PD development by the ISB tech team and my goals for this course.

I applaud the tech team and the administration and curriculum support for taking us in the direction ISB was and is heading. Attracting and hiring the team we have at ISB, funding the technological developments of the past few years, and throwing support behind increasing the tech staff so we can expand and improve are commendable. I am most pleased that they all agreed to support advanced PD in technology and followed up with a current, relevant, attractive, and comprehensive avenue for us to move to a more technologically aware, skilled, committed, and motivated institution. The picture of the many of us in the course speaks 1000 words to this.
What I expect to get out of this course is . . . . opportunity. I have learned to trust the members of the team over the years and repeatedly am smiling when I walk out of one of their after school sessions. (I’ve actually been upset because the sessions are so often in direct conflict with my teaching schedule.) I approach “the learning I hope for” with an expectation that they know what I “should” learn and will provide me the opportunity to learn, practice, and improve these skills. I believe what one learns in a class is dependent on the learner. This course is opening doors I didn’t and will not know even exist. I already have the knowledge that students learn differently now, the knowledge that technology can improve the way I guide students toward learning, and the awareness that there are so many learning avenues that I am not aware of. I hope this course will show me the avenues so I can go and try them out to see which might work for me, my courses, and my students.

Five years from now things we are discussing now in this class will seed the development of where each of us will go to make our students, classes, and learning more challenging, interesting, successful, and current. Having so many in the class means we will have a community to discover with, share with, rejoice with, and get support from. The course is giving me what I hoped for.