I have completed my quest in winning an A in my technology class. For my last and final quest I was asked to reflect on the semester. Throughout the semester I have learned so much from the quest for this class! At first I wasn't a big fan of creating all these accounts and posting all over the internet but I took it as a adventure and learned from everything that I accomplished. I have learned about and how to use SOOO many tools for integrating technology into the classroom. Knowing what is out there for teachers to use is important. I have learned about TPACK and how to repurpose things I may already have and use them to create something completely different. One of my favorite quest that dealt with TPACK was the cooking one which can be found
HERE! On a side note, I have also learned how to link pages into my blog post and how to cite images! I also learned about why technology is so important in todays world. Another quest that I really enjoyed was learning about virtual fieldtrips! I have never even thought about this before this class, but a virtual fieldtrip is the perfect way to learn without leaving the classroom, there is so many advantages to these types of field trips! My favorite was the zoo, you can pick a animal and pull up a live camera feed of that animals exhibit which I find so AWESOME and that can be used in so many different ways!!How about this cute little
Panda Cam from the Sandiego ZOO?
I also have learned a great deal about how students can work together and teach themselves things most teachers and people would never believe without proof.
Sugata Mitra's TED TALK is so impressive and blows my mind! He talks about his experiment and what the future of learning looks like. Throughout the semester I learned how to use certain tools that can be used inside the classroom as well, such as
Digital Storytelling through the Zimmer Twins. I also created a
Tellagami to teach a short mini lesson for the flipped classroom. I really like the idea of a flipped classroom because I like the fact that students come to class prepared and there is more time to work on applying the concepts rather than teaching them.
This semester I also created a classroom webpage that I can use for my future classroom
through Weebly which is also a very nice, simple and easy to use free tool! In my technology class I have also created a Twitter to use for educational reasons and have found it so helpful to communicate with fellow educators and find ideas and help when I have my own classroom. Although there are way to many tools to list that I have used or learned about this semester, there are so many good tools out there that are free to use and work well! One thing that I really read into this semester was integrating technology into note taking and taking the traditional task of pencil and paper writing into an online task and I really like this idea. Although I am a very organized, color coated note taker, I know and have helped or seen many students with bad writing or those doodlers who can't stay focused. Taking notes on a device can help a lot and most of them you can still draw on, it makes it easy to collaborate and easy to give feedback. There are a lot of benefits of taking notes on a device. There is so much to be learned about technology and I truly don't think that I will ever caught up to the fast changing world but after this class I understand the importance of at least trying to stay up to date. If anything staying up to date for the students because they need to be taught in a digital world they need to know and understand how to be good digital citizens and how to keep their digital footprint as clean as possible. It's not about what we know anymore, it's about knowing how to find the information we need at that point and time . And for my future students sake I promise to do my best in guiding them in the right path and helping them as best I can to be prepared for the untold future that they have in store for them.
