The End of the Road

EDU772 Final Reflection

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This is not only the final reflection for Coding II but my final post as a Dominican graduate student. Sometimes it feels as if I have been in the technology special endorsement program and MAED program for years and sometimes it feels like I'm just getting started.

What are 1 - 2 things you need to learn next to build upon what you learned in this course? How will you learn these things?

This answer is a no brainer for me. Now that my principal is going to order 25 Edison Robots for my school, I need to improve my understanding of robotics, especially when it comes to coding. I need to find some online and/or hands-on opportunities to learn and practice coding. I still feel like I'm swimming upstream, but I want to walk into my school in August fully prepared to help lead my school when Eddie comes to my school. For now, I need not to have homework for at least until my school lets out for the summer. 

I feel that I need to go through the Edison lessons again to build up my confidence. I also feel like I need to get out of my own head when it comes to feeling like I will never get this. Since coding and robotics are new to my school, it is difficult for me to ask anyone for help and guide me. My plan is to start searching out Twitter chats and Facebook groups that can join. Another part of my plan is to find videos and workshops to watch and attend. I don't feel like I'm ready to teach robotics as effectively as I would need to, but my goal is to be ready by August.

What are the 1 - 2 most important things you learned in this course? How will these things be part of your future work as a teacher or librarian?

The most important thing I learned during this course was simple for me to identify. Although there has been a moment here and there where I felt overwhelmed and frustrated throughout the courses I have taken since the fall of 2017, but nothing has compared to the level of which I have felt during this course. Let me be clear, none of the stress I felt had anything to do with classmates or the instructor. In fact, my fellow classmates and instructor went out of their way to help me work my way through this challenging class. I am grateful for the advice and suggestions that I received. 

I have a much deeper appreciation for collaboration after this course. Sure, I have worked on group projects and I have my own students work on collaborative projects, but this was different. Robotics truly fits the bill of collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity. 

What I'm walking away with from this course is feeling what it is truly like to struggle as a student. Mr. Kelly clearly knows his way around coding and robotics, but that's not why I enjoyed his class so much. What really struck a chord with me was how patient he was with me. No matter how many times I emailed him or voiced my frustration with my own lack of experience and knowledge about coding/robotics in discussion posts, Mr. Kelly always used words and a calming tone that made me feel safe to make mistakes. Once I got that important message in my head, I relaxed a little and began to appreciate the art of writing code. 

At Week 4, I was ready to quit the class, knowing that Coding II was supposed to be my last class. The stress was unbearable and it didn't help that my husband and son often saw me arguing and yelling at a robot. What changed my mind about quitting? Two things, first my parent's voices in my head. Neither of my parents went to college, although my Mom was attending a community college when she died unexpectedly. They raised me to never quit, which I take to mean, to persevere. Second, the willingness of Mr. Kelly to reach out to me to video chat. That 30 minute or so video chat, saved me from giving up. His calming demeanor and willingness to spend that much time to help me gave me hope that I could do this. That single video chat also gave me a student's perspective of what it must feel like when he/she just doesn't get the topic/concept. I'm not saying that I didn't have patience with my students or I didn't care if they were struggling. That evening is now a reminder I keep in the forefront of my mind when that student who is truly floundering is just wanting to feel safe and hear encouraging words.

That is what I'm taking away from this class and I thank you, Mr. Kelly, for one of the most frustrating experiences of my life. I mean that in a good way.

Blog Post #8--To Post Or Not To Post, That Is The Question

Image Source: (Chris, 2014)

From the start, I was looking forward to this class for a couple of reasons. 

1. I am the social media administrator for all the social media pages at my school.
2. I wanted to see how to get more teachers in my school to step up and dive into social media.
3. I wanted to see how I could use social media in my classroom.

Image Source: (Stux)

Social Media Administrator

Since I work in a small Chicago, Catholic school, there is no funding to pay teachers for extra roles we take on during the school year. I wanted to my wonderful school and put it on the map, so to speak by creating a presence on Facebook. Ten years later, my skills have improved and I continue to look for ways to get my school mentioned on all the major social media platforms. Although I did not walk away from this class with learning better ways to use the social media we have, I am okay with that. What I did learn was that I needed to change the logos that I was using in my email as clickable links to drive traffic to our social media sites. After reading ToS policies more closely, I discovered the branding resources. Now all my links to drive traffic to my school's social media pages meet the terms of the platform for usage.

Taking the Dive into Social Media

Working on the final project for most of the time of this class, I developed a web page to help the teachers in my school with using social media and Google Classroom. Currently, my school has at least five different ways teachers communicate with the families. If I was one of the parents with multiple children in the school, I would be frustrated with having to go to a few different sites just to see the daily homework and/or announcements. With my principal's blessing, she is happy not only did I bring up the idea of moving to a school-wide platform, but I created a manual on a webpage to help us be more tech savvy and considerate to our parents. While I was working on the final project, I began creating screencast videos that can be used by teachers, parents, and students. The problem was, I did not have a place to house them. Then an idea hit me! Since my main goal is to help the teachers in my school use Google Classroom, why not model an example of Classroom's power? I created a Classroom where the teachers in my school will be invited to join. Once that happens, they will have access to resources, links, and my tutorial screencasts. Teachers would also be encouraged to add to the resources as well as use the screencasts to teach their students how to join Classroom or for the parents to sign up to receive Guardian Summaries. The idea is not to give more work to the teachers, but to give them the tools to help them learn about various tech tools.

Using Social Media

As of now, no one in my school is using the major social media platforms with their students. The majority of the students are under the age of 13 and we have an intranet for student use. My plan is to look into how I can use at least one platform with my students next year, but I have not decided on which one. I want to look at my classmates' projects to see how they use social media to get more of a visual understanding of social media's potential in schools. I would also like my students to start blogging. Currently, the eighth grade teacher has her students blog and I can see the students take pride in their work because they know the audience is not just the teacher. Making arrangements to talk about social media and student use with my principal is on my agenda, I just want to make sure I have as much information as I can for that meeting. She is very open to thinking outside of the box, so I am hopeful that we can figure out the best social media tool to use with my school.

For my own use of social media, I think I have been pretty mindful of what I post, whether it is text or images. What I have noticed is that I have been keeping the T.H.I.N.K acronym in the forefront when it comes time to decide whether to post something or not. This is definitely a poster  I want hanging in my classroom.

Image Source: (Galvez, 2012)

Chris. (2014, January 6). Retrieved from https://www.performanceicreate.com/whats-next/

Galvez, T. (2012, March 16). THINK before you. Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/togawanderings/6988486459

Stux. (n.d.). Free Image on Pixabay - Social Media, World, Communication. Retrieved February 24, 2019, from https://pixabay.com/vectors/social-media-world-communication-1405601/