EDT500: THE COURSE
The EDT500 course is the perfect introductory course to both graduate school work and educational technology. As someone who hasn't taken a graduate level class in a few years, I have to admit that I was a little concerned about the prospect of fitting all of the content needed into a 5 week course. However, we were more than capable of doing it. The course was well organized and the assignments came out at a stead pace so that I never personally felt overwhelmed. But that doesn't mean the class wasn't challenging! Iit was still a challenge to fully understand all of the concepts at the level we were required to understand them. I believe this course found a very nice middle ground of pushