I Found My Ninja! (Blog 10)


I started teaching in elementary school in the mid-1990s when basic computing was all that I knew.  My school had a Title I computer lab where students engaged in computer-assisted instruction in a weekly rotation with art, music, physical education, and library.  I never knew what they were learning in the computer lab.  I never asked the proctor assigned to the lab and did not know how to connect the computer assisted instruction with my classroom instruction.  I had a successful first three (and only) years as an elementary school teacher, but it was hard.  My students had very low skills and most of them were not ready for first grade (even though most of them attended kindergarten).  During that time, the focus of kindergarten was play and then the next academic year was a major culture shock to desks and no sleep time!   I was always brainstorming, always searching, always networking, always looking for new ways to enhance my instruction to engage student interest.  I went to a lot of conferences and took advantage of lots of professional development during that time to glean new ideas, network with other professionals, and return to my classroom with a vengeance.  

However, when the South Carolina standards hit the surface, I was utterly confused.  As I fast forward (something I learned through discovery learning) from the 1990s to this class in 2020 (almost 30 years later), I still brainstorm and look for new ways to engage my students in learning.  Voila!  I have found my new ninja! I was longing for more resources to keep my students engaged from bell to bell.  After all these years, I have found an area where I can excel with practice, trial, and error.  Or, I can make more observations and take anecdotal notes, as I had longed to do for some many years.  For example, I can apply Metaverse and let my students take the wheel.  Do I need to worry if they will crash?  The only thing I would need to be concerned about is prying the computers and tablets out of their hands when the bell rings for the next class period.  State standards—no problem!    


As I make a final plug in this reflection on this semester, my biggest takeaway is the knowledge I have gained from learning about the many apps and tools that I can use to enhance my instruction.  I feel magically empowered to propel my students to higher learning.  I can see the future…they will be engaged in lots of discovery learning and using higher order thinking skills to figure out how things work and even better, they will write their own manual on how to make things work.  The opportunities for immersing the students into technological apparatuses are limitless!  In return, I will unleash the limitless learning potential that will bring in the gold nuggets.  Unleash the mighty digital giants (DGs)! 






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