A theme that unifies my ePortfolio, and that I hope will unify my future students is connectedness.  I want all of my students to feel a deep connection with the science in and out of the classroom and also to feel connected to me as their teacher as well as their other classmates.

The first artifact, the blog, contains two posts that I think deal directly with this issue.  The first chronological post entitled “Invisible Leashes” deals with issues of connection between people in this ever more technological world.  Before I started this course, I was apprehensive that too much technology in the classroom would diminish our connections to other people as well as create an over dependence on things like computers or calculators, a big fear as possible physics teacher.  This initial posting discusses my hopes that we remain connected to each other and be cautious with our use of technology.  The final post too, “Blogging about Blogging” stressed that we as technology users needed to stay connected to the world around us.  We cannot simply blog about the world around us; we need to actually get out there and experience it.  We must remain connected to the people and the world around us, and not let the technology do the talking for us.  Technology is a tool that we should use to stay connected, not a burden that should keep us a part.

The second artifact presented was a Wiki on Webquests.  Wikis in themselves offer great opportunities for connectedness by allowing for collaboration between many authors.  My co-author and I were able to work together, each delegating certain parts to the other and each able to showcase their talents.  By working within these connections to each other, we were able to create a page that was educational both to ourselves through the research and construction, but also to our other classmates and anyone else who might happen along the page.  The Webquest also stresses connectedness. Students are connected to a wealth of information via the internet and use these connections to learn about a certain topic.  The websites are connected through their common topic and through the work of the designer.  Here we can see some of my transition to recognizing that connections with technology, such as the internet, do not always have to be seen as a burden and can in actuality be very beneficial to students.

Lastly we have my Lesson Plan.  Here I show my future connectedness with my students by presenting a lesson that I hope will connect them both with the science and with me as a teacher.  I attempt to connect the science to their own lives by offering the real life scenario on the mountain top.  While this may seem a bit extreme, there are many other ways which this particular lesson in physics, concerning acceleration and friction, can be seen in the daily lives of students.  The lesson also shows a good way to connect technology in the physics classroom by letting the students run a simulation.  They get to see the actual physics in action through the use of the computer simulation and get to try new and different things with the variables in a simple and convenient medium. While they are connected to the technology, it is not an overpowering part of the lesson.  Much of the learning occurs through manipulation of the equations through algebra.  The technology aspect merely allows them to connect the theory with practice.

Each of these artifacts held a place in my own learning scheme.  Through creation of the blog I learned about blogging as a viable educational resource.  I learned when and when not to apply it in my own classroom and gained insight into its proper use.  The Wiki was another great learning experience as I got to try my hand at creating a webpage.  This was a first for me and a great experience.  I also learned about the great benefit to using Wikis, Webquests, and many other educational technology tools in the classroom.  I will definitely be implementing many of these in my future classroom.  This lesson plan was my first opportunity to include technology.  This was very beneficial to me as a future teacher because technology plays such an important role in today’s classrooms.  I got the opportunity to attempt to intertwine a type of virtual world in a way that benefited the students and should help them grasp some of the physics.  I look forward to getting to try out this lesson on actual students.

This theme of connectedness will ultimately grow as I develop in my own classroom. As it stands now, this theme in me seems to favor connectedness between people over people and technology. I think with reverence the connections between teachers of generations past and their students, when the most advanced piece of technology in the classroom was the chalkboard.  This class has taught me a lot about the use of technology in the classroom. It has showed me where we can make great connections to technology, and through the use of technology, make great connections to the world around us.  I have learned the best ways to do this, as well as a few to avoid.  It is my hope that in the future, I can continue to use technology to connect my students to the science around them, and also to help them stay connected to each other.