Reflection

Education is a forever changing field. As Meltzer says "What was once good enough for grandma, or even mom and dad, is not good enough for our children"(2012, pg. 1) It seems natural that the technology we use is our everyday lives, all too often, is creeping into our classrooms and changing the way we teach. We need to prepare our students for the future and the future is bound to have more and more technology. We therefore work on effective and safe ways of integrating technology into our schools and our classrooms. For this purpose we needs things like  the ISTE NETS standards and  a technology integrator. These two things were familiar to me before this class but I have since become much more familiar with them and the role that they play in technology integration. The plan that Meltzer outlines in her book has made me very familiar with the different necessary parts of integrating technology that I did not think about before such as setting short and long term goal. I had always just thought of the broad goal of technology integration rather than more specific and measurable goals. 

I also had not thought about how much administration matters with regards to technology integration. My former administration spent time and resources on giving us professional development on technology and also pushed us to integrate it. My current administration has barely touched on it at all and it's easy to see in the classrooms that it isn't happening very often. It's not surprising knowing that my former Dean of academics know about the ISTE NETS standards and integration and my current Dean does not. It shows that providing professional development and resources make a great difference. Because of this class I will push for more technology focused professional development from my administration so that I have the support to work on increasing how often I integrate technology into my classroom.