I tell all of my students that there is only one thing that separates us from other animals and that is our ability to reflect on ourselves. I have been keeping personal journals since I was about sixteen years old. I have several volumes (diary books) filled with information about specific moments in my life and things that are happening around me. I find it interesting that reflection is the one thing that determines who we are. In creating this PLP I looked back on the original plan and discovered that most of the goals that I had set for myself were still relevant and applicable. I decided that there were a few more to add and I did this on the final page. One of the things that I still struggle with is setting up a personal, collaborative learning network. I am just not a big fan of sites like Twitter. There is so much going on that is not related to what I want that I just don't have the patience to sift through it all. I like my RSS feeds as they keep me current on all of the news and information coming out in technology. I like the Facebook format; being able to post and read posts while not being overrun by a ton of other things. I still need to decide on where I want to focus my time, as I have so little of it.
Speaking of little time, devoting time to personal development is another area I struggle with. I have a house, three kids (who are busy), a wife (just as busy) and two jobs that demand most of my time. More and more it seems like personal gets put on the back burner. I will have to work to find ways to meet these needs as well.
I know that I will not be teaching the same way I did last year as a result of the things that I learned in these courses. I have already begun to set several things in motion that will change the way my district uses some of the tools we learned. I tried to focus on and choose a few tools to get good at so that I could speak intelligently about them to others and share what I have learned with them. I believe that the tools I have chosen to focus on will not only benefit me, but my peers and students as well.
This has been an interesting six weeks and I hope to make some big improvements in the way I teach technology and with technology. I will be posting my goals in my classroom as a reminder to myself where I want to go in the next year and to model goal setting for my students.
Speaking of little time, devoting time to personal development is another area I struggle with. I have a house, three kids (who are busy), a wife (just as busy) and two jobs that demand most of my time. More and more it seems like personal gets put on the back burner. I will have to work to find ways to meet these needs as well.
I know that I will not be teaching the same way I did last year as a result of the things that I learned in these courses. I have already begun to set several things in motion that will change the way my district uses some of the tools we learned. I tried to focus on and choose a few tools to get good at so that I could speak intelligently about them to others and share what I have learned with them. I believe that the tools I have chosen to focus on will not only benefit me, but my peers and students as well.
This has been an interesting six weeks and I hope to make some big improvements in the way I teach technology and with technology. I will be posting my goals in my classroom as a reminder to myself where I want to go in the next year and to model goal setting for my students.