Course Reflection

When I intitially saw the course title of “Instructional Leadership,” I thought that this course was going to be more like another curriculum management course, teaching future principals to help teachers with planning and instruction. I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that we would be learning about instructional leadership through technology. Once I understood what the course was about, I hoped to learn a lot more about programs and methods that could make my job more efficient. I was also hoping to get ideas to take to other teachers at my school to help them integrate technology into their classrooms. Many teachers at my school are like a lot that we have discussed and read about, they are simply digital immigrants who are teaching digital natives. I was hoping to learn new things to help myself and other become more comfortable with technology in the classroom on a more frequent basis. Looking back now at the course, I see that these outcomes were achieved. I learned a lot in this course!

These things that I learned and achieved while taking this course are absolutely relevant to my everyday job as a teacher. I can become more of a teacher leader by sharing this information with other faculty members at my school and encouraging them to take those steps to integrate technology into their planning, instruction, and evaluation. I can also lead others by modeling the things that I have learned and doing them in my own classroom. More importantly, I can have a great impact on my students by using technology to reach them at a new level, differentiating instruction for their different learning styles and levels, and offering them opportunities for deeper enrichment. Once I become an administrator, this information and the knowledge that I have gained through this course will become even more relevant, because I can influence and help people on a larger scale.

I was very excited to attend the new web conferences, and I was able to participate in one of them. I learned a lot from it, and I was hoping that an outcome of the course would be for me to participate in more of them and perhaps even learn how to conduct them myself. I would love to be able to do parent conferences like that, when possible, and maybe even faculty meeting someday. However, I was disappointed that all of the subsequent web conferences for my section were on dates that I could not attend. One of them was on my husband’s birthday, one of them was scheduled on the same night as a PTA meeting, and I was out of town on a family emergency for the third conference. I am hoping that other courses and other professors will bring this to the table as well, since the one that I was able to attend was helpful and fun.

I was successful in carrying out the course assignments. I think that a lot of this comes from the fact that I, myself, am kind of a digital native instead of a digital immigrant. I grew up with technology – not as much as my students have, but I was still able to access information, communicate online, and learn new things with the click of a mouse. I think that if I were an older, veteran teacher completing this course, I would have had a much harder time. For example, the blog and powerpoint were simple for me because I have had a blog of my own for 3 years and I frequently post pictures, movies, and slide shows to it. I am also well prepared to complete the assignments because, ironically, of my technology skills. It is much easier to complete a complicated assignment when you know how to organize your information into tables and charts, and how to research, cite sources, and type effieciently.

I learned a lot about myself while reading the articles and doing the assignments for this course. I learned that, even though I feel like I am doing a great job of integrating technology into my classroom, there is so much more that I can be doing! I feel like my attitude has changed and I am now seeking out new ways to make learning more meaningful for my students. As far as my leadership skills go, I have discovered new aspects of myself over the last 4 weeks of class. When I am planning with my team, I have been encouraging them to bring more technology in. I’ve been working hard to modify some of our lessons and bring them more up-to-date. Additionally, I have been talking a lot with the technology specialist at my school and brainstorming ways to motivate all of the teachers to embrace technology and integrate it into their classrooms. I am just much more motivated to do all of these things after taking this course.


One of the assignments in this course was to create and publish several entries to a blog. I think that there is great educational value to doing this to the 21st century learner. Not only does it provide a meaningful writing opportunity, which are sometimes so hard to find, it motivates students to express themselves and share their ideas with others. Also, there is a great aspect of collaboration in blogging. While others may not be able to edit a student’s blog, they can comment on it and work together to form new ideas. Also, blogging can have great value to students and parents if teachers are doing it. Parents can stay informed of what is going on in the classroom (spelling words, homework, projects, upcoming tests, etc) if they can follow a teacher’s blog. Ths enables parents to better support students at home and is therefore very beneficial to the students.


Although blogging has great educational value these days, there are also some concerns associated with it. Many teachers, parents, schools, and districts are hestitant to allow their students to “put themselves out there” in cyberspace. There is a fear of violating confidentialty rules when teachers are blogging about students, and there is also paranoia that students will be discovered by the wrong people and be put in harm’s way. Many unfortunate things have happened to students who gave out personal information over the internet. However, I do believe that there is a solution to the problem. In order for blogging to work successfully in the school environment, there must be strict rules and procedures in place for it. This really goes for all online activity that students participate in. They need to be explicitly taught how to remain safe in cyberspace. As educators, we need to give them the tools that they will use for the rest of school and their lives.

Blogging is not only a great tool for students to use for communication and collaboration, or for teachers to use when communicating with students and parents at home, it is also a great way for teachers and administrators to communicate with stakeholders. Stakeholders should be aware of the major events taking place at school, but often times that communication gets pushed aside because school personnel and the stakeholders themselves are so busy. They may not have time to make it to big meetings to hear news and talk about important issues. With blogging, they can visit the blog at their convenience and be instantly caught up. Also, they can leave comments on the blog to give feedback, ideas, and suggestions about the topics at hand. When I am an administrator, I hope to utilize blogging to communicate with my school stakeholders. In fact, all of the strategies, ideas, and tools that I have picked up throughout this course will be of great use to me as I further my career.