Reflection - Reaching and Engaging All Learners Through Technology

In this the final week of the course called Reaching and Engaging all Learners through Technology, I am thinking about how taking this course has and will change my instructional practices. This course has provided me with an opportunity to gain knowledge and web resources by collaborating with other educators throughout the country and the world. This course has not only discussed collaboration, but also discussed management which is a issue that all teachers must be aware of when facilitating for students.

The use of Facebook.com in this course gave a dynamic to this course that I had never experienced before. This avenue gave me instant information from colleagues like never before. My colleagues and I were able to bounce ideas off each other in a 21st century method just like our students would be able to do. The use of the chat feature gave us the opportunity to communicate with each other as if we were having face to face conversations. This ability to collaborate and discuss with others about Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Differentiated Instruction (DI) helped me to understand how the process affects the classroom teachers in a way that I as a specialist would not have understood otherwise. We posted different ideas every week and it was really beneficial to read the comments about what others thought about the web resource. I truly believe that the comments from other teachers using the web resources were the most valuable pieces of review that I could receive. I was able to take these critiques and edit how I used the resources in my class and how I was able to present them to my school colleagues as web resources that they should use. Utilizing these resources have given me more options than just using PowerPoint presentations. I have enjoyed using the resources and I am happy to see the excitement on the faces of the students from the use of 21st century teaching methods. When the teacher infuses technology into daily instruction students are provided with authentic learning experiences that appeal to all types of learners (Laureate, 2009).

The activity that we did in this course that had a huge impact on my instructional practices was taking of a survey on the CAST website. This site assist teachers in using the UDL principles to keep all of the students engaged in the learning process. "The goal of UDL is to enable all individuals to gain knowledge, skills and enthusiasm for learning (CAST, 2007-2010)." The CAST Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Curriculum Self-Check is a guide for teachers to look in-ward to see how they can create a open environment for student learning. Once completing this survey I realized that I have more work to do to be an effective teacher using the UDL in Health and Physical Education. Using The CPS clicker system, on-line surveys, and jeopardy games as assessment procedures were additions to my teaching methods directly came from me taking the survey.

In conclusion, I believe that taking this course has made me a better teacher. Being taught how to look internally and taking that information to better my own understanding of my teaching methods is important when teaching digital natives from the perspective of a digital immigrant. Infusing technology into daily instruction provides students with authentic learning experiences that appeal to all types of learners kinesthetic, auditory, and visual. When managing differentiation and technology in the classroom it is important to show the students that they can be resources for information that their classmates can use. I believe that using technology to reach out to the digital natives will provide them with opportunities to gain skills that will serve them well after they leave school (Bray, Brown, & Green, 2004) helping them to have success in the world that they were born into.