Reflective Post...

It never fails that when the start of a new semester comes around, we always seem to think that the end of that semester is eons away. In actuality when you start getting into the class and doing all the work it involves you start realize how close and how fast the end is.

When I first started this course, I honestly thought I was going to be learning about technologies that teachers used in their classrooms on a day to day basis. Now you might say well some teachers do use what we learned in Intro to Tech every day. True, but I thought that we going to learn about projectors and Mimio boards, not the vast array of technology that we now know how to use. Before coming into this class I would've never imagined that I’d be making my own teacher page or that I’d make my own digital story or even knew what WikiSpaces was. Being in Intro to Tech has opened my eyes to a world of technology and way on how to implement that tech in my future classroom. It has also taught me not to be scared of technology. Just everything else in the world technology can be good or bad it just depends on how you use it. There are so many ways that technology can help your students learn or help students get engaged and hooked on what is being taught. For example, doing a collaborative project with students like the Wiki we had to do. That project helped encourage teamwork and helped, me at least, talk to and get to know other classmates.  Another great resource (that I thoroughly enjoyed) was the “Poll Everywhere” site. Many schools have a “No Cellphone” policy, but why? If students like to be on their phones and let’s face it so do some teachers, why not use that to our advantage. You could have you students take a poll at the beginning of class to see what their prior knowledge about topic is, then lecture or even watch a video, have them take another poll, and start a discussion from their poll answers. They’d be learning without even realizing it. Another resource I found that would work great in a classroom was having students setting up their own blog. Any student can write a summary about what he/she read in a chapter and then answer some questions, but when a student knows that what they write is out there for everyone to see, literally, then they take much more pride in what they say. I also enjoyed the website that were given to us as tools such as Delicious.com and FreeRice.com How many times can you honestly say that you come across a cool website and want to tell your friend or whoever but can’t recall the name and say “I book marked it on my computer”. Well with Delicious you can retrieve your bookmarks anywhere.  Overall, I can say that I really enjoyed the class and yes the work is a lot but it’s well worth it. I think maybe if the journal posts weren’t due at the same time that a big project was due, like the lesson plan or the Webquest, it’d be easier and less stressful. But again, all the work that you do in this class isn’t busy work, its work that helps you practice whatever new technology you’re learning.