Reflection for Week 11: Policies

I read a few people referring to Alberta’s  5 main components to an effective technology framework: 1. Student centered learning  2. Research and innovation 3. Professional learning 4. Leadership 5. Access, infrastructure, and digital learning. In the twitter feed, I also saw the question about where I think my district would stumble, and I think we would be stuck on number 1. I don’t see how we have student centered learning if access is blocked to sites that would help our ELL students ability to further their understandings with the use of media. I tried earlier to look at a youtube by Theresa and my district has enabled a restriction that will not allow me to view her presentation, nor will my district allow me to upload a youtube presentation for this class. (Bummer)

I read lot of BYOD policies from our class. Most of you probably have students that have great and up to date personal devices, but in my very small community of impoverished subsistence members, we don’t have many modern devices. I think a BYOD policy first would require a LOT of bandwidth. I think that a lot of schools can pull this off, but not our site. There was good discussion though and rich with a lot of great reasons for BYOD policies and AUP to be put in place.

Cherie’s district in 2011 wrote a “technology standards curriculum that outlines what should be taught in each grade level starting in kindergarten.” I thought that was a great idea. If we have this policy, just think of how technology can be used in the upper grades! The possibilities are endless.

In the twitter feed, the questions were amazing! One that I really liked was, “How can connected learning change the culture of learning environments?” I remember reading about connected learning and how this can help our students find resources in people from different sections of the world in fine tuning their learning and also the fact that we can possibly help our students build career choices and even get them on their way while they are still in school! I know for a fact that this is a possibility. My son is going to be a senior, and he will receive his private pilot’s license this fall because of the opportunities through our school district. He is also connected to ANSEP at UAA and he has a taste of geology. So many opportunities can open up when we expose our students to the potential jobs out there! He might come from a community of 60, but he has many choices and is learning about what his possible careers can have for him. Yay technology, lets hope our schools continue to use technology to help our young ones in the future.