Sharing

Another thing I've learned this year is to never underestimate the power of collaboration. As tired and worn out as I was this last week of school, I really am glad that we had the opportunity to get together and share our lessons and units. As I listened to others talk about their projects, I made mental notes of several ideas/tools/lessons that I want to check out in depth over the summer. For example, I am definitely going to incorporate student blogging next year. A few other reading/language arts teachers in the cohort used individual student blogs. Seeing examples of these blogs convinced me of their usefulness and multiple applications for my content area. Also, I was inspired to use my wiki even more as our class "hub." This year I mainly used the Eboard as I was used to it and found it easy to navigate. However, I believe the wiki has more functionality for the long run. So, to sign off I would like to thank CDE for this opportunity to learn and grow as a 21st Century educator. Happy Summer!

Obstacles

After reflecting on my participation in the E2T2 grant this year I've found that there were a few obstacles to creating/implementing exemplary 21st Century projects. The top two obstacles I encountered and still struggle with are lack of time and lack of resources.

I'm looking forward to summer to be able to do more personal research into project-based learning ideas. During the school year it is so hard to keep up on all of the "have-to" stuff much less investigating the myriad of online resources available for teachers. I have an extensive list of web sites to peruse this summer while planning my units for next year. I have fully bought in to the idea of project-based learning and hope to incorporate it better each year. I especially want to figure out a way to connect my students with students from other places and cultures. I did not manage to do that this first year.

The other obstacle was the lack of technology resources for the classroom. We have 3 computer labs at our school but they fill up quickly and are hard to get in as much as I would like to. Fortunately, I did have access to a set of ipod touches third trimester and used them quite a bit. However, I didn't have enough time to figure out how to sync them with my laptop or research additional apps to use in lessons. At least we got started with this tool and can use them more appropriately next year. This summer I plan to find apps and methods for integrating them into next years' units. Our school also has no video or digital cameras for student use. I found this to be a stumbling block, especially for my theme speech video project.

Obviously, there is much room for improvement in my school and in my classroom to incorporate 21st Century learning. But I do feel that through participation in this grant I have received awareness of the many resources to research and ideas for incorporation into my future lessons.