What would I do differently?

What would I do differently regarding the legal issues portion of this class if I were the instructor or if I was an administrator in charge of curriculum here at Xavier? Well, we were already told that getting rid of it completely was not an option, but that is what I would do. While I think that previous court cases in our field is very valuable information for us to learn, I don't believe that it is information that belongs in the content of a technology class and especially not a technology class taught in a one month summer session!

Personally, I don't understand why they chose this class out of all the possible classes to teach educational law. Wouldn't it make more sense to fit this into the content of other required courses in the program such as the History of American Education course or perhaps the Administration course? Educational court cases would fit in very nicely with the content learned in both of those courses required in the M.Ed program here at Xavier. In the technology course, however, it just seems to get in the way. It doesn't relate to most of the other things we are learning in the course and it takes away from learning about technology in what is already a shortened summer session.

That's enough of my rant though. If the legal issues must remain a part of the technology course, for whatever reason that may be, then I would at least present them in a way that incorporates technology and takes up minimal class time. One way that this could be done is by each student posting their legal briefs on Blackboard or Google docs so that the entire class can read them and collaborate together by commenting on each review. This not only incorporates technology to the legal issues but it's also something that we could all do on our own time outside of class, instead of using up an entire class period on presentations.

I look forward to reading what some of my classmates think about these ideas. Hopefully they will be considered by the administration in the near future to better the class and the program as a whole.

Citing Sources on bibme.com

21st Century Learning

In addition to core content areas below, we also have a responsbility to teach essential skills for success in today's world, such as critical thinking, problem solving, communication, and collaboration.

Core Content Areas

• English, reading, or language arts


• World languages


• Arts


• Math


• Economics


• Science


• Geography


• History


• Government and Civics

These core content areas must be interconnected in the process of 21st century teaching and learning, which includes the following:

• life/career skills


• learning/innocation skills


• information, media, and technology skills

Bloom's Digital Taxonomy

Like the previous version's of Bloom's taxonomies, it's the quality of the action or process that defines the cognitive level, rather than the action or process itself. Despite its name, Bloom's Digital Taxonomy is not about tools and technologies. It is not the medium that is important; instead, it is about using these tools to achieve, recall, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and collaborate.

Collaboration has increased its influence on learning because it is essential in the 21st Century. It's not an integral part of the learning process but it enhances it, and it prepares students for the 21st Century workforce. According to Google, communication skills and working together as a team are two of the most important job traits or abilities of 21st Century employees.

These skills can be learned and developed by using technologies in the classroom such as:

• classroom blogs


• Google docs


• social networks


• Skype


• learning management systems such as Blackboard


• And many more

Blogs, social networks, as well as bookmarking and searching are also all examples of using technology to aid remembering and understanding. When used correctly, technologies can enhance any learning process.

Reflection on Ch 2 of Drive

I agree that sometimes goals and rewards are not effective. When someone does something to get paid or to be rewarded, they feel like somebody else has power over them. When you reward people for doing something that they already have done in the past and enjoy doing, you should not start adding incentives and goals to continue the behavior because the person is already doing it and might possibly enjoy doing it without feeling controlled by someone else. Some people are self motivated. They find reasons within themselves to do something or to behave a certain way. If someone else is telling them to do something or to behave in a certain way, sometimes it can be irritating and actually be less likely to produce the desired results. Short term goals can partiularly be inefective, because it makes us concentrate on immediate results instead of the best possible long-term results. Goals and incentives can be effective, but best results are reached when goals are used properly and with care.

Expectations for the Class

In this class, I hope to create an online professional portfolio that will be useful for years to come. I hope to continue to add new content to my website after I am done with this class. I plan to add writing samples from my other blogs, student newspapers, and class papers to display my writing ability to prospective employers looking for a secondary English and journalism teacher. Hopefully, I'll also learn a lot about using technology in an English classroom, such as the use of ebooks and blogging.