Thing #1

Learning is something that is not just restricted to the classroom or to a certain age or time period in your life, but is constantly taking place at all times. As the “7 ½ Habits of Lifelong Learners” tutorial points out it is never too late or too soon to learn something. It all depends on your attitude on whether you want to get something out of a situation or experience or not. Lifelong learning is important for everyone because it allows us to grow and become well-rounded individuals. As educators, not only is it important for us to stay lifelong learners, but we will be expected to instill this idea into our students as well.

Out of the 7 ½ Habits listed in the tutorial, the easiest habit for me is probably habit number 2: “Accept responsibility for your own learning.”  I have always been a very self-motivated/ self-disciplined person, that doesn’t wait for someone to tell me when or how to do something. If I am curious about something or don’t know the answer to a question, I will try to find out. No one is going to do the work or learning for me, it is completely up to me. A teacher may be able to teach a lesson or impart information to me, but it is still up to me to make sure I am getting it and understanding. Also, because I know my own learning style and strengths and weaknesses, I know what works best for me and can figure out a way to reach whatever goal I am trying to attain.

My hardest habit from the list would probably be habit number 1: “Begin with an end in mind.” Setting goals for myself and keeping them is very hard for me. I usually have somewhat of a picture of something I want to accomplish that stays in the back of my mind, but as for actually writing down these goals and keeping myself accountable that’s where I have trouble. I need to be better about writing down specifics of what I want to accomplish. By writing goals down, it makes it more than just a thought, but an actual mission. If it is written down, I will be more likely to keep it and can more easily track my progress.

I am excited about this project and learning to use Web 2.0 tools. The internet has tons of resources out there for teachers and I want to be able to take advantage of them. As someone that doesn’t know a lot about Web 2.0 and only uses the computer for basic things, the tools we will be learning in this class will not only be helpful to me personally, but they will be very beneficial to me in my future classroom.