Final: Reflective Post!

Photo credit BryanAlexander on Flickr

In all honesty, I was not very excited when I found out I needed to take the course “Intro to Technology for Educators”. For some reason, technology and I never seemed to work well together. I believe it had a lot to do with the fact that I am old fashioned. It made me anxious/nervous just reading the syllabus and all the technology oriented assignments I would have to do. After getting to know the professor through her videos and all her helpful posts, I was able to relax and take it day by day. I must say now, “this has been the BEST and MOST influential class I have ever taken!”. I learned many different forms of technology to use inside as well as outside of a classroom that would allow students to enhance their learning experience. I can see clearly now how technology gives students the motivation to learn, then if they were without technology.

The required textbook for this course that we used is called "Transforming Learning with New Technologies" by Robert W. Maloy, Ruth-Ellen Verock-O'Loughlin, Sharon A. Edwards, and Beverly P. Woolf. This has been the first textbook that I enjoyed reading so much. This book helped me understand more about the different teaching methods and how to incorporate various forms of technology into them. Each chapter was simple enough to comprehend with great examples of how to use certain digital tools.

I would never imagine myself saying this, but I really enjoyed the discussions and different assignments we did for this class. I have accomplished more than I ever thought that I would. For instance, we had to set up a blogger and write blogs throughout the course. I never saw myself as someone who could blog, but I learned to enjoy it quite a bit. We also had to create a collaborative lesson plan, a WebQuest, a collaborate Wikipage, and a Teacher Webpage/ePortfolio. Doing these assignments made me more excited to become a teacher. I believe every learning objective for this class was hit spot on. Through each of these assignments and discussions, as a class we were able to learn in great depth the necessary factors of incorporating technology into classrooms. Allowing students to learn using digital tools, will help them progress and succeed academically.

As I mentioned before, this online course is definitely my favorite. Throughout this course, navigation was very simple from one section to the next. The Professor made everything understandable and precise. I loved the fact that, we could feel her passion for teaching and desire for each student to succeed. Professor Coleman has left a lasting impression on me of what a true teacher should be like and that is something I will never forget! Everything that I have learned in this course will be implemented in my future classrooms and I cannot wait to begin!

Resources:

K,K (2014, Feb. 16). Why is technology important in education? Retrieved April 29, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMi13DoDBAM

Maloy, R., O'Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.