“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” William Butler Yeats
The above quote by Yeats I believe is where I am at right now. As my journey through the University of Illinois Global Campus comes to an end, it has helped me to learn and realize several things about myself and what I need to be teaching my students. Everything that we have learned and discussed in the past 18 months has lighted a fire within me to change what is currently being done within not only my own classroom and department, but also within my district.
As we have moved through our courses, we have learned so many different things. There are just too many to list, but there are several that I have already begun using with my students and more that I plan on using with them. We have worked with Moodle, Google Reader, Google Docs, Jing, Twitter, PBWiki (now PBWorks), TurnItIn.com and list goes on. I have realized that I need to be doing much more with my students when it comes to technology. I need to help them realize how important it is to keep up on what is available to all of us and what employers are expecting.
I have realized that prior to starting this program I was becoming very stagnant in what I was doing with my students. I was becoming one of those teachers that would do the same types of things, year after year with her students. I do not want to be that type of teacher. I want to make sure that I am keeping things as up to date as we can – given the district’s budget – and exciting for the students. I want to make sure that I am doing everything I can to help my students have the 21st Century Skills that employers are expecting. I want to make sure that not only my students know what the NETS (National Education Technology Standards) are for themselves, but also for my fellow teachers and administration.
I realize that even though I am a Business Teacher and work with computers on a daily basis with students, I was not really pushing my students to learn everything they need to learn for the future. I am now looking at everything I teach in a very different light. I am now seeing where teaching my students what I have been is a good, but I can do better. I am now finding ways to integrate things we have talked about into my classroom. I am planning on showing my students how to not only use the basic software we have such as Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. but also show them and help them set up accounts to have a Google Docs account. I want them to realize how to work these applications so that if they are ever presented with different software, they are able to adapt. I want them to realize that even if you are not face-to-face with a person that you could still work on a group project using websites such as PBWorks.
I have realized that my insight and thoughts on how students learn and how classrooms are set up has changed since I started teaching in 1999. I know look at things in a more Constructivist viewpoint. I want my students to create some of their own knowledge and learning. I want them to take what we discuss and talk about in class, but create meaning for it. I want them to find ways to connect what we do, say, and discuss into something that has meaning for them. Before, I just wanted my students to take what I told them and use it without asking questions or considering their own view on the topics.
I have encountered many challenges during this journey. I have had to deal with not only personal illness but also with many that I work with being very negative or unsupportive. We still have a large number of teachers that are uncertain or afraid online learning and the use of technology within the classrooms. As a result, I have had some say that these courses are not ones where I have had to do any work or that I have not learned information that I can use. I disagree with them. I believe I have had to work harder these past 18 months than I had to during the four years for my Bachelor’s Degree. I have had to focus on what we were doing, discussing, and talking about while also keeping up on the expectations that my district had for me in the classroom. I have started to integrate information and resources into my classroom so I have not only been learning, but also changing the entire curriculum for some of our courses within the Business Department. I have had to deal with the infamous computer crashing and what to do. At the beginning of this course, my computer crashed. I was in tears. I did not know what to do! Luckily, I have a terrific computer tech at work that helped me out, but it is still something that is hard to handle and deal with.
I believe that since I have completed this journey, I am now looking at what I want to do next. Originally, I wanted to earn my Masters degree in order to move me on our salary schedule and give me the opportunity to teach at the community college or junior college level. I have achieved these goals, but it has also made me want more. I am now considering looking at furthering my education even more. I am not totally sure what I want to do next, do I want to earn another Masters degree or move on towards a Doctorate? Either way, I want to keep learning. I want to keep learning to help my students and to make myself a lifelong learner. I am now even more one of the people that our computer tech comes to ask some questions or see if I think, we should be using different technologies. He wants to get my input on some things to see how well I see others accepting it. I also go to him more to see what he thinks about using new items and getting them onto our computer systems for the students to use. We are already looking at what to do and use for the next school year with our students. It is extremely exciting.
“An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don’t.” Anatole France said this. I now realize how true it is for me. I know realize how much I truly did not know and still do not know. This experience at the University of Illinois Global Campus has made me realize how much I know and how much I still have to learn.