My Schooling may be over but my education continues
By Chris Norred
“Tell me and I forget. Show me and I remember. Involve me and I understand.”
– Chinese
Proverb
This proverb is a great way to sum up me as an educator and as a student myself. In order to improve myself as a teacher I need to be a learner. You can tell me about all the new technology that is available or show me what it is like when it is used but until I have a chance to use it myself, I will not completely understand it. I believe this is also true for teaching students, I can tell them information but they will forget it after a test, show them how to do something and they might remember how to do it, but not until you involve them will they understand the material.The MAET program has made me a lot more comfortable in both teaching with technology and the willingness to learn more about the newest ways to incorporate it into my classroom. I have also become more comfortable in becoming a leader in teaching educational technology. I want to learn about new ways to use technology to help my students and the best way is to get myself involved in the learning process.
I am always trying to find a way to improve my teaching or integrate new technology into my classroom. Students these days are very adept to using technology in their everyday lives and they tend to learn more when they can integrate their expertise of modern technology into their learning. One of the first ways I plan on continuing my learning and education is learning through my students. Sometimes the students have a little more knowledge with technology than I do and I have no problem asking them how they create certain presentations. For example, I have assigned a project where my students had to create a presentation, they could use any method they wanted to or use any presentation tool. I expected them to use PowerPoint or Prezi, but I had a student ask if they could use Movie Maker to create their project. I watched them create their presentation and asked questions how they did certain things. I was able to learn and later experiment with it myself. I plan to continue to learn through my students.
Another way I plan to continue to learning is by attending the MACUL Conference (Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning). I have been to this conference for three straight years and plan to continue to attend in the coming years. I have been to a variety of workshops at this conference which include, “Using Google Earth in the Social Studies Classroom”, “Using Cloud 2.0 in History Classes”, and “Teaching with Primary Resources: Free Digital Resources from the Library of Congress.” I have really enjoyed this conference and have brought ideas that I learned there into my class. I learned about Glogster from one of the workshops at MACUL and tried to create a poster myself and enjoyed it. I have implemented Glogster into my class, my students must create an online poster about a WWI topic and present it on the SMARTBoard. MACUL is a very informative conference which will help me
continue my education in the future.
Cranbrook provides professional development in the summer as well as all year. In the summer my school provides an opportunity to attend “curriculum mastery program” sessions. These sessions offer workshops to learn from other teachers as well as other professionals about a variety of teaching topics. I plan on attending these sessions each summer in order to continue to learn about my profession. Some of the benefits to this program are that we the teachers come up with what topics will be the focus of the sessions. This program is also a great because it gives us teachers a chance to lead the sessions. This will give me a great chance to talk to other teachers about what technology they use or what they are interested in. I will have the chance to become a leader at my school by
passing on what I have learned in my MAET program.
As a teacher, I believe that learning never ends and we constantly are learning new ways to teach and new ways to use technology. I do not plan on taking any more formal classes at a university but I do plan on taking part in professional development both at my school and at confrences such as MACUL.
I am always trying to find a way to improve my teaching or integrate new technology into my classroom. Students these days are very adept to using technology in their everyday lives and they tend to learn more when they can integrate their expertise of modern technology into their learning. One of the first ways I plan on continuing my learning and education is learning through my students. Sometimes the students have a little more knowledge with technology than I do and I have no problem asking them how they create certain presentations. For example, I have assigned a project where my students had to create a presentation, they could use any method they wanted to or use any presentation tool. I expected them to use PowerPoint or Prezi, but I had a student ask if they could use Movie Maker to create their project. I watched them create their presentation and asked questions how they did certain things. I was able to learn and later experiment with it myself. I plan to continue to learn through my students.
Another way I plan to continue to learning is by attending the MACUL Conference (Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning). I have been to this conference for three straight years and plan to continue to attend in the coming years. I have been to a variety of workshops at this conference which include, “Using Google Earth in the Social Studies Classroom”, “Using Cloud 2.0 in History Classes”, and “Teaching with Primary Resources: Free Digital Resources from the Library of Congress.” I have really enjoyed this conference and have brought ideas that I learned there into my class. I learned about Glogster from one of the workshops at MACUL and tried to create a poster myself and enjoyed it. I have implemented Glogster into my class, my students must create an online poster about a WWI topic and present it on the SMARTBoard. MACUL is a very informative conference which will help me
continue my education in the future.
Cranbrook provides professional development in the summer as well as all year. In the summer my school provides an opportunity to attend “curriculum mastery program” sessions. These sessions offer workshops to learn from other teachers as well as other professionals about a variety of teaching topics. I plan on attending these sessions each summer in order to continue to learn about my profession. Some of the benefits to this program are that we the teachers come up with what topics will be the focus of the sessions. This program is also a great because it gives us teachers a chance to lead the sessions. This will give me a great chance to talk to other teachers about what technology they use or what they are interested in. I will have the chance to become a leader at my school by
passing on what I have learned in my MAET program.
As a teacher, I believe that learning never ends and we constantly are learning new ways to teach and new ways to use technology. I do not plan on taking any more formal classes at a university but I do plan on taking part in professional development both at my school and at confrences such as MACUL.