Reflection

• What are some things that you have learned about effective teaching strategies when integrating technology?
During this course, I learned about a lot of technologies that I was not familiar with before. The teaching strategy that really helped me to understand these technologies was having time to explore them on my own. I liked how we were introduced and given background knowledge about them but then were given activities where we could “check them out” on our own. This helped me to have a deep understanding of the different technologies. I learned that giving tasks related to the technology would help students understand and be successful in using the technology. I have also learned that different forms of technology are very effective at creatively getting students attention, which will help them to be engaged in the lesson. These are the teaching strategies that I learned about how to effectively integrate technology into the classroom.

• How did integrating the Internet help you think about and evaluate uses of technology?
Integrating the Internet helped me to explore the different forms of technology in order to get a good understanding what how they could actually be used. Also the Internet allowed me to research the different technologies more in-depth and find answers to any questions that I had. The Internet was also a key mode of communication between my peers in the class and also the instructors.

• Which of the assignments that you turned in do you feel really exemplifies good teaching with technology and why?
I think the assignment that I turned in that exemplified good teaching with technology would be my groups SIG project. We created a presentation about interactive whiteboards using the program of Prezi. The presentation was clear and easy to understand. It had a great deal of useful information but was not overwhelming in the presentation. I think our presentation kept peoples attention and also taught them a lot of information about interactive whiteboards and how to use them in their classroom.
• How have you met your goals established in your Personal Growth Plan?
I was able to accomplish two of the goals that I set for myself at the beginning of the semester. The first one that I accomplished was becoming familiar and learning about creating a blog. I was interested in creating a blog for my classroom to communicate with parents. This course had given me the opportunity to have practice at creating a blog and also posting to it often. The next goal that I accomplished was learning about SmartBoards. During the research I completed for my SIG project, I learned a great deal about SmartBoards. I can’t wait to use everything that I have learned about SmartBoards in my daily teaching. I am excited that I was able to successfully accomplish the goals that I set for myself at the beginning of the semester.

• Do you have any new goals? What are your plans for reaching your new goals and your long-term goals after this course is over?
One of my goals that I hope to accomplish next school year is applying everything that I have learned about interactive whiteboards into my teaching. I will have an interactive whiteboard in my classroom next year and I can’t wait to put everything into practice that I have researched and learned through my SIG project.

Another goal that I am still working on is to investigate and explore technologies to aid in my daily communication with parents. I have learned about blogs and think that they would be a great mode of communication but I would still like to explore webpage making and wiki’s. I hope that future courses will address these technologies.