Personal Reflections About Class

I can't believe we have already reached our half way point. Various assignments and programs were useful, it's hard to pick just one. I felt everything we did had a purpose, either to make us more comfortable with a program, apply it to a potential lesson/unit, or to research about issues behind the scenes of technology (copyright, udl, etc). I think every program that I learned about, I could potentially see myself using when I become a teacher in one way or another. This class has opened doors to new ideas within the classroom, such as: communication through blogging and websites, creating a digital story to open/close a unit, using inspiration to organize students' thoughts about a book or subject. Every single one of these things can be potentially applicable for a classroom teacher.

For me, two things stand out as being most useful for me. The copyright article and class discussion were not only useful but vitally important for me as a teacher because so many of teachers' lessons come from others (videos, workbooks, etc), and it's critical to reference the owners/creators of the material. Another thing that has been useful for me was creating our own website. As a teacher, this will be beneficial because it's another way of communicating with students and their families outside of the classroom. Parents can see what their child is learning about, and students can see what assignments they need to complete. Before classroom websites, it was either students just forgot their assignment and didn't do their work or they would call up their friend and ask. Now, students have the classroom at their fingertips, and be able to see what was due in class and what needs to be done for homework.

One thing that I found to be challenging and I stated this on one of my blog postings as well was understanding Photo Shop. To this day I am still having problems because it's such a complicated program. I had my cousin give me a quick intro lesson again, and I was just overwhelmed at the various things one can do to a picture.

As a special education teacher some things that I would like to learn more about are devices that students with disabilities may use within the classroom setting. I realize that not everyone in the class is a special education teacher, however, this may also be beneficial to them as well because they may have a student with a technological device and to know what it is and how it works can be beneficial for everyone.