Synthesis & Reflection
My Precis of my Flight Path
Wow this course has been a blast. I have really been exposed to lots of different types of technology and how it can be used in education. I have found myself being very reflective of my current technology practices in the classroom and even began to make changes to the way I use technology in the classroom. Before taking this course my experiences with Moodle were not very positive and I really didn’t like it. I found it clunky and confusing and difficult to use. Now, I was forced to learn it and to explore various features in Moodle. So now I am much more confident in my ability to use Moodle and therefore I now like it a little more than starting this course. I am now more open to take a chance and try new tools and technology with my class. I already have many ideas that I will begin.
eLearning Toolkit
My experiences of using and learning from the eLearning toolkit were positive. I really enjoyed creating a presentation in Prezi that I used for a Pro-D at our school. This was a nice way to present info instead of using PowerPoint. I also enjoyed experimenting with the CogDogRoo list of web2.0 resources. Particularly, I really enjoyed using the Vuvox presentation tool to create a really neat multimedia presentation with sound, video, pictures and text. It was easy to do and turned out great. One tool that I plan to use soon is Pixton cartoon creation, it’s top on my list to play around with and perhaps have my students play around with it.
Unfortunately, many of these tools are quite time consuming and eat away hours and hours of time.
SECTIONS Model
The SECTIONS model is a great academic and prescribed way to decide what kind of technology to implement into the classroom. I will now try to use the sections model to look at my portfolio. I am going to consider this model also for many of the Web2.0 tools that I have used throughout this course also.
S – Students. Well all of the tools that I have used form Vovux to Moodle to Webblogs have all really been appropriate for the age and technical ability of students I teach. (I teach high school)
E – Ease of use. Ease of use is relative and depends on the amount of time you have to put into learning some of the technologies. I was definitely challenged the most using Moodle, but it wasn’t really all that difficult…just time consuming.
C – Costs. Pretty much every tool used in the course has been free. We pretty much setup most of the software and learned it our self.
T – Teaching and Learning. I think this is a very important part of the SECTIONS model to consider. All of the tools that I talked about above in the eLearning Toolkit can meet all kinds of learning outcomes and would be a great extension for presenting information that students learned. Most of the web2.0 tools took little to learn and start creating content.
I – Interactivity. Well Moodle is very interactive particularly the blogs and glossary parts that I setup.
O – Organizational issues. Don’t think this one would apply for me.
N – Novelty. Well many Web2.0 tools are quite new and the future of the services could be uncertain. For instance cogdogroo lists a number of tools that are now out of business. While I don’t think you should use web tools just because they are really cool; I think there are good educational reasons to use tools that catch the attention of a learner.
S – Speed. Most web2.0 tools are quite fast and easy to use, those that are not don’t stay around for long. Of course Moodle is really quick to make changes for instant implementation.
Next Steps
Well, I have really enjoyed this course. There have been some times when I was frustrated with using some of the technology. At times it takes a bit of a learning curve and alot of time to figure out how to do things. Our course discussion board is full of such stories; I found that reading others problems they had to be very enlightening for myself. I often went there first to try solving my woes. But once I had some confusion cleared up, then I got excited for the uses of the technology.
So my next steps are to take my 3rd course in the MET program: ETEC 500. Slow and steady is my plan, probably to finish my degree in 3 years.
As for technology next steps, I plan to try all kinds of new technology in my classrooms. This course has changed my practice and caused me to re-think some things I do in education. I want to try and expose students to many different forms of technology. I think that this will increase the level of engagement of students and also provide new challenges for me. I am definitely a big believer and leader in technology in the classroom.