Week 14 - Reflection

What made me think "that’s so neat?" Electronic Training Jackets is a fascinating concept. The thought of being able to track and maintain someone’s progress and training with an ETJ is exceptional. I wonder how long before someone thinks of applying this to the civilian education system, if they haven’t already. How incredibly helpful it would be to have an electronic file on students that would follow him or her throughout their educational career.

When concepts and objectives are mastered it could be registered in some form on the ETC. The possibilities are boundless. I guess my concern comes with how much control will be the educators be able to maintain over instruction. I can see many pros and cons to ETJ’s; I wonder whether the advantages will outweigh the disadvantages.

My favorite activity of the semester was building the wiki. I enjoyed working with the other people in my group. It actually made the work interesting when working and collaborating with others. It also helped me to visualize what my students might go through if I used this as part of a project.

After being introduced to wikis, I started making a few of my own to help organize a couple of my classes and update my students as to where there should be in the assignment schedule. I have spent a good amount of time working on these. I have quite a few pages created consisting of assignment pages, handout pages, and link pages for several units. I have a number of students that have been utilizing these wikis because they have difficulty getting to class. Another feature I like with wikis is the discussion page. I can have students answer journal questions and respond to each others. Also, if they have questions, they can post them from home if they won’t be in for few days/weeks. It is a great communication tool for my students to utilize.

Also, a couple of teachers saw me working on them when I first started making them. I ended giving a presentation during one of our professional development days on wikis and using them in the classroom for a variety of purposes. One of the teachers I work, who was not able to attend the presentation because she was giving one at the same time, asked me to get her started. I helped her set up her account and gave her a quick overview. We worked on them together, periodically, if she had any questions. She now has five wikis set up for her classes, and her students love using them. She says they have made her life so much easier.

I haven’t reached that point yet because I don’t have a great deal of computer access in my classroom–but I’m working on it. I also plan on tweeking my existing wikis and creating more for other classes over the summer. I want to incorporate a more productive way of introducing them to students and teaching them how they can be used as a tool that will help them.