Starting this class I was a bit apprehensive, I barley knew
how to work Microsoft word, let alone take a technology class. I was fearful
that I had signed up for the wrong class after the first day when professor
said we were making a website. Thankfully I continued to attend the class, the amount
of skills I have collected throughout the semester. These skills are some I am
very excited to share in my classroom one day.
One of the first assignments we did in the class was to make
a rubric; I took away a lot from this. I use the rubric that is made for all of
my assignments, so when asked to make one, I thought it would be a simple task.
I was surprised at how difficult it really was to put one together. Not so much
with the assembly of the rubric, but with the content of the rubric. It was a
great learning experience to see what effort teachers put into each rubric for
every assignment.
Moving ahead in the semester you’d think that designing a web-quest,
making a lesson plan, organize a wiki and creating a teacher webpage eportfolio
would be quite a difficult task for me considering my struggle with just the
rubric. Hey even I was nervous about even starting most of them. The funny
thing is, they turned out to be my favorite assignments, and yes I actually had
a great time building them!
While at first the Web-quest and lesson plans were a tackle,
it was arduous to come up with a subject matter, to teach the children. Once
the subject was decided, the assignments were easily finished, and I realized I
was concerned for nothing. The teacher website had to be my favorite assignment
during this semester, I got the most from it; it was fun and an educational
experience.
Another assignment that I found to be helpful is the
discussion. This was good for us as students to research information, share it
with one another, and get to comment and reflect of each other’s posts. I
always found that I learned a lot from the content of the discussions. Not only
was the content a benefit to me, throughout the semester, we were introduced to
multiple web tools. My all time favorite is Google Docs; I found it to be a
helpful form of communication and collaboration to use when our lives were got
too busy for meeting.
Our blog posts were a great way to explore and use new web
tools. Prezi, Canva, Piktochart, and Powtoon, are all tools I will return to
and use for my classroom. And although I never designed one, after using it in
class I know how fun Kahoot is and cant wait to make learning fun for my
students. And how do I remember all these great sites? Well that’s another
wonder I was introduced to, called Delicious, it’s like an online bookmark!
Seeing how it helped me throughout the semester, I know don’t know how I could
ever go without it!
Even though this semester caused a great deal of stress, I
wouldn’t have changed anything. From learning classroom skills playing kahoot, to
learning geography
with GeoGesser. This class has taught me that technology is not only growing
but also has opened my eyes to the abundance of ways technology can help educators and students in any grade level.
Resources:
Why is technology important in education? (n.d.). Retrieved December 10, 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMi13DoDBAM
It was a pleasure to watch you grow and learn so much - as intimidating as things seem, you can gain amazing content knowledge and skills when you relax and allow yourself to do so. :) You have definitely done so this semester and I hope you do come back to this experience over and over as you pursue your teaching career. I love seeing you continue to try new digital tools and am so pleased to hear that you 'enjoyed' learning them as well. Stay confident and keep learning. :)
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