Reflective Post

By GotCredit on Flickr

It is common knowledge for anyone who knows me that I have a love-hate relationship with technology, I have a fear that society is moving towards no personal interaction and towards digital only. This class has helped me understand that technology within the classroom is not and should not be avoided. The important aspect that educators must remember is technology is not the teacher, it is merely a tool that can help facilitate learning for students, the same as using a worksheet or textbook. The biggest difference between a textbook and technology is students in school today are fully integrated into the digital world we live in and by using technology in class we a basically speaking their language as a teacher.

By Candace M on YouTube

The learning objective that I am the most grateful for accomplishing is being able to evaluate and critique websites, software and hardware for use in the classroom. It is way too simple to find a random program and implement it without doing an evaluation but if that is how the technology is introduced into the classroom then the students can lose valuable learning opportunities. This evaluation of online material was useful during the collaborative lesson plan. The group I worked with found a few worksheets to compliment the lesson plan we were creating however as the lesson plan evolved and changed to be a more effective plan the worksheets did not work as well as they had in the beginning. It would have been easy to leave them as they were and pretend that they worked, but instead we evaluated them and ultimately decided to create a new worksheet that worked for us using a creative commons picture in order to stay within the copyright laws and still deliver a fantastic lesson plan.

By Laurie Sullivan on Flickr

I enjoyed almost every activity and lesson that we accomplished this semester, with the exception of the wiki page. I think that this assignment was one of the most difficult and not based on the content of the lesson. This was a collaborative assignment that required very little interaction and encouragement of more interaction may have helped this assignment go a little more smoothly. I have more issues with collaborative assignments when the course is online only verses in class because in a physical classroom I can see the people in the group I am assigned to in person rather than trying to create times and ways to communicate in an effective way. In the end these assignments turned out well for me, however I always feel anxious if I cannot contact someone that I am working with, so it would be helpful if there was a way to have a more stream-lined communication method via Canvas.


I am very grateful that I was able to take this class and learn as much as I did. I feel much more comfortable with technology being in the classroom and not only in my future class but in my children’s current classrooms. I can now create online based lessons and a website that can help with communication with parents and students. I now look at everything online with a critical and analytical eye to ensure accuracy and relevance. I am now able to find photos and videos online that I can share and know that I am not violating copyright laws, even having a decent knowledge of technology I did not know anything about creative commons prior to this course. I have learned much and my thoughts have been transformed, with these two aspects I am confident that I will be a better educator thanks to this class.


I created a crossword puzzle on PuzzleFast using vocabulary words from our textbook "Transforming Learning with New Technologies". The embedded code unfortunately did not work, but the link will take you directly to it. Enjoy!

Technology in Teaching Crossword

References

GotCredit. (2015, March 16). Learn. Retrieved from Flickr: https://flic.kr/p/rECgUF

M, C. (2015, February 26). Technology in Education . Retrieved from YouTube: https://youtu.be/5QR6BrCYf20

Maloy, V.-O. E. (2014). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. Upper Saddle River: Pearson.

PuzzleFast. (2016). Technology in Teaching. Retrieved from PuzzleFast:  http://www.puzzlefast.com/en/puzzles/20160425445785

Sullivan, L. (2014, September 18). P1000641. Retrieved from Flickr: https://flic.kr/p/pgUXuF