Strengths and Weaknesses

When I looked at the NET standards I saw areas that I would consider strengths, and some that I would call weaknesses. The areas that I think I do well in are; basic understanding of concepts and continual growth in technology, identify and locate technology resources, and I use technology in a legal, ethical way. I usually do not have problems with basic technology tasks. I can also figure out a way to make something work if my first choice goes wrong.

I think that my biggest weakness is that I don’t know the best way to incorporate technology in teaching. I will also avoid technology sometimes because I know it can be complicated. With the NET standards my weaknesses are; plan strategy to manage student learning, apply technology to maximize student learning, apply technology to evaluate, and teachers us technology to enhance productivity. There have been times when I have had issues with technology. I couldn’t get something to work right, and I have no idea how to fix it. I’m so worried about something going wrong, that I figured I would just avoid it all together. That is also a weakness. Students today need exposure to different technologies.

My goals for first year teaching are to learn the best ways to use technology in curriculum, and to not let my fear of failure keep me from using technology in my future classroom. I found one workshop on UEN called, “The Integrating Technology and Curriculum, Parts 1&2”. This workshop will help by teaching me the best ways to use technology in the classroom. The other conference I found is called, “Using Technology to Teach”. The description of this one even asks, “Are you nervous about computers?” It goes through the basics when using a computer and then also tells you how to incorporate technology in your classroom.