I can't reflect on my growth as an online educator because I am not currently an online educator. I can, however, reflect on my growth and professional progress since my first year teaching English at Herschel V. Jenkins High School. In the eight years that I've worked at HVJ, I've gone from being the green 25-year old rookie to being our AP English Language and Composition instructor and English department chair. I've worked to use my background in testing knowledge combined with my passion for English to help my students learn and to perform on standardized tests. I am the Georgia High School Writing Test guru at my school, and I have helped students who nobody ever believed would be able to pass a standardized test earn passing scores on the GHSWT and the English EOCT's. My students learn, they have fun, and they perform.
During my time at HVJ, I've seen a greater and greater push for teachers to use more technology in the classroom. Since I am a technology addict myself, I enjoy figuring out ways to integrate technology into my lessons. I do worry, though, that perhaps sometimes the medium is becoming the message, that sometimes educators are teaching technology before content. Therefore, my focus in the English classroom will always be on teaching my students how to communicate and write well before it will be on how to use the latest and greatest online gimmick. Technology is such a powerful tool for educators and students alike, but if our focus is solely on the technology, then the content itself may get lost. I want to use technology as a tool to help my students learn, to differentiate instruction, to work smarter, not harder. My students can figure out sometimes better than their teachers how to create a Tumblr or a Prezi, but it's my job to make sure that the sentences that they're writing on those mediums are coherent, that my students can make a valid argument, that they can comprehend what they read. When they combine, then, the skills that I teach them with their own technological prowess--well, then they'll be force to be reckoned with.
During my time at HVJ, I've seen a greater and greater push for teachers to use more technology in the classroom. Since I am a technology addict myself, I enjoy figuring out ways to integrate technology into my lessons. I do worry, though, that perhaps sometimes the medium is becoming the message, that sometimes educators are teaching technology before content. Therefore, my focus in the English classroom will always be on teaching my students how to communicate and write well before it will be on how to use the latest and greatest online gimmick. Technology is such a powerful tool for educators and students alike, but if our focus is solely on the technology, then the content itself may get lost. I want to use technology as a tool to help my students learn, to differentiate instruction, to work smarter, not harder. My students can figure out sometimes better than their teachers how to create a Tumblr or a Prezi, but it's my job to make sure that the sentences that they're writing on those mediums are coherent, that my students can make a valid argument, that they can comprehend what they read. When they combine, then, the skills that I teach them with their own technological prowess--well, then they'll be force to be reckoned with.
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