Greatest Loss

Summarize what you learned in the class, what technologies you plan to integrate into your curriculum and how you plan accomplish this.
What was the most valuable idea or application you learned from this course?

Once there was a little teacher who really loved what she did. She rolled up her sleeves and in just about every way jumped in and learned with her students. Every way, that is except when it came to computers. There were three that sat in the corner of her class. Of course, when asked why she didn't use them, she was quick to respond with disdain, "They just don't work!"

Then one day, this little teacher found herself needing to clear her credential. So she took a computer class. She found herself in a beautiful computer lab with great computers. She started clicking and surfing and bumping into error messages, icons she didn't recognize, words she had never heard before. She couldn't blame it on the lovely computers. She realized it was her! She was scared and nervous and didn't know what to do.

She took a deep breath and started pressing buttons and asking questions...she went into school the next day and started asking her students. Then a very interesting dialogue began. Student to teacher, teacher to student. Roles were actually pretty blurry. One thing was clear. They all began to learn. Cords were unplugged, websites explored. The district computer support person contacted. Google Earth was downloaded. Math Games played and coolest of all were the images. Students who were just learning English were looking up words using online dictionaries and google images.

There was an interesting buzz that floated from that corner of the classroom that was once occupied by dusky computers. It was the humming sound that floats around when learning is taking place.

So the teacher is me and the students are the ones I'm lucky to have in my class. The most important thing I have gotten out of this class is acutually something that I lost...I lost my fear of computers. I see them as my allies and I see what a powerful tool they are. I also see a need for me to continue to learn more about them. I am considering going back to school to get a masters in liguistics. After seeing the impact technology had in vocabulary development with my nonenglish speakers, I want to explore how technology can be used in the area of language development. I believe in it and am excited about learning more about it.