Final Reflection Entry

This class was one of the most interesting and challenging I have had in a long time. The challenges were mostly of my own making, but I believe I learned a lot from this semester, in part because of all the things I did wrong. I particularly enjoyed these blog posts because they gave me the opportunity to write about subjects and ideas which I had no been familiar with until taking this class. The textbook introduced me to all sorts of great ideas for incorporating technology into lessons - one of my particular favorites was the concept of mindtools, or assistants to the learner rather than the thing through which the student learns.
One of the key objectives of this class was to learn how to communicate through technology in an effective manner and I must admit that I failed to keep in contact with you Professor Coleman, when I began to slide down on the grading scale I should have been in much more frequent contact. I know that you were trying to assist me as best you could, and for that I thank you. I have learned that effective communication can be the difference between successful course outcomes and a failure. Luckily, I have managed to achieve success in this course in many areas and I have learned the importance of effective online communication.
Our discussions were always fascinating because of the various degree of opinions which ensued. Some believed the role of technology should be reduced in student's classroom time, while others felt that in order to best move forward it would be better to up the ante and create more opportunities to integrate technology into our student's lessons. I feel personally that caution is never a bad idea - but neither is progress. We must always strive to keep our students thinking and moving forward, as well as ourselves.
I am particularly proud of my teacher website/portfolio for the class. I felt that project was my finest work here, and that it was the moment I really pieced together all the course objectives for this class. The various photographs featured throughout were sourced as fair use and I was able to create all of my pages in a seamless manner while informing potential students of my expectations of them in class, and including hyperlinks to a number of online resources as well as all of my work for this course. I enjoyed using twitter for educational purposes and I believe that it will be a great way of quickly communicating any updates or announcements for classes for future students.
My Teachers Website
I felt that some of the best examples of learning in this classroom came from sources traditionally thought of as opposing education. Minecraft is a videogame and yet it is being utilized as a modicum of learning how to compose music and a whole host of other lessons that we often think of as firmly outside the digital realm. It is incredible how much technology can do for us as educators, and for our students. It is also incredible how much it will change even before I begin my career as an educator.

I have to thank you for the opportunity to learn in such a collaborative environment - this has been an incredibly interesting introduction to the various means of including and using technology as an educator and I am absolutely excited to use them within my own classroom! Thank you again for the lessons included here, and I hope to see you in the future through Twitter or some other tech-based communication platform!

References

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.