Week 5 Reflection

My biggest "Aha!" moments this semester were amazingly from the first week. When we read the Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants article, my eyes finally opened to the reality of education and how it is changing. Through developing my philosophy I have really been able to center my focus on instruction and what ways are developmentally appropriate for my incoming students and what is going to be most beneficial to their learning process, as well as mine. I still see the importance in many of the philosophies, but I definitely think that learning needs to be student centered, with strong teacher guidance.

I plan on adapting as many of my lessons as I can to incorporate more technological portions of our new age into learning. I have to keep in mind that our students are not going to fully grasp and understand a concept by merely "sitting and getting" or even merely participating in "hands on" activities. I will need to take the conceptual knowledge needed and effectively merge it will real-world applications and those hands on experiences that create background knowledge and I now see that technology is the key to creating the bridge to connect each of those necessities to learning. I am so excited to get back into the classroom this year and "see" the how the effective use of technology will impact my classroom.

This course has really cemented in mind the hold that technology has on our society and how I need to infuse my teaching with the language my students are learning in, as foreign as it may be.