Welcome

    I am Kim Lockhart, a doctoral student at the American College of Education. This blog will be a place for me to reflect on my learning during the Technology-Driven Curriculum and Social Media course. I will also post work from various course assignments and discuss how I currently integrate technology into my classroom and how I plan to use concepts from this course to enhance my teaching. Reflecting on the learning that has occurred during this lesson and throughout this technology course has given me insight into the importance of using digital tools to enhance teaching and learning. As I compile this professional ePortfolio, I was able to revisit and reflect upon discussions and assignments.     

    Reflection on teaching practices is crucial for professional growth, improving instruction, and student academic success (Larrivee, 2020). Many of these assignments have challenged my way of teaching and thinking. Other assignments have confirmed and encouraged my current use of technology within my middle school classroom. Focusing on choosing technologies that have the most impact on my teaching and students has already helped me plan lessons within my classroom.

    
    The discussion posts have had the most significant impact on me thus far in this course. Collaborating with others allows teachers to share teaching strategies, reflect on classroom experiences, and learn from one another (Darling-Hammond et al., 2017). Sometimes I come into a lesson with a negative mindset or a limited view based on what I already do in my class, but after reading the posts of others, my thinking is challenged. My peers in this class have a wealth of experience and multiple views on technology. I have learned from their ideas, which have challenged my thinking and teaching craft. This type of challenge is also encouraging because I know others are on similar journeys as mine, trying to do all I can to reach the 21st-century learners in my classroom.

    One of the most significant takeaways from this process is the wide range of digital tools available to students. Unfortunately, many of the specific tools discussed in this course are outdated. Technology constantly changes, requiring us as teachers to stay abreast of what is out there. For example, an idea of a blog like this is excellent, but because we are using Google products for this ePortfolio, I prefer to use a Google Site to journal, reflect, and house all of the material I have created thus far. These are more user-friendly for students as Blogs are more of a running compilation of posts that can be cumbersome to navigate. I believe Google Sites has a better navigation and organization platform. Research emphasizes that Google Sites enhances teaching because of the user-friendly layout and integration with Google Workspace (Reyna, 2021).

    Technology serves an important purpose within our classrooms. It increases engagement, enrichment, student collaboration, remediation, modeling abstract content, addressing different learning styles, differentiation, and more (Jong et al., 2024).. This ePortfolio will serve as a platform to organize technologies based on their purpose and use in the science classroom. The blogging portion will provide space for explanation and justification of the use of each type of technology. Blogging can also be a place to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the technology, and how students responded to the use of each one in the classroom. The process of developing this ePortfolio and reflecting upon each portion in a blog will help me process the practices, encourage me to continue to look for new technologies, and prepare for continued growth in my teaching practice. Above all, I have to be open to trying these new technologies and not get set in my ways based on what I have done with my students in the past.