Course Reflections

I have been going back and forth trying to decide the right time to go back to school; I looked in other programs, but I determined that the Masters of Education Technology Leadership is the one for me. To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect when I first signed up for my masters. I had been out of school for a year, and I was still feeling that sense of accomplishment. I was the very first person in my family to graduate, and I was on cloud nine. I figured that the course load would be similar to what I had experienced while enrolled for my bachelors, but I was mistaken. The course work seemed much more geared toward building my internal professionalism. I not only was introduced to a lot of tools that I can and have been using daily, but I feel as though I am a better teacher and communicator since I have read up on the topics outlined in this course. I feel like I am properly equipped to lead others to utilize the technologies that are in existence.

I am extremely pleased in the outcomes of my EDLD 5306 course. I have been able to learn so much from wikis to blogs to animoto to so many other tools that are right at my fingertips. I had heard about blogs and wikis before, but I didn’t know enough about how to create one or the other until I took this course. Now, I am using these in my classroom. I am using wordle for vocabulary words, creating presentations on the water cycle using animoto, and I am setting up a class wiki for my third graders and their parents to communicate. The only drawback comes from within my school itself. There is not a large portion of the faculty that share my vision of technology in the classroom. I find myself re--teaching skills that should have been learned before third grade. With that being said, I regress back to the topic at hand. I cannot find a thing that I studied in this course that has not found a place in my career and classroom.

Being that it is a distance learning course and completely engrossed in technology in one form or the other, the only outcomes that I did not achieve were those self associated ones. I have ADHD but do not lack self discipline, which is almost ironic; I can say that I have a hard time taking everything in. I read and read again and sometimes I just cannot focus on what it is that I just read. I am truly passionate about understanding diverse learners because I am one, but I also see how much information can pass them by. I am glad that I learn by doing, but sometimes I need to hear and watch. I wasn’t able to “watch” some of the activities which made me feel less comfortable when I would come across something that I wasn’t sure of. We did have weekly times to “meet” and discuss the course with classmates, but it never failed that something in my life took precedence at those times. I didn’t let it get me down or keep me from working; I have always been a hard worker whose work ethic can be compared to that of someone who works around the clock.

Technically, I am one who works around the clock. I have a four month old beautiful baby girl, two eight year old girls, and a ten year old boy who loves to read. They take up most of my time. I spend a couple of nights a week at soccer practice for one child, and I try to spend as much time as possible with the baby because my days are spent with my other forty-five children. I work as a Third Grade Math and Science teacher. I spend Wednesday afternoons in faculty meetings and Monday and Wednesday mornings tutoring so I really don’t have much free time. The time that I do have to myself, I am using to better myself. This is my time set aside to study and earn my masters. I am thankful that I have such a supporting partner. He takes care of the house and children when I need to complete tasks and things for myself.  With all that goes on in my life, I still had time to complete my assignments. I may have forgotten a discussion post the first or second week, but I made sure to finish and look over each week’s assignment.

I’ve got to say that I learned just how much that I can juggle. I haven’t reached my breaking point, and the course load for my masters will not push me to it. I know that I can achieve this. Not only can I achieve this goal, but I can share all the knowledge with others at my campus as well as my students. Everyone can benefit from what I have learned, and it wouldn’t be right to keep it to myself. Now that I have the tools, I need to polish my leadership skills a bit so that I am completely comfortable in talking and mentoring others. As far as my technology is concerned, I am learning with every article and book that the sky is the limit. I thought I knew some things, but I was wrong. Technology makes more sense when you learn more about it. I hope that other students in the course have similar experiences.