Write a reflective blog post on how the courses to date in this program have changed your teaching for the new year.

The underlying theme of the first two courses has been "social networking." I believe social networking has its place in education, even in the 7th grade classroom. We've had the most success with blogging and wikiing. But really, what it has reinforced for me is that students can learn and gain knowledge from each other, from interacting with each others' ideas. I'm not sure how good at it they are just yet as 12/13 year olds, but it's a skill we can build with practice. That of course leads to the question why not practice with their classmates who are actually in the classroom rather than with students half way around the world? It's easy to say, "because they can!" or "because it's such a rewarding and enriching experience to interact with voices from around the globe." However, middle school is a time of phenomenal brain growth and I am of the mind frame as an educator that one of my primary roles is to carefully guide students through this period of growth. While I like the "mess around with this" when students are setting up their iGoogle pages or their blogs, that "mess around" mind frame shouldn't carry over to important developmental learning activities. If the middle grades are a time of massive growth in the "control center for 'executive functions' such as planning, impulse control and reasoning [emphasis mine]" then those middle grade students deserve a carefully considered set of learning activities to develop those functions.


So, while I can't say that the two classes we've had so far in the program have changed my teaching, those classes have given me lots to think about with the students and have also given me many new technology tools to consider. I think it's also imperative that we work collaboratively as experienced and professional educators to have meaningful discussions about how technology might best be used in the classroom.