As I approach my first day of summer vacation...beginning today at 2PM..I wanted to take a moment to reflect on all that I have learned this year in my professional setting. As a high school teacher, it has been a whirlwind of a year! What started as one of the first "normal" years since Covid, a month into the school year we were hit with Hurricane Ian. My area took a direct hit and it was catastrophic...not only the physical and property damage had been done, but a great deal of emotional damage as well. We had students and teachers lose their homes, people lost it all. We then picked ourselves, brushed it off (as best we could), and returned to school in less than a month. This in itself was a monumental task as we are one of the largest school districts in Florida.
With that being said, overall it was an amazing school year! But how does this relate to my own courses and my own schooling journey? The course I have taken at FSU over the past few years have not only helped my knowledge gains, but I have been able to take a majority of what I learned in these courses and apply them to my professional life to ensure a better education for my students!
EME 6414 has definitely had a huge impact on how I will teach my courses next school year and what social media influence can have on education. A lot of the tools we have looked out and played around with can be used (with discretion) within a high school setting to promote engagement. For example, bogging would be a great idea to have students track their educational journey through the course and give them an outlet to share their thoughts and ideas. Digital badges, like in this weeks readings, I think would have a good impact on high school students, as they are relatively competitive by nature.
Key point from my rant is that I will take a great deal of these social media outlets, with district guidelines in mind, and incorporate them into my own teaching, especially for the seniors who will be moving on to college in that coming year!
I agree that blogging can be a good way to start for your students to reflect on their learning journey. I used to advocate my military trainees to submit a weekly reflection on their thoughts and perspective on military matters. It was always interesting to hear their views and how they are feeling etc.
ReplyDeleteHave a good break!
I really like how you are finding ways to implement blogging in your classroom. I'm sure this is initial stages of brainstorming, but how do you think you might create alternatives for students who don't want to blog in a public manner? Can there be 'password protected' blogs?
ReplyDelete