Last Class!

It's our last class of Educational Technology (tear...)

The things that I really enjoyed about the class were some of the programs we were shown. My favorite one, hands down, is Pageflakes, because I still use it every day as my homepage. I have my facebook, email, TV guide, news reports, and weather all on the homepage, and I find it extremely useful. Ask my roomates..I'm addicted. My other favorites are Picnik, & SnagIt, because I'm always looking for new ways to edit photos (and I can't afford PhotoShop). I also really love Education World. It's probably the best resource for education articles, lesson plan ideas, and overall teaching tips that I've found so far. I will definitely be using it as a resource for any ideas I need for teaching. Another thing I enjoyed about the class was the Vyew conference. This was a really cool way to make class interactive, and we learned a lot about what looks like a really promising program. I don't know if I'll personally use it in the education field, but I think it must be amazing for any businesses or other companies who want to do group presentations.

While I haven't started it yet, I'm really excited about the class website. I've said so in my other blogs, so I won't elaborate too much, but I can't wait to do this project. I definitely want to be a teacher that has students visit their web page for their homework assignments, and parents can check it to find out information about their kids' class and teacher (I think parent involvement is very important). This will give me great practice for creating my own webpage for my own real class someday.

In my evaluation, I noted some things that I think should be changed. First of all, we've already been informed that the book won't be used next semester, which I think is a really good decision. The book really didn't help my learning at all. It was outdated and gave so many overly detailed descriptions that I ended up getting fed up with it and not using it at all. Besides, most of the information we needed was given during class and in research for our projects, not in the book. I'm glad to hear it won't be bothered with next semester. I also think that class time would have been better if it had been a little more hands-on. The Vyew conference was probably my favorite class because it was interactive and we were able to participate a lot more. Sitting and watching while we were shown a bunch of programs, some of which we didn't feel we were ever going to use, got boring after a while. It wasn't a waste of time because we did become familiar with a lot of really useful programs, but perhaps our exploration of the programs could have been a little more interactive.

Overall, I think I learned more from the class than I had expected to. I don't know if I agree when I'm told that I'll know more about technology than the tech person at my school, but I know that I know more than a lot of teachers right now do. I've realized through this class how important using technology in education can be. Not only does it make life easier for the students and the teacher, but students become so much more excited about their education when technology is used. Standing from a podium and lecturing has never been an effective way of teaching, especially for middle school and high school students. Using visual, audio and interactive aids like PowerPoint, Podcasts, overheads, videos, blogs, etc make students excited about what they're learning and hold their short attention spans much longer. One of the things I was warned about in my methods class is that "if you're bored, they're DEFINITELY bored." I intend to use technology to keep my students interested and excited about their educational experience.