What I really enjoyed about this assignment was the exposure to work with different programs and apps that I hadn’t been previously exposed to. When looking at the list of possibilities there were a number of websites that have used previously either in my classroom or in one of my courses in my MET journey so far. Edpuzzle is one that I had never heard of, and was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to use, and how useful I see this program in my classroom. I love using YouTube videos and clips in my teaching. I find that it breaks up my speaking to the class and that engages the kids in a bit of a different way. What I sometimes found frustrating was that I didn’t necessarily want to show the entire video and was stuck using a number of programs to cut the video down. This was time consuming and cumbersome to a large degree. With Edpuzzle this is quite easy to do. I didn’t even have to bother downloading the video from youtube to begin with, I could just edit online. I love that I could also add my own voiceover if I wanted and add question throughout the video. This is a great way to focus students. I can certainly see this being a very helpful site in my teaching practice.
However, what I loved most about this week was not learning about another site, it was actually looking at the projects that took a different approach and shared their personal digital stories. I find that sometimes when we are working in an online environment the personal aspect can be somewhat lacking. Sure we comment on each others posts, but we don’t really have conversations and get to know each other and learn about them in a different way. This assignment afforded some peers to be open and honest about their digital journey and what they have learned. If I had to do the assignment over again, I would probably reconsider my approach and share my digital story.