This has been an incredible eye opening journey. Fortunately I work in a district where my department chairman sends me to TCEA every year. As a result, I realize there is a vast amount of technology resources available to administrators and educators. Although technology is an awesome area to be part of, sometimes I feel like all of this knowledge is information overload. On the bright side, this course has forced me to try new technologies that I have heard of but have not had a chance or better yet, made the opportunity to try. It has been so exciting to try new things that I have told my students about this program. I told my high school students that I was taking this course and to please forgive me if I come to class looking like I stayed up until one o'clock in morning. Most likely, I have. The students are excited for me. I am trying to introduce more Web 2.0 in my classroom and use it along with what I am teaching them now.
This course is what I expected it would be. Although I did not realize that there would be so much work involved with it, it is very relevant to what I teach at my school. I had my BIM I students create a Wordle with their key terms. Then I had them create a Wordle with 10 words that reflected upon what is important to them. Of course, I told them that they had to type their name three times so it would stand out more. I had my BIM II students create a wiki. I told them that they would be uploading special projects to their sites throughout the rest of the year. I also told them that I was going to grade some of their assignments on this wiki. It had to be posted to earn the grade. I could tell from their enthusiasm that they are really going to enjoy creating and using wikis. I am going to try to incorporate as much technology that I learn here into my lesson plans. They really think it is cool that I am doing what I am making them do. But the neat part is that they are only in high school. Can you imagine what is going to be available to them in a few short years? Technology is amazing.
One outcome I was hoping for was to work on these assignments a lot less time. Even now, as I type this one up, I find myself glued to my PC trying to finish any loose ends that are not complete. It is Saturday night at 11:50 this very moment. I don't understand what is inside my will to do these assignments at this very late hour. I amaze myself sometimes. Other than that, everything is as I would have expected it. On a different note, there is one down side. There were three other of my co-workers who started this program with me but decided to drop out for one reason or another. They were all doing the principal leadership program. One of them decided the weekend before this course started to drop out. Another one just recently found out she has breast cancer. I can understand how hard it would be to do this program and to deal with that as well. The third co-worker is finishing up this week but has decided to quit now that her first class is over. I was really hoping to have a support group on campus where we could all feed off of each others' ideas and thoughts. Unfortunately, this is not going to happen after all. Despite the fact that they are giving up, I am going to keep going on. Thank goodness for our cohort groups.
I was successful in getting through the course load by taking the advice of Ms. Borel about doubling how much time you think you will spend. This is on the class webpage. Pacing myself by working on this everyday for three to four hours really helped a lot. At first I wanted to work all night Friday night, and all day Saturday and Sunday. Instead, I quickly realized I found it was easier to get through the assignments if I worked on these daily and reflected upon what the articles were saying. Another thing I would do is type out a response in Word, and then I would walk away from it for a while and then come back to it. Walking away from the writings for a while appeared to help ease my thoughts. This would help me by thinking about how this all fits into the big picture of using technology and enhancing education. For the most part, I was successful in carrying out the assignments. I have to be honest though, I am really hoping that it does not get harder than this. This was a lot of work. I almost wanted to quit but I kept on telling myself to persevere and keep going. I am glad I did.
I learned I really do not need eight hours of sleep a night. I can survive on about five and still make it through my day. I also learned that I have this determination to complete this task and not give up. This has been a very hard five weeks for me. I am busy with my children at home, my work, and my church activities. I cannot give any of that up nor do I want to. I love studying the Bible. Monday nights I attend Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) International in Beaumont, Texas. This is a yearlong Bible study from September to May. I have been doing this for a few years now. We have prayer requests from our group members. One of my prayer requests was to multiply my hours in a day so I would be able to complete this course. So far, God has honored my request. God is so good and awesome. I am sure once I complete this course, my leadership skills will be much more refined than they are now. I am willing to do what it takes to earn my master's degree. That should say something about leadership, determination to get something done.
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