Reflecting and Technology - What it means to me

As I started this journey, I was expecting to be excited but as I saw what was expected of me I got a little scared and overwhelmed questioning myself, “can I really do this?”, with a little hesitation, I quickly thought and replied to myself, “YES, YOU CAN!’.

When I was first presented with the notion of reflecting, I asked myself “how am I supposed to this, who does that”, sit and think about what they have done. Then it hit me you do, you often think about what you have and what you could have done differently, this made me then realize that all my life I have been reflecting and not knowing that this is what I have been doing. This made it easier for me to put my thoughts on paper.

I am still a bit skeptical about reflecting after completing a course, this is so, as I do not want to be in a position to have to reflect on what I did in a course that I was not successful in, this is me scared of failing and not looking at reflection from the angle of it being there to improve a situation. For me, I think it is quite useful in my day-to-day operations in my organization as when commencing a new “cycle, or year” and looking back at the processes and ways in which things were done, the outcome and come up with new ways to enhance the overall experience going forward. How though will I use technology to do this?

One thing that struck me hard as I reviewed reflection came when one of my colleagues brought to my attention how we could use the Kolb’s learning cycle when building a house, hmmmm, can we build an entire house and then reflect? Suppose in reflecting we recognize that we should have used steel to hold the blocks together, what do you think would be the outcome?

What stood out to me most in my readings this week was how we could use technology to reflect. I must admit I very unsure of if this was possible as I could not think of what type of technology I could use to reflect. I however found that they are many types of technologies that can be used to reflect. But why reflect using technology, here’s why. The past decade has seen the rapid development of technology in education. The learning environments aim at providing a learning process that is more comprehensive than traditional approaches and the environments require communication and technology to help the new generations to learn, especially those who are learner-centered.

Through the use of technology, students can reflect in a more meaningful way where there is collaboration through chats and discussions. For me, I never thought of using the blog to reflect as I always thought that was for those “computer geeks” those similar to youtubers, so I stayed away, but after doing some research I think it would be considered as a good way for students to gain and learn knowledge and experiences through blogging. The Edmodo app is a tool which I truly love and would want to use this with my students to engage in reflecting. Used for conducting informal education, it is considered as education-oriented, supports learning, allows teachers to provide feedback and educational environment accessible to teachers, learners and parents from any place at any time. This look alike to the facebook app is the tool I would want to engage my children with as they reflect on various topics whilst and after completion.

I must make mention though that in Barbados, we are a far away from reflecting through technology. To my surprise, my son is now pursuing the CSEC English and they have been asked to do reflections, nice I said, but sadly these are being done the old fashioned way (writing on paper) and to me, and I might be wrong, does not carry the effect that a reflection is supposed to carry. Maybe I need to enhance my knowledge on reflection before I speak on it, but I still feel that there is much that must be done. Is it a case where we now need to engage our teachers in reflection and the benefits that it would have on the student’s learning? We as teachers need to recognize that students are very comfortable with technology and with the many tools that are available, whether blogs, social networking, WIKIS or my favorite Edmodo, we can encourage students to self-reflect on what they did, how they did it and what they can do to make it better the next time around. After we have done this, do we have the technology within the schools to ensure that reflection is done through technology? As I conclude there are so many unanswered questions which has forced me to continue my quest in gaining more knowledge on reflection and how it can and should be used through technology to enhance collaborative learning.

The below video gives a clear understanding of how self-reflection can be done through technology. What impacted me most in this video is the fact that they understand that integrating technology into schools remains a challenge and thus have demonstrated to us the SELFIE that can be used with the overall view of improving learning and teaching.