The first prompt to the 30-day Blogging Challenge for Teachers asks me to identify my goals for the school year. I always have many goals throughout the school year, but here are the most pressing ones I can think of right now.
I plan on applying much of the new knowledge I gained while earning my sixth year degree in Instructional Technologies and Digital Media Literacies this past year. There are many new tools I have experimented with along with information and research about how to most effectively use technology in the classroom. All of the goals below are a direct result of my experience in this program over the past year.
Connect my classroom globally
I will seek out ways to connect my classroom with others around the world. My experience on a Fulbright-Hayes program in Morocco this summer has given me a new pool of educators who are interested in connecting. I will also use my ever-expanding PLN to connect with other teachers through Twitter and create learning opportunities for our students.
Provide more opportunities for ORMS
ORMS, online research and media skills, consists of three main components. These are: online reading comprehension, online collaborative inquiry and online content construction. I hope to embed these skills and activities into most of my teaching units this year. I want my students to have lots of practice with these so that they will be confident and competent in the online world, which will be essential for their success in the future.
Design real-world learning tasks
I want my students to understand the relevance of what they are learning and to be able to apply it to the real world, and present their finding to a real audience. This goal overwhelms me more than any other goal. It feels like it will take a lot of work, but I know there are teachers out there already doing this, and they will inspire me and teach me. I will need their examples especially when the pressure of teaching to new assessments, budget constraints, and implementing various other top-down initiatives suck up my time and energy.
That’s enough for now. I could add more, but these goals are already starting to overwhelm me. Still, writing them down and reflecting on them will help me to refine them and keep them at the forefront of my planning for this year.
