I walked into class not really knowing what to expect. I've heard about this technology integration course and how it can help me advance my professional career...but that was about it. And finally the class starts. I expected quite a few people to show- but surprisingly there's only about 8 of us. It was neat to hear throughout the class the different perspectives, comparing my high school experiences with the elementary level ones.
Communities ...was the core concept/topic of this week's class. I've been involved with community
development for quite a few years now, but never really realized how prevalent it was in my teaching career.
Let me give you a little background. All through high school I was a pretty quiet kid who was interested in technology of all sorts. I worked as the audio/visual techie in the performing arts center and filmed the weekly school board and city hall board meetings. Then I decided to attend Winona State University for business education. One of my high school business teachers actually suggested the idea to me. So I went off to college, and can positively say that I changed quite a bit. I became super involved on campus, made lots of friends, and really started to come out of my shell. I had a horrible RA, who actually got fired during the 2nd week of school, so as the year progressed, I thought I might enjoy such a position. I applied...and was hired. I worked as a RA on a co-ed floor of 50 students my sophomore year, probably was the best year of my life. I built an absolutely amazing community- everyone got along (for the most part!), my residents hung out with one another, doors were always open, it was a pleasant place to live. I decided to advanced myself to a more challenging position as community assistant for the remainder of my college career. As a community assistant I was in charge of developing a community of 100 residents of my co-ed apartment building. It was hard- students were cooped up in their 1/2/or 4 bedroom apartments...doors weren't open anymore...and it was tough. But I managed to do it- lots of pizza parties, social gatherings, service projects, grill outs, midnight breakfasts, and more.
Alright, enough of that. So now you know my background in communities...in the sense of how I've developed them in the past. I've taken the initiative to put a strong emphasis on the community development in my classes over the course of last year to help my students feel a sense of belonging- in hope that they'd enjoy class. I look back at my classes last year and my webpage design class- term 2, block 3, really stands out. The students in this class really built a strong bond with one another...two are actually still dating. Many of them keep in contact with me still...a year later.
We discussed communities...and there were still ideas that had never crossed my mind. Communities in many different areas- from online- to residential (in terms of where we live), from my career- to being a citizen of the US. Communities surround us in many different fashions and at many different levels.
I look forward to learning more about communities and how I can use technology as a medium for creating an established community in my many different classroom environments.
