Reflection of course

This course has been a great learning experience, I have learned new ways to incorporate different learning theories into my classroom. As I went through the class I found out that I use most of the theories in my classroom already. I started the class as a behaviorist. I believed that students must behave and do their homework and I still believe that. Students need to practice what they are taught, but the course has also made me realize that there are more ways to than one to get information to my students and that giving the students the information does not mean they are learning it. I have learned that I must vary the learning styles I am using to keep my lessons new and interesting for my students. I need to work on incorporating group learning into my classroom. Social or group learning has the students working together to learn and the teacher is there to facilitate learning. The two new technologies that I plan on using to help me bring more social learning into my classroom are blogs and video threads. Video threads are the ones that I plan to use the most. I think there are many ways to use video threads to help the students work together. The students can use voice threads to work on homework. I can post a homework problem or a project assignment and the students can comment online and other students can answer the comments or make their own comments. I also plan to use inspirations in my classroom to make content maps and graphic organizers.
Two long term goals I am setting is the remain current with emerging technology and to continue to work with my coworkers to use more technology in the classroom. The first goal I will achieve by continuing to visit wikis and blogs about technology in the classroom and by talking with fellow teachers about how they use technology in the classroom. I will also continue my education.

Connectivism and Social learning

My school has been trying to have teachers encorporate social learning into the classroom. We are encouraged to have the students work together in the classroom. Connectivism and social learning uses the social network students have to furter their learning. Socail learning believes that " meaningful learning occurs when students are engaged in social attivities."(Orey,2001)
Social leaning can be very effective. I have seen where a student can help another student understand a difficult concept or come up with an example that would be more relevant to the other student than anything I could come up with. A problem that I have found with the social learning theory is that it requires a lot of work in prepartion and planning. If social learning is used without the proper plannning it can lead to the students being off task and possible behavior problems. There are many ways to use technology with social learning. Blogs, wikis and voice threads are great ways of having the students work together using technology. I like to post homework on a blog and have students comment about it and ask questions. This allows the students to use the technology they are familiar with to learn. I use this stratagy in my class but I also fear it.