My+Reflection+Journal

Here are my reflections as I proceed through the [|E-Learning for Educators] course.

This course has made me excited about the beginning of a new school year where I can put into practice new thinking, ideas and skills. I was first impacted by Stephen Brookfield’s work titled “What it Means to be a Critically Reflective Teacher” from __[|Developing Critical Thinkers]__. That was one of the most difficult readings for me to comprehend. I think because it made me reflect so deeply about my own practices. I read it thoroughly twice, highlighting and writing in the margins all the way. Later, I read my highlights and notes. As I prepared my discussion post, I re-read parts of it again. When I replied to colleagues, I re-read more segments! It made me stop and think critically about my beliefs and customs concerning adult learning and teaching. I thought I knew it all about teaching but after reading and thinking about what Brookfield said, I’m now not so sure.

In my discussion post, I quoted a statement from the book, "Critically reflective teachers will make sure that they find some way of regularly seeing what they do through students' eyes." (p. 11) I think that this is key in designing online learning. We need to critically think about what we are developing and whether it works well for all learners. My plan is to peruse the article again when I begin work on my online courses and when I begin planning any type of professional development to keep critical reflective teaching in the forefront.

After such an intense module about critical thinking I was relieved to study and discuss a topic that I felt was not so deep but yet concrete and valuable—[|remember the human] and other rules for online teaching and learning. The practical tips for defining guidelines and rules will be helpful reference points in course design.

I became addicted to the forums and learned that they are powerful community builders and a tool for developing ownership in one’s work. I checked the discussion forums as soon as I got up in the morning—the last thing at night and several times inbetween.

However, developing my own discussion question and facilitating a discussion was the hardest part of the whole course for me. I’ve never been a big talker and thinking on my feet is definitely not a strong point. Of course, the online format will give me an advantage because I will have time to think before responding! Great! Thinking of open-ended questions on a topic that is new to me was a challenge. I believe I will be better at this when I develop my own courses since the topics will be ones with which I am very familiar and comfortable discussing. One of my goals needs to be to continue to learn and practice facilitation skills.

The readings about ePortfolios also impacted my thinking. In the past, I have always thought of ePortfolios as a tool for collecting documents for evaluation. My eyes have been open to other uses for digital story telling and I have plans for sharing the concept with teachers this fall. I plan on promoting the value of ePortfolios to teacher librarians and other educational professionals.

The activity on evaluating websites for authenticity was highly stressful for me. It should not have been since website evaluation is a skill in which librarians are expert. However, the possibility of being wrong was a threat to my integrity and I spent way too many hours on it. If I include this activity in a class, I think I would assign students to work in groups to divide the responsibility.

The other tools I learned -- personal search engines, Moodle, social bookmarking (Diigo) – can be used on Monday and I plan on doing that. I’ve already been sharing personal search engines and have Diigo and ePortfolios on the agenda for teacher librarians this fall. I love learning new technology tools.

The accessibility information is overwhelming and I don’t feel confident in being able to develop accessible websites. In fact, I feel guilty for not being competent in tending to accessibility needs. My agency has specialists who work in this area and I have told myself that I need to seek them out for additional assistance.