Overall Key Learnings and A-Ha’s Research Assignment
In your report, you are asked to reflect on, and summarize your course experience, and
generate new ideas, using the following headings—Overall Key Learnings and A-Ha's,
Confusions, Dream Classroom, Future Learning Plans, Recommendations, Building a Better
Future, Inspirational Message, Ideas about Basic Life Skills Every Student Should Learn,
Ideas for the Year of Mercy, and Ideas about Global Climate Change.
This report is not intended to be a rehash of ideas from previous learning diary entries but,
rather, a summative reflection and review of the course overall.
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This report is not an opportunity to dump on the course or the program—As professionals
and educators in a common community of learning, constructive criticism is welcome, but
destructive, gratuitous criticism is not, and will result in an automatic grade of ‘C' or less.
1. OVERALL KEY LEARNINGS and A-HA's: In a nutshell, what are your main key learnings
and A-Ha's from the course? What are your main take-aways from the course? What ideas really
excited you the most?
2. CONFUSIONS: From the many ideas presented in the course, what ideas continue to stump
or confuse you?
3. DREAM CLASSROOM: What would your dream classroom look like? What types of
technologies would you like to see there? Visualize the physical space—create a simple
digital visual representation in .JPG format and insert into your document—and also
describe in words your dream classroom in detail (including the various technologies
included).
4. FUTURE LEARNING PLANS: What ideas, methods, and/or tools would you like to learn
more about?
5. RECOMMENDATIONS: What other topics might be addressed in this course? What other
methods and/or tools might be introduced in this course in the future? How might current
activities be improved? Visualize specific activities and describe them in detail.
6. BUILDING A BETTER FUTURE: Briefly address the following question: ‘If there is one
thing that you could do to help create a better world—and you knew that you could not fail—
what might that one thing be?'
7. INSPIRATIONAL MESSAGE: If you could leave your students with one inspirational
message to help guide them happily and successfully through life, what might that message be?
8. IDEAS ABOUT BASIC LIFE SKILLS EVERY STUDENT SHOULD LEARN: What
are some basic life skills that you feel every person should learn before the age of 18? Please
list and describe a minimum of 15 such basic life skills
9. YEAR OF MERCY: Roman Catholic Pope Francis has called 2016 a ‘holy year of mercy' (i.e.,
December 8, 2015 to November 20, 2016). Other religious leaders support this idea. The world can
always benefit from works (acts) of mercy, which include both (a) corporal works of mercy (i.e.,
serving the material needs of others), and (b) spiritual works of mercy (i.e., serving the spiritual needs
of others). Corporal works typically include: feed the hungry; give drink to the thirsty; clothe the
naked; shelter the homeless; visit the sick; visit the imprisoned; and bury the dead. Spiritual works
typically include: instruct the ignorant; counsel the doubtful; admonish sinners; bear wrongs
patiently; forgive offences willingly; comfort the afflicted; and pray for the living and the dead. In our
somewhat chaotic, confused, divided world, which of these works (acts) do you think are most in
need nowadays? Why? Please provide examples of how they might be implemented.
10. IDEAS ABOUT GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE: There is solid evidence that the global climate
is warming due to the effects of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions from human
activities. This condition will slowly, but surely, have a serious impact on the lives of millions of
people. The problem is perhaps the number one social, economic, and problem of our time. What are
your thoughts and feelings about this challenge? In your opinion, how might this problem best be
solved? Please describe your thoughts and feeling about global climate change, and list and describe
at least three (3) possible solution ideas
http://faculty(dot)buffalostate(dot)edu/gareause/672/Chapter1.htm
http://faculty(dot)buffalostate(dot)edu/gareause/672/Chapter2.htm
http://faculty(dot)buffalostate(dot)edu/gareause/672/Chapter3.htm
http://faculty(dot)buffalostate(dot)edu/gareause/672/Chapter4.htm
http://faculty(dot)buffalostate(dot)edu/gareause/672/Chapter5.htm
http://faculty(dot)buffalostate(dot)edu/gareause/672/Chapter6.htm
http://faculty(dot)buffalostate(dot)edu/gareause/672/Chapter7.htm
http://faculty(dot)buffalostate(dot)edu/gareause/672/Chapter8.htm
Learning Summary
Your Name
Your Institution of Affiliation
May 9, 2017
Overall Key Learnings and A-Ha’s
After taking the course, I learned what the National Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) is as well as the reason why 21st century skills are needed in teaching K-12 courses. Basically, the main idea is that in this ever-changing world, teachers like us have to adapt and cater to students who are now living more in the ‘digital age’. By doing this we reaching students and understanding how then think would be easier for us. However, incorporating these 21st century skills in our teaching and lesson preparation methods does not only benefit the students. Rather, these skills also benefit us since knowing how to program a computer or setup a power point can make life easier. These are just some of the ideas that were presented but these are the two most that struck me the most.
Confusions
Among the many ideas and topics presented here, I do have one thing that comes into mind and that’s the difference in effectiveness of interactions which are generated in traditional classroom settings as opposed to those which are created in digital and social media.
Dream Classroom
From the picture drawn above, it could easily be seen that all I wanted is a simple, clean, but up-to-date classroom where both the students and me can make the most of the latest technologies today, while still maintaining the traditional type of interaction that a student and teacher could have. It could be seen from the photo that there are only eight tables, and that is because I believe that this would be the best setup and number of students especially if all of us are using technological devices since they could prove to be a distraction instead. Thus, keeping the numbers of students per teacher could greatly increase the interaction between us.
Future Learning Plans
In the future, I want and I would try to learn Photoshop and Adobe After effects. Upon discovering what they can do from a colleague of mine, I discovered how useful can they be in teaching as well as in everyday life. As a teacher, I believe that knowing these could help me create better and more interesting infographics that I could present to my class. In my opinion, I think that piquing the interests of the students is very important in order to increase the teacher’s interaction with them.
Recommendations
I think that this course would be better if the number of photos and infographics could be increased and made more interesting. Photos and infographics are generally better to understand than reading, and thus a strategic mixture between them could prove to be very useful in the future. Also, I believe that we could increase the fun and games portion by doing more interactive activities that would directly relate to the course itself. Nevertheless, I loved how the course was handled and I believe that this is very timely especially these times where social media is occupying a huge chunk of the students’ time and attention span.
Building a Better Future
In response to the question posted, I believe that I would try to give the opportunity for homeless people to learn about digital media. I personally, am not that good with its workings, but I just can’t fail to recognize how much potential it has, ...