Personal/Professional Growth- Final Blog

The course is finally coming to an end and as I'm sure my other classmates would agree, we couldn't be more excited. I have completed my final project and am very happy with the outcome of the project. I will continue to update and add more to the project so that I can put it in place next year and introduce yet another amazing tool that this program has taught me.

For one of our final assignments, Louis has asked us to go through our blogs and see where were are verses where we where in the beginning of this program. While reading the blogs, it is interesting to see all the things I was excited to learn about during the course that I now use everyday! I don't remember the time before Google Docs and I am so appreciative that I know about it now. It has been one of my most used resources from this class and I have been able to educate others on it so they can see all the benefits from using this resource.

So now to the questions:

"Has [the journey] been worthwhile, have you grown personally and professionally?"

This program has been one of the most useful educational resources I have ever been enrolled in as a student. I have taken away so much from this program and have really been introduced to more technology than I knew was out there before this program started.

Personally, I feel that I have grown mentally just from being able to explore all the technology we were introduced to. While I may not use some of the resources we were shown, I am able to say that I know about them and could show others the basics around those programs. I am more aware of emerging technology and will continue to stay up on what the web has to offer. I will continue to be curious in the web and seek new programs/tools that will better the way I work personally and professionally.

Professionally, I feel more confident in my field of work, as well as my ability to instruct others regarding web tools. I have taken away different applications/tools that I can share with other educators and help my school to continue to grow. Students have shown great interest in the technology that I have incorporated into the classroom thus far and I am excited to see how my final project will continue to expand their interest into the web.

"What would you wish you had delved into deeper?"

As for what I wish I would have dived into more, during the class I would say that I was interested in all the different presentation software programs that we were shown. I enjoyed learning about all the different ways I could educate my students and while those courses passed by, I did continue to learn about them.

Two months ago, I would say that I knew the basics of most of the presentation software that was introduced, but after completing my final project, I have taken the time to learn about what was introduced to me and explore and create ways to teach it to others! I am very excited that I took the time to learn more about presentation software as I can see many students being excited to learn it.

Another thing would be the TED videos! Every video shown during this program has been very interesting to me and I would like to look for ones that I could show in class relating to my work.

But as of now, I would say that everything I would have wanted to learn more about for the most part, I did! I grasped a lot of the course during the time we were be taught it.

"What surprises have you had?"

I think my biggest surprise is that I was able to survive before using some of these tools! As I said before, Google Docs is a huge part of my daily life. I am able to type up assignments from home and then open them on a different computer and share them with the students!

Also, while I felt very wise about the internet before this class, I now see that there is much about the internet I can still learn. While all the different developers and programs that emerge each day, I can see how one could never stop learning. I will continue to strive to stay current on the latest technologies and hope to find ones that will better my classroom as well as my personal life.

"What satisfactions can you share?"

I think the biggest satisfaction I can share is feeling confident in my work. I am able to educate others on ways to better their classrooms, homework, personal life, ect. Teachers come to me and ask for help on things that I now find simple. Students are eager to learn about things that other teachers would not want to engage in learning because its "too advanced"! I can honestly say that being the teacher who is as interested in learn about technology as much as the students are has been an excellent bonding area for me and the students. They are now as excited to learn about the things I will teach as I am to teach it. Not only does that make me feel good, but it makes me happy to be doing something that sparks my interest and I know will for as long as I keep exploring new emerging technologies.

So overall, this program has been a God send. I have taken away so much over the course of the program and have made friends with other classmates who I would not have known otherwise. I hope to stay in touch with them and be there if they would need something and vice versa. It is great to have resources outside of the district and I wish the best for everyone.

Thank you to the professors who have taken their time to instruct these classes so that we may better ourselves.

Best of luck everyone,
Mike

CEDo599- Week 3

So once again, a busy week! I have changed my ideas around thanks to the help of some classmates and will now be setting up the page based on assignment, instead of trying to cover everything in one week for each unit.

Overall, I think my progress is going well (considering how many changes I made!) and hope I keep at this pace so I can get it finished, tweaked and submitted early. This project has been quite stressful, so it would be nice to keep working hard and finish early. I'm also excited to see the finished product and what I have created. Hopefully the rest of the changes needed will be minimal and everything keeps going smoothly.

CEDo599-Week 2

This week we had our first single meetings with Louis. I was very grateful for this meeting! Louis pointed out that I was taking on too much for my project and suggested that I change the project to something similar, but just a bit less. After working on the project this week, I am very glad that Louis knows what he is talking about! I have changed my project from 18 weeks worth of instruction down to 3 weeks. Before I made that change, I thought that I could easily create 18 weeks worth of work in 40 hours, but after working on three alone, I have found that when I complete this project, I will be putting in over 35 hours!

