In August I started two classes for my UNI Instructional Technology Masters Program: Instructional Development and Technology in Education. Both sounded like very interesting classes, but I had no idea what I was getting into. I have grown so much as a student and as a teacher from these classes and the experiences they gave me.
Instructional Development led us through an analysis of instructional strategies and then through a process of developing our own instructional course through the Dick and Carey instructional design model. This process was by far the toughest part of the quarter for me, but only because of all the intricate details involved. I have to admit that I have never thought about classroom instruction in this way, but definitely will from now on. I developed a training module for the staff at WCC to support the integration of a projector and document camera into their curriculum. I have developed and taught training sessions in technology for the staff at WCC before, but never to this level of quality. I am very excited to hold the training session and see the results of all my hard work and planning. I actually feel ready and able to complete the training module.
In our Technology in Education course, we analyzed the impact that technology has made on education throughout the past 100 years of innovations by reading two books, Failure to Connect (1986) by Jane Healy and Teachers and Machines (1986) by Larry Cuban. Being a history buff it was very interesting to read the words and predictions of authors from a specific time period and then to see if their predictions became true in our lives. Our final project for this class was to pick a new instructional technology that has yet to have widespread use in the United States and plan a proposal for integrating it into education. I chose social networking; this topic is one that I am personally passionate about and use in my classroom on a daily basis. In my research I found a report of a 2007 survey of 9-17 year olds that showed 50% of students used social networking sites to talk about school, homework, etc. (Gewertz, C. 2007, Education Week). Yet, schools are blocking these sites at school and ignoring the wonderful possibilities they offer both the student and the teacher.
