the course and some outcomes were not met.I use technology daily and for various reasons. The outcomes I achieved are still relevant for me to use now. For the most part, I use technology to analyze data. I also try to find activities online that teachers can use in their classrooms. One of the parts we did was to create a blog. This could be something that teachers can create on their own with minimal difficulty. The hardest part was getting assignments to post. However, I did eventually get everything to post and was successful. This was a big feeling of accomplishment. This is something that I can continue to do in my current position. Another task I’m going to try to tackle is using some of the 2.0 Web Tools that have been mentioned. I have more available time than teachers do, so I’d like to experiment with these tools and create things they can use. There were a few ideas that I had thought the course would cover. However, these topics I thought of were not met as an outcome of the course. One topic I was hoping for was to read more current articles. Some were dated many years back, and I know technology is always changing, updated, and is filled with new opportunities/challenges that other people have found and wrote about. I would like to also have read articles that were current with research about how the leader/principal incorporates technology on their campus. This would’ve been some beneficial insight and knowledge that I need to become more familiar with. Also, I wanted to find out more information on ways to incorporate technology across the curriculum. How a principal works technology into the budget was also a topic I had hoped we’d cover or read current articles about too. I’m sure each district has different policies and guidelines that have to be followed. However, this would have made for an interesting assignment to look into how the principal assigns funds from the budget for technology purposes. I feel I was prevented from achieving these topics due to the articles being from years ago, updated articles/assignments not covering in depth issues that were related to technology across the curriculum nor any parts related to the budget for technology purchases.I was successful in carrying out the assignments throughout the course. I did at times get frustrated with some of the assignments. It seems that some of the assignments were a little open ended and I never knew sometimes if I was doing the assignment in the right format, or table, or chart, or just what was being expected to be turned in. I never really got discouraged, I pretty much just followed the rubric and hoped for the best when I received a grade back a few days later. Apparently, I was successful in doing the assignments because I did receive 100’s on week’s 1-4 assignments. I don’t think the tasks were hard to do; they were just a bit time consuming. Especially when I have to figure out what is meant by the directions, or where to post what, etc. The assignments were beneficial and provided me with a few skills and thoughts to keep in mind as I become a leader one day (STaR Chart results for campus/state, making a blog, other 2.0 Web Tools, etc.).This course has taught me a few things. I did my very first blog. I never thought about making or keeping a blog. I’ve known many other people/friends who keep one – but it never really interested me to make one for myself. I might be a little more tempted now to maintain the site since I’ve seen how they can work from taking this course. I do think I have gained some technology skills, even though I had previously thought that I was tech savvy. My leadership skills have developed as well. I have learned how to better read the results from the STaR Chart survey and determine the areas where we need to make adjustments and improvements. I would also like to share my wealth of knowledge with my staff and help them to become more aware of the benefits that using technology in the classroom across the curriculum can have on their students as well as themselves. The 21st century learner comes to school now days knowing a variety of knowledge that relates to technology. At times, the student can be more tech savvy than their teachers. A blog can be a valuable educational tool that could benefit students. A variety of information, presentations, documents, etc. can be uploaded to the blog. This then gives the student the opportunity to view what information is available for them to read. A blog also allows a student to leave comments related to a particular post that they have viewed. Anyone else could then read and leave comments as well. This could then be a tool that goes back and forth between the students and blogger having communication about the topic that is posted. There are also many blogs that are already made and posted that can be followed as well as having students create their own blog. This could be something they create as a project, a review, or they can post what they thought about a lesson – of course always keeping in mind the etiquette of the internet world. I’m sure there are a number of concerns for bloggers. Even though it can be viewed as a valuable and educational tool, there are some dangers of using this tool as well. It is important to always keep the students safe while being online. Their identity needs to be kept private. Students who are using a blog need to be made aware of the policy and guidelines that are in place so that they don’t abuse the privilege of online/internet use. The district should also have safeguards in place so the students can create their blogs in a risk free environment. The students must also know that everything that is posted can be read by many, many people. They should only post what is appropriate. School districts and families need to have a policy in place as to the rules of using this tool as well as other technology tools.Blogging can be a useful tool in order to communicate with the stakeholders of the school. It is also important to keep everyone involved aware of the campus/district policy and guidelines related to the online tool. This would be beneficial for the administrators to post important information about the campus, campus events, or other information related to health issues, weather problems, or school closings. Another benefit of the tool is that the stakeholders of the school can follow the blog in order to keep themselves updated, leave comments, or just read it to maintain the home-school connection. Teachers can also have their own blog set up that has posts of homework, study guides/reviews, important dates, etc. Even with so many people on the go and the new age of cell phones, the stakeholders can get the information from the blog on their own phone. They don’t even need a computer in order to access the information.