Math was my favorite subject in high school. Incredible teachers taught me, and I excelled. I always knew that math was not that way for everyone, and I got into teaching math to help remedy that. My goal is always to have students feel better about math, understand more, and have fewer negative feelings. When students enjoy math, that is a bonus. I worked to ensure student understanding for the first two-thirds of my career. I honed my examples and my explanations of skills. Since technology has become a mainstay in our society, I must focus on engagement too. I always wanted students to be engaged, but it was never a focus in my lesson planning. In recent years, student engagement has become the biggest challenge in the classroom, and technology is part of the solution.

Throughout this course, I have tried Web 2.0 tools that I had never thought to apply to the math classroom. I created a blog and some podcasts, which pushed me out of my comfort zone, seeing the math classroom from a different perspective. I enjoyed the new experience of writing and recording for the classroom. The exposure to new technologies allows me to add tools that I will now be open to using in my classroom. I am most proud of the wiki I created and am excited to use wikis in my classroom this year. As they use the class wiki, I look forward to watching my students hone their “collaboration and negotiation skills” (Richardson, 2010). As we all become more proficient with working with wikis, I believe students will feel a “sense of responsibility and ownership for the site” (Richardson, 2010), contributing to a true collaboration amongst the class.

Learning new tools in this course has given me new ideas for my classroom. I will work this year on implementing wikis in my classroom. I have already begun with my AP Calculus students and will use what I learn from their experience to include my other classes in wikis. I have two goals for transforming my classroom environment to incorporate Web 2.0 technologies. One goal is to have students contribute to a blog post each day with something they remember learning from the class period before. I will initially have students practice doing this as an entrance slip on paper. Once students are in the routine, I will change the process from an entrance slip into a Jamboard. The class will maintain one document, each student adding a sticky note so that they can see what other students have written. The final step will be creating a blog for the class and having students record their learning as a blog post. As I work with students on this process, I will learn how to adjust so the transition from entrance slip to blog post becomes quicker, allowing more time to create more content in our class blog. Blogging will be integral to my math class within a couple of years.

I want students to create a podcast for each course I teach. As I introduce students to podcasting in math class, I would start with having them explain how they completed a problem. The following podcast topic will have students reflect on their success at the end of a unit. The final podcast topic will have students offering advice to next year’s class. When the next school year begins, I will have the new students listen to the podcast and tell them that they will do the same thing at the end of their school year. I think students do not expect podcasts to fit into math class, but I want to show them that connections with technology exist anywhere at any time.

I have always had “faith in the ability of technology to improve learning outcomes” (Chand, Deshmukh, & Shukla, 2020), and my experience in this course has strengthened my beliefs. I know that I have not used technology to its fullest potential. Throughout the research, readings, and experiences I have had in this course, I know that “[s]uccessful technology use and integration … has the potential to provide more access, promote learning outcomes, and preserve the investment of technology.” (Gaddis, 2020)

My most significant barrier to overcome is that the way I have used technology in my classroom is to “do things differently [not] do different things.” (Walden University, 2015k) This course has helped me begin to break down that barrier. I now have new tools to employ with my students to help them learn and see math differently. While they are learning math differently, they will also learn necessary skills for productivity in the 21st Century. The work I bring to my students will help develop their communication skills, collaboration skills, critical thinking, and problem-solving. (Walden University, 2015b).

This year, I will bring wikis, blogs, and podcasts into my classroom. The integration will be slow so that I can proceed with intentionality. I want my students to “develop and employ strategies for understanding and solving problems in ways that leverage the power of technological methods.” (ISTE, 2015a) The computers we provide for students at my school are much more than they seem. I must help students tap into their creativity using technology in math class.

Two goals motivated me to pursue my MSED for technology integration in the classroom. First, I wanted to learn more to teach students more about the technology they use. Students are comfortable with technology but do not know how much more they must learn. The second goal is to become a technology specialist in a school. I want to become a leader in technology in my school. This coursework allows me to “seek out opportunities for leadership to support student empowerment and success and to improve teaching and learning.” (ISTE, 2015b) The skills I learned and will apply in this course will give me the experience I need to achieve my professional goals.

References

Chand, V. S., Deshmukh, K. S., & Shukla, A. (2020). Why does technology integration fail? Teacher beliefs and content developer assumptions in an Indian initiative. Educational Technology Research and Development, 68(5), 2753–2774. https://doi.org/10.1007 /s11423-020-09760-x

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Gaddis, M. L. (2020). Faculty and student technology use to enhance student learning. International Review of Research in Open & Distance Learning, 21(4), 39–60. https://doi.org/10.19173 /irrodl.v21i3.4600

Walden University, LLC. (Producer). (2015k). The emergence of educational technology [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Walden University, LLC. (Producer). (2015b). Skills for the 21st Century [Video file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2016a) ISTE standards for students. Retrieved from https://www.iste.org/standards/for-students

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2016b) ISTE standards for educators. Retrieved from https://www.iste.org/standards/for-educators