Workshop Four Blog

My student reading selection this week was about Johnny Appleseed. One of the things that we discussed was Johnny’s life-style– he did not wear the same types of clothing as others, and he did not live in a house like others did. He did not even stay in one place for very long. He was different from others. This caused some people to not trust him although many people still liked him and knew him to be a good man.

I feel like I have the same type of relationship with technology and its uses for it in the classroom. Our school does not have a “technological lifestyle” similar to the schools of friends in my cohort. I cannot pull up a video on my interactive whiteboard or dazzle my students with a PowerPoint created to teach them about collective nouns. The technology I use is different from others, and at times I do not trust it because of these differences. This however, doesn’t mean that many other people can’t also use it or know it to be good for integrating into their classrooms.

The learning activities that I’ve completed for this education in technology course have opened my eyes to the many possibilities for their use in education. I have especially thought over the blogs and social networks idea and have found it very helpful. I would really like to integrate it as a form of student portfolio.

I feel like the work my students do is worthy of being displayed and could provide a link to other schools across the globe. Education in China is much different than education in Canada, or even education in Australia. All educational technologies have good application and if we combine these ideas and collaborate with others, I think I could really see something amazing come out of it. I’d love to be able to present how I’d used blogs in the classroom at a educator’s professional development conference, similar to the ICEC conference I attended in Hong Kong.