Another thing that I have found to be interesting this week has been seeing other classmates projects and how they are progressing! Some students will be spending the time given to implement websites into their classroom and others are taking on the tasks of creating websites from scratch! It is exciting to see all the ideas that our group has come up with and wish my classmates the best of luck when working on these projects.

I am excited to meet with Louis again tomorrow and keep progressing on with my project!

CEDo599-Week 1

This is the most exciting first week of blogging so far in the semester! This week is the final first week of courses for me at Cardinal-Stritch! This week is also exciting because we will begin our final projects for the program!

After my meeting with Louis this week, I actually feel a bit better about this project. Before, I was planning on creating a full length course for a Computer Applications class that students and other teachers would be able to use as a resource. Louis told me that I was basically taking on too much and suggested that I create three units that anyone could take and teach just off of the work I have given/displayed. I am excited to begin working on this and depending on how well it goes, I will actually plan to add more after this course is over.

I do still feel overwhelmed, however. I was under the assumption that this course was still six weeks long and realizing it is only four makes me realize how little time I actually do have to work on this project. I am excited to do more research and get a good start on it.

Hopefully after my meeting this week with Louis I will still be excited to keep working on this project!

CEDo565- Week Five

This week we wrapped up the Change Game and I thought it was a worthwhile and fun experience. It was also kind of frustrating at times to put in a lot of effort only to see you not go anywhere. Our team had long periods of no advancement during the first and second years. Then after year two, we were able to get the people moving quite well. Then we ran out of time! I thought the time aspect really made it a more real simulation. Time is a scarce resource and needs to be a part of anything you do in education. There are many things I would love to do but lack of time prevents me from accomplishing it.

The brief paper made us examine how change occurs in our district. I noted that my district has some veteran teachers that are quite resistant to change. I would guess it is that way in a lot of other districts as well. I hope that when I am considered a veteran teacher that I am not going to resist changes that can improve instructions. No matter the initial inconvenience, the end result needs to be student learning. You can't have improvement without change and the leaders in place to make change work!

CEDo565- Week Four

While this week is not over, I had some good insights from material already covered. This week we started the "Change game" in class. In the beginning, it was very confusing but once we started playing the game, it became pretty fun and very interesting. As my group did not make it very far in the game, I think we can all agree that even though the frustration of taking the wrong steps, we learned quite a bit.

The biggest thing I've learned from the game is that in order to make an impact of any kind, you need to take the right steps and form the plan properly! The game consisted of different stages and while our players are only in the beginning stage, we still need more communication with the right people before we start moving on to the next stages and begin creating a vision or implementing any training.

In our forums this week, we discussed the affects of negative energy/climate and how it not only affects ourselves, but those around us. Sometimes when we are stressed or have other issues going on in our lives, it is hard to stay positive, but as leaders we need to remember that how we act affects others. If we want a class that is willing to learn, we need to create a positive environment for those students. If we find something interesting, the positive way we present will make others interested as well.

As our group meeting is not until the end of the week, I will blog more about the rest of my findings in a later post.

CEDo565- Week Three

This week, we watched the video "Who stole my cheese". If you are like me, at first you were probably wondering what does cheese have to do with technology? Upon watching the video, however, you find out that cheese is a symbol for what we want in life. The video features 4 characters, all of which are in a maze. In order to nourish themselves, they have to search through the maze to find the cheese. All four characters end up finding the cheese and feast well for a few days. Two of these characters keep track of how much cheese is left and realize that they are running low so when the cheese ends up running out, those two characters move on and search for new cheese. The other two characters did not realize that the cheese was running low and are shocked when they return for cheese and there is none to be found. After days of being malnourished, a third character realizes that there is no more cheese and sets out to find new cheese, while the final character stays hoping that his cheese will return. During his search, the third character leaves messages on the maze walls, serving as a guide to get though the maze, as well as inspiration to keep moving to find new cheese. The third character arrives to a section where there is an abundant amount of new cheese and ends up finding the first two characters. While we never get a clear answer if the fourth character finds the new cheese, we learn much from this story.

What I have taken away this week is about problem solving. We watched a few videos and had some good discussion on problem focus. What I have learned (and know I do) is that many people focus on the problem and get so hung up in it that we don't look around it. One of the video's this week had a great example of a ripple in water. While most of us focus on the ripple, what is actually creating it? Is there something we can do to make the ripple stop? We need to not focus on our problems, but instead work around them by asking the right questions (Why did the problem start, why is it still happening, what will stop it, ect.) If we focus around the problem, the problem wouldn't ever seem so bad. It's all about changing our thinking and focusing on the right things.

The final thing I took away from class this week was our reading on Millenial teachers. As a Millenial teacher, I would say I agreed with much of the reading. A link to this article can be found here.