Looking back on my journey...

This was definitely the most beneficial and most enjoyable course I have taken so far in college. I have learned a huge amount of useful information that will help me to create a wonderful, technology-filled, engaging and exciting classroom. I thought I knew quite a bit about technology, programs, web tools, etc. when coming into this class but I definitely did not. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to have taken this course and I've been sharing what I've learned with many others. I'm excited to have learned about so many tools that are highly useful for my classroom but also that I can use for personal reasons. I look forward to the day when I can use all of my knowledge of technology from this course with my students to maximize their success as learners.

Storyboard/movie project

The story/movie project was hands down my favorite assignment all semester. I have been so excited ever since I finished my story and I've been showing it to everybody. If I am so excited about my movie project then my students would probably be ten times more excited about it. I enjoyed creating something using multiple types of media because I have never made something like that. I can't wait to make another movie about mine and Kyle's relationship to show in our wedding. Of course I will make movies to use for teaching in my classroom someday, but making a movie is great for a wedding too. I've known about and had access to Windows Movie Maker and IMovie for years but I have never thought twice about exploring what they do. I'm really glad that I learned about how to use them in class because they are fantastic tools for teaching.

Glogster

While I have loved basically all of the web 2.0 tools we have learned this semester, I really did not like Glogster very much. I played around with it for a while and it was just incredibly complicated to use. I could see uses for it if teachers were making the glogs but I think it's way too complicated for students to use (although I couldn't even figure it out). I think part of the reason I don't see much use for it and don't necessary love the idea of it is because I'm a scrapbook fanatic. I am all about making eye catching things using tangible materials. Glogster reminds me somewhat of a digital scrapbook album and I've never been a fan of those. I guess I could see how it could be more exciting to look at glogs than typical boring posters in the classroom. I also realize that educational posters could be made to hang around the room such as tools for writing a paragraph or something similar. However, I will probably continue to make things by hand and will not ask my students to create glogs because they are just too difficult to create.

Activinspire flip charts

Using Activinspire to create my sine, cosine and tangent flip chart was one of my favorite assignments this semester. I had a ton of fun creating the flip chart and exploring all the awesome features the program has to offer. Therefore, I know my students will have a blast interacting with the white board during my lessons someday. I actually used my SohCahToa flip chart during student teaching in Geometry class at Gibbs High School. I didn't expect them to be as excited about it as I was but I had hoped that the engagement and interaction with the lesson would cause them to better understand the material. I assessed their knowledge after teaching with my flip chart and as I had hoped, the students far exceeded the grades the usually make on assignments I give them. I taught my mentor teacher all about how to use Smart Board tools to make an interactive presentation and she wants to try to use them often. I love how exciting learning can be when the student are involved so I will definitely make interactive presentations for my Elementary students someday.

Storybird

After exploring Storybird in class, I have decided it is probably one of my favorite web 2.0 tools we learned about. I always hear about students who "hate to read" and I believe Storybird could cure them of that hatred. Students love to use the computer and watch movies so I think students would find reading highly enjoyable if they could read books on Storybird. Also, it would be a lot of fun for students to create a story for a project then they all read each other's stories. I cannot wait to have more time to explore Storybird because I'm going to create stories for the little girl I nanny to listen to/read/watch.