Reflective Paper

What I learned about Education Technology:

I learned that there are countless educational technologies out there and that number just keeps growing. The is  if you can utilize these technologies. This is a hard question to answer without any doubt. It requires the teacher to have an intimate understanding of how the technology works and how their students will respond to it. The most important thing is to not fake knowledge of a technology or integrate it into the classroom just to have it. This will feel forced the students wont respond to it, or in the worst case students will abuse it creating chaos in the classroom.

What are some issues Teachers face when implementing Technology:

As mentioned maintaining the integrity of the technology and the management of the class is the main one. Gathering support from parents and fellow teachers is another big one. Both of those groups are going to have strong opinions of how a classroom should run that often differ with each other. As Teddy Roosevelt once said though, "You never gain anything without entering the arena." So, if you are passionate about a technology play with it and be respectful of others concerns while expressing the potential benefits of that technology.

What have I learned most and what do I have the most to work on?

I think I learned most about web development and TMS. I feel pretty confident with both Canvas and Edmodo. I can maneuver around Weebly, which I feel is as good as it gets because that sight is just bad. I feel I could grow more in learning how to annotate lectures and podcast. I complete the assignments in class with relative easy however, those are such deep areas of knowledge and I've only really just cracked the surface.

How could this class be improved?

My only real complaints against the course is that it was in the minimester so that caused things like having to turn in tutorials at the same time as projects. Which kind of made the tutorials redundant. Also, the blog became more of a burden because everything was squished together. All of this are more complaints against minimesters (which I loath). Overall I thought you did an excellent job teaching. I learned a lot, I especially loved how open you were with your real world expertise. i look forward to seeing you around!