Photo credit to hackNY on Flickr
On the first day of class, I remember you asking us to raise our hands if we thought that we should use cell phones/devices in classrooms... I did not raise my hand. If you were to ask us again I'm sure you would see the entire class with their hands up. As a student, I have never been in a classroom that was able to incorporate technology in a "fun" way to keep us engaged. Throughout this course, I got to learn about websites and games for students that I would never even think existed! I am more of an old fashioned learner, I always need things to be written down on paper and things of that sort but as we grow older, technology advances! As a future teacher I need to keep up with todays generation in order to be able to create success in my classroom.
Our textbook, Transforming Learning with New Technologies, was very resourceful. It is filled with great information for 21st century teachers! It had information from educational websites and apps to how to communicate and collaborate using social media. Also, it included Web 2.0 Tech Tools at the end of every chapter. These are some tools that you could use to incorporate technology into your own classroom. After we read each chapter, we got to create blog posts on it reflecting on how we could relate to certain things and how we could use the information given to us in that chapter. We also got to learn how to use digital tools to make our blog posts even more fun to read and create! My favorite digital tool would most definitely be Kahoot. I think it's a great tool to keep students engaged. I will be using it quite often in my own classroom!
As of our assignments, they were very challenging but do-able. We had many discussion posts like Educational Technology Best Practices/Resources, Assistive/Adaptive Technology for Students, Technology Tools for ELL Students, and Legal and Ethical Issues. I think all of these discussions helped us open up our minds to new things. It has definitely broaden my mind and made me more knowledgable on these topics! Being able to read what my classmates thought on these topics let me see many points of view and that is a great life skill to learn! We were able to give feedback to each other without negatively insulting someone else's opinion. In class discussions were also a great way to meet new people and share our own opinions with each other. We would put all of our different opinions together and get one source of outcome and present to the class what we came up with or what we, as a group, believe in!
I had so much fun with every project we had in this course! We got to do so many different things like a Website Evaluation Rubric, a group Wiki page, a WebQuest, Collaborative Lesson Plan, and our own Teacher Webpage ePortfolio. For my Website Evaluation Rubric, I evaluated http://www.arcademics.com. I am so lucky I was able to find this fun website because it is very engaging and makes students wants to learn! We did two projects that involved working as a group. I very much enjoyed the Collaborative Lesson Plan project because I was able to meet with my group in person and share ideas and put them all together for an awesome outcome! I did not enjoy the Instructional Wiki so much only because we were only able to communicate in the Wiki. It was very hard because many people leave things until the very end and that doesn't allow you to get stuff done the way you would personally want it to. My most favorite project would have to be the Teacher Webpage ePortfolio. I enjoyed it very much because I was able to see all of the work I put in this semester and see how much I have grown in the technology side. It helped me actually put myself in the position of having my own webpage for my students and parents and trying to see how I would want to go about it in the near future.
I had lots of fun this semester in this course! I learned so much about technology and its positive affects in the classroom. If I could change one thing in this course, it would be to have more group in-class discussions! I think it's an awesome way for people to really open their minds and accept new things and also meet new people! I have found many useful websites, apps, and games to use in my own classroom one day and this seriously helps me feel so more secure about my future. Websites that include lesson plans for teachers like WebQuest, help give you many ideas to do with your own students! I cannot wait to incorporate all of the things I have learned throughout this course into my own classroom. I truly believe I will make a great 21st century teacher!
(2013, April 7). Retrieved December 10, 2015, from https://www.flickr.com/photos/hackny/8673949525/sizes/m/
21st Century Education. (2012, May 7). Retrieved December 10, 2015, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nA1Aqp0sPQo
Kahoot! needs JavaScript to work. (n.d.). Retrieved December 10, 2015, from https://kahoot.it/#/
Games. (n.d.). Retrieved December 10, 2015, from http://www.arcademics.com/games/
Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Welcome. (n.d.). Retrieved December 10, 2015, from http://webquest.org/
Thanks for sharing your reflective comments about your learning in this class. It is always fun to look back and realize what you have gained in terms of both content knowledge but also various technology skills - and this class provides many challenges for both! :) I do hope that you will continue to revisit the various tools and concepts you explored through your own personal blog and teacher website/ePortfolio as there will continue to be constant change in this arena of education, but your metacognitive process will endure. Good luck - I know you will continue to benefit from future classes to pursue your career goal.
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