Capstone II Expectations

What are your expectations for this course?
What knowledge and skills do you hope to learn?
How will this professional development experience shape your future instruction?

I expect to be challenged during the rest of the Capstone experience.  I am looking to it as a means of focus, a way to keep me current in my practice.  I am especially looking forward to networking and collaborating with other educators.  Since I am not in a traditional school with core content areas, I hope to gain practical skills that I can implement in any environment.  I have often found that many conferences and professional development opportunities focus very closely on content, and it is challenging to find ways to implement that in my building.  Because the NETS-T are skills and objectives for learning, rather than a specific skill tied to a specific content or outcome, I think that after finishing the courses, I will be able to bring a more diverse range of instructional strategies to my teachers and students.  After the Introduction course, I have definitely gained a more complete understanding of the NETS-T than I had before, but I also know that I have so much more to learn as we progress.  I am looking forward to all of the changes that my project will undergo and to see that project actually take place in a classroom.

I hope to have a thorough understanding of the NETS-T and how to use those standards to guide planning for instruction with my teachers.  Because I am in a position to work with every teacher and student in my building, I want a broad viewpoint that is not limited by content, but is able to apply all of the standards to any instructional situation with ease.  With that in mind, I want to also have the foresight to know when technology may not be the most appropriate answer to an instructional situation, and I want to gain my teachers' trust so that they know that I am not going to be a technology evangelist, but rather an instructional specialist that they can rely on to find the best possible instructional strategy for any given objective.  Student learning is the goal, and I want to keep that as my true north.  I hope that through this experience I gain a confidence and awareness that I may not always have right now, so that the teachers always see a strong instructional leader whom they are comfortable coming to for assistance.

Your prior experiences using technology in the classroom.
Challenges and successes you have experienced using technology.
Any questions you have about the Capstone Program and the NETS*T.

Ever since I started teaching 9 years ago, I have tried to infuse my classroom with technology.  It was that drive that has lead me to my current position as a CRS.  I feel that I have quite a bit of experience using technology in the classroom.  As a regular classroom teacher, I was willing to give anything a try to engage my students.  Now as a CRS, I try to get my teachers to do the same things by showing them how many great tools are available to them to use.  Usually the technology I have used with students and teachers has been fairly successful.  We have met the typical challenges of technology not working because of division filtering issues or the resource not working the way it should.  We have also encountered issues with students not using the technology appropriately, but those kinds of challenges help to provide learning opportunities for the students and teachers alike.

I am feel more sure about my Standards 1 and 4 plan than I did before Capstone II began.  I was worried about how much technology is included, but I feel like it is less overwhelming now that I have revised it.