Week One Assessment Reflections

After completing both of this week's reflections, I realized several things. The first is that I have not worked for a school, in the past 8 years, that has access to the appropriate amount of new technological resources. The second assessment asked a variety of questions relating to technology used by staff and students. I realized in answering most of those questions that our students do not use technology near enough. My response to most of those survey items would have reflected poorly on the district I currently work for as well as the one I worked for previously. I do not know any teachers who are using technology in "new and innovative ways." All of the teachers I have worked with and work with currently consider themselves lucky if they get in the lab more than once a year. I do and did work for small, rural districts with very little funding for technology. However, I think more than funding, it is not seeing the benefit of upgrading technology. They have the, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," philosophy. They feel that what they have is sufficient and see no need in upgrading.

The second thing I realized was that, despite the fact that I am more advanced than most I work with, I need to upgrade my technological skills. I can navigate around word processing software like a champ and am almost a pro at Power Point. The internet and e-mail never have me stumped. However, that is about where it ends. I rarely, if ever, integrate multimedia components into my presentations. I have not used a database system in ten years and I couldn't remember how to use mail merge if I tried. The first assessment asked about my personal skills and I can tell you, I need an upgrade.