Blog Post 16 Course Closing

Key takeaway: Learning about emerging technologies was an important “update” I sorely needed. Lani Gunawardenaʻs keynote at TCC was the important pedagogical glue that helped me take these new technologies to the next level.The HIDOE  has from its inception failed our native Hawaiian and Pacific island populations because their success was never the goal.

I wish Lani had had more time – actually, I wish she could lead a course for us on culturally inclusive/sensitive instructional design. Her work includes everything I believe from experience and all the work Iʻve done in LTEC –  I have been exploring her website and research and want to learn more!

Maybe this is a way to shake the entrenched system and allow the DOE to transform to a real thinking, collaborative model of education; I donʻt know. Teachers in the DOE rarely participate in furthering our pedagogy and practice because the DOE has us doing everything but what is important: Learning about teaching and learning. It is amazing they donʻt see the necessity of taking away all the unnecessary strains on our energy and minds so we can be better teachers.  I often feel angry and frustrated that the students that are in my class today are not being served.

Key Challenge: Even if no one else reads this at this point, it has been a challenge keeping up with the course – not because it was too demanding, but because my day job has been way too much in an already stressful year for my family. Iʻm sure it has also been the same for all the other students in our class as we are all adult learners with full-time jobs.

This class has been a whirlwind of an experience with the FIVE Cʻs – communication, creative thinking, collaboration, creativity and CHALLENGE. I apologize to all of you for not being 100% there all the time, and appreciate the learning and new friends and new hope for these younger educators that the class has afforded me.

I wish we had had a chance to couch these emerging technologies in practice (of course, besides the padlet lesson plan I am still working on). Maybe next time, more of that can be embedded into the class – perhaps instead of Case Study 4, a lesson design + emerging technologies based on discussions about the changing frameworks.

mahalo to all of you!

renee