Going into ECS 210, I did not really know what to expect. I thought it was just going to be another class, and I did not realize that it would teach me so much about my future career as a teacher. I thought that all of the topics in this class were perfect for future educators to know. This knowledge will be of a great help when we, as teachers, encounter students who are from a diverse background, who have two moms or two dads, who are homosexual themselves, who have learning or physical disabilities, and so much more. The New Teacher Book was full of personal experiences from many teachers that have experienced teaching these differences. Reading these stories throughout the semester made me realize that there are many teachers out there, and there are many in our schools that have been teaching long before us, who will be there to support us in any difficulties that we may have as beginning teachers. When asked to start a Personal Learning Network, I got worried and excited for a number of reasons. White creating this personal learning network, there were many parts that I liked, but a few that I disliked as well. The parts that I liked have made this class exciting and fun for me; however, the parts I disliked were still a great learning experience for me.
On the first day of classes, we were asked to start a blog. In the beginning I understood this as just a suggestion and did not really have any desire to start one, but then when I went to class a few days later and was asked to answer a question and post it on my blog, I started to freak out a little bit. I was very worried about making a blog because I really did not even know what a blog was all about; let alone how to create one. The thought of knowing that anyone could go on and follow my blog or read my thoughts and idea’s was something I was not comfortable with. However, once I started creating my blog, I did not seem to be as worried and actually got a little excited to get started on writing and working. Although I am not still one hundred percent comfortable with it just yet, I have learned and created some pretty good experiences with my blog, but also some negative ones as well.
First, because positive is so much better, I will talk about my positive experiences with the blog. Creating this blog was something that I needed to get me out of my bubble in order to try something new and realize what there is out there to help me in my future teaching career. While having questions or topics to talk about on our blogs each week, I found that they got me to start thinking deeper, and what to try and get more out of what was being discussed in class. Since we had to read our classmates’ blogs, there are two that stick out for me because of the discussion that was had between my classmates and me. Alicia said in one of her blogs, Hidden Messages, that she did not mention her gender in her autobiography because her name made it obvious that she was female. When reading this, I was shocked to see my name pop up within her blog. However, this did not bother me because it is something that is very common to me; I wanted to know why. Because of the ability to comment on our classmates’ blogs, I could ask Alicia why she thought that my name, Brett, “was a boys name”. Another conversation had between myself and Kari brought on a great deal of question for me. When reconsidering my autobiography, I thought to myself that what defines me and continues to shape who I am are the environments, experiences, and people in my life, the good and the bad. Kari had this exact same idea as well, in her post My Name is Kari which got me thinking, so I got to ask her the questions that I could not answer myself. After having these two experiences, I realized that having a blog as a teacher is a great thing, and is also a great form of technology to have in the classroom for the students. Having a blog as a teacher gives great opportunities to connect with other teachers, much like we have done throughout this course. Also, having a classroom blog is a good idea because it can get everyone involved and working together. Along with all the good, because this experience was so new to me, there was still some negative aspects dealing with the blog.
When just getting started using a blog for the first time, I was very worried because anyone can go on and read my thoughts. I also always found that I forgot to go on and comment on other peoples’ blogs or even respond to the comments people left for me. I was not very comfortable about the commenting aspect of the blog, just because I felt like people were going to judge me. Besides this, there was also the fact that I felt bad going through other peoples blogs and critiquing them. I thought some of the questions were hard to put my thoughts into the right words to be able to get the point I wanted to make across. However, I always posted a blog for each of the topics. Unlike the blog, twitter was something that I loved, and did not have any bad experiences with.
Twitter is something that I love, inside and outside of class. Before I even started to create my personal learning experience I was on twitter all the time. Outside of class, I was always so engaged in Twitter so I wish that I would have been more active in class with the #ECS210. During a few classes, there were things I wanted to tweet out but by the time I got the words how I wanted them there were already a bunch of tweets saying the same thing, so I did not want to say it again. What people had tweeted out on the #ECS210 were all such a great inspiration and so encouraging for all of us students. Twitter is great for teachers because even after one class, I am following so many great educators and future educators; I cannot imagine what it will be like in a few years once I have met and experienced so many more new people. It is also great for the classroom to get the students engaged and expressing how they feel.
Overall, I very much enjoyed this class and the knowledge I have obtained from it. ECS 210 was a great class to get to know and explore all the technology that is out there for teachers and students. Before this class, and starting to create my personal learning network, I never would have thought about having a blog or a class twitter for my students, but now I think that it is a great idea. I am so glad I got to experience these things, and I cannot wait to further on as an educator and keep building on my personal learning network. I have realized now that having all these things, as teachers, we can collaborate together ideas and help each other out. With technology, it takes me a while to get to know what I am doing and to get to like it; however, now I know that Twitter, Blogs, and a bunch of other forms of technology can help me in my career.
Brett Loeppky 