Reflections on Teaching & Learning in a Networked Classroom

Here are some final thoughts on my learnings from Jeff Utecht's Teaching and Learning in a Networked Classroom. Jeff has designed a very useful and engaging class. Of all the courses I have taken in the past few years this one definitely bubbles itself to the top. I have felt challenged by the overwhelming amount of information there is to try to decipher and decide what makes sense for me to integrate into my own work with students. I was excited to be able to take a class from someone who is clearly a leader in the field. This certainly is the first time I have taken a course from someone on the opposite side of the world…but a “flat world “ is certainly a little closer! One of my planned reads for the summer is Tom Frieman's The World is Flat. I always go into the summer with more reading then summer to read
it in. But the Frieman's book is already on the self.
In the past ten years I have come to see myself as an educator who views learning as a constructivism, during this class I have begun to learn what it means to consider connectivism. The idea of social learning (other than my knowledge of collaborative learning and students working in lab groups) was not really on my radar screen. I see this becoming important in my thinking about student learning within the classroom as well as my work as an educational leader in my building and my work with fellow teachers. I see a lack of time for collaboration as a real weakness in traditional brick and mortar schoolhouse, this class has given me new ways of collaborating. I hope to do some real thinking about this idea of cyber connections, even within my school. I hope to build a learning community with both face to face meeting as well as a web presence. I am excited about this summer when I can get a chance to come up for air and wrap my head around how this might work.
This course has been filled with many valuable experiences. Instead of thinking about blogging…I had to blog and blog often, a great thing and one I hope to continue even after I get my final grade! RSS feed something I had never even heard of and that has become an efficient and important way I stay connected and up to date. I am also very glad I was pushed to make a podcast, though I was not thrilled with my effort…I’m glad I did it an hope to get a more meaningful podcast posted soon.
On additional aspect of the class that I found particularly valuable was all potential connections I saw for future work with other staff members, the value of teachers collaborating is immense. The difficulty finding time within the school day is also also immense. So anything we can do to increase collaboration using web 2.0 tools will be a very good thing. As I worked through the materials for this class I often thought of tools and ideas that could be used to increase professional learning communities with in my high school.
There is much more I write...but for now I'll be done. I anticipate continuing the use this blog as a place to place my ponderings on learning & teaching!