Personal Growth Plan

Through this class I hope to grow as an educator.  More specifically, I wish to have technology resources at hand to use to better student learning.  From the technology I’ve used in our class thus far, I’ve already learned new things.  There is so much technology out there that can be used in education.   I would love to have a better knowledge of the various programs or resources.  In my teaching experiences, I’ve observed that student motivation increases dramatically when technology is used.  Students love to work on the computers and create or build projects virtually.  Moreover, there are some fantastic resources that I’ve found that teach the same topic or content that I teach and are already put together.  I can address the same content, but in a different format.  Students tend to accept this format better, so why not use these tools to our benefit? 

            In addition, in my position, I constantly work with teachers and introduce them to different technology resources.  I would love to have more technology resources at hand to share with them and to help meet their needs as classroom educators.  Since technology is ever changing, I believe technology courses, such as this one, help expose me to what is out there and I hope to find ways to continually be informed of the new tools that come out.

            Knowing about and being exposed to these technology tools is the first step.  Increasing my skill on how to use them is the next.  After I find out what technology tools best work for me and my school, I would like to become skilled in using different programs.  Students and their needs are always very diverse and I would like to be able to recall a resource from my previous exposure that could help them in anyway possible way.  I teach both students and teachers to use various technology tools, so I have to be prepared to explain these programs to them if I want their explorations and my lessons to be successful.  Teachers are many times, more reluctant to learn about new technology tools than students.  So I feel that I have to be very well-versed in these tools to make this task more feasible for teachers to use.  In the long run, we’re preparing students for the technology driven world that they’re growing up in and the more we do now, the more prepared they will be.