Week 11 - Final Reflection

I can’t believe it’s been 11 weeks.  What a term!  In Learning through Technology, I had the opportunity to explore and practice with a variety of different social media and media-based technologies that enabled us to collaborate and create thoughtful and engaging presentations by the likes of Prezi, Wix or Animoto, to name a few.  I will admit I was skeptical coming into this class when we began 11 weeks ago.  I feel I was the last person on the planet to get a smartphone and I don’t use my computer for much else than work or school.  I was wary that technology in the classroom would create a distraction and gauge inappropriate student behavior, but I found that if the benefits of education can be harnessed, it creates a valuable, engaging and positive environment where students can be free to create and present material and research in a variety of professional presentation tools. 

We had the opportunity to learn about the dangers of social media and the foundations of good digital citizenship via two PBS documentaries that were available via their website.  We evaluated a webinar which enabled teachers and administrators the opportunity to collaborate and share information and research with one another, and, lastly, but among others, we created webquests which allowed students to create a lesson plain utilizing technology.  These 11 weeks have taught me and allow me to expand upon this knowledge as I continue onto different classes, and, furthermore, once I become a certified teacher.  I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunities we had to try different presentation and collaborating tools.  I firmly believe I will be successfully in utilizing multiple tools we’ve studied and continue to educate myself on the ever-changing technological landscape. 

I found that I struggled with learning something I had never used before.  Like Prezi, for example, I was focused on learning the material I was researching, but I felt more compelled on mastering how to use the new tool or resource available to us.  I found that creating our WebQuests was my biggest obstacle and accomplishment.  I struggled with building a lesson plan that was relevant to my concentration but I struggled with how to implement technology into it.  As we grew further into this class, I found that the more assignments we had, the better I understood the WebQuest assignment and how to appropriately pick a tool that’d benefit my students.  By successfully completing the WebQuest, I was able to create a webpage using Weebly and I developed an effective and engaging lesson plan.

With respect to the course outcomes listed on the syllabus, we proficiently achieved “Design meaningful and authentic digitally based learning experiences with multiple and varied assessments” via the numerous blog posts and other assignments we had due for this class, including our WebQuest.  We were asked to create podcasts, blog posts and digital slideshows using assistive technology to create engaging, informative resources for presenting our thoughts and research.  And “Evaluate and reflect on emerging tools and trends by reviewing current research and professional literature” was achieved by the immense resources that the course instruction, Kim Tufts, provided us with to demonstrate and research the tools they were given.  We had the opportunity to research new techniques and display what we’ve learned with exciting tools and formats.

Learning through Technology will be a course I will remember as I continue my studies here at SNHU.  I feel this course provides excellent foundational tools necessary to become a structured teacher and creates a framework for teachers to follow to better prepare themselves for their students.  I will continue to use these technologies and more as I am asked to complete new assignments.