Monday, August 15, 2022

Opening Post for EDT5122

   I am currently enrolled in a master's program, in which I have been required to make occasional posts to my blog.  Here are my responses to the prompts that I have been asked to complete this week:

    A concept that I had not taken the time to fully study and understand was that of LMSs (Learning Management Systems).  I have had to research these a bit for other courses but, never delved into them because I thought that they were not applicable to my teaching environment.  I had previously understood that all LMSs either required teachers to create their own content/lessons on that platform or had to be joined with another platform to be utilized.  Since my company has set curricula that cannot be replaced or changed, I thought that an LMS could not be implemented within my company.  However, while conducting research for our most recent project, I discovered that there were a large variety LMSs available, that many of them had varying structures and features, and that there were LMSs that would potentially work with my company’s requirements and current format.

   I cannot identify one particular strategy from this course that I would implement with my students.  However, I have been able to wrap my head around several tools (like a student-based blog) that I might implement with them to enhance and extend learning. I would also implement the LMS that was featured in my latest project, Edmodo.  Edmodo offers a social media-type format that I would be able to use with my students without interfering with the curricula that my company utilizes.  My fellow teachers and I have traditionally struggled with learning extension and enhancement since our classrooms are solely online.  Utilizing Edmodo would also provide ways for us to do that within a user-friendly format.

   By the end of this course, I hope to better understand how to integrate the concepts centered around digital citizenship and ethical technology use in my particular setting.  I teach in small groups and one-on-one sessions that last 25 minutes with a set number of instructional slides to cover during that time.  I try to work these concepts in frequently.  However, my constraints make it difficult.  I would like to feel more confident in my efforts and know that I am providing the best possible educational experience for my students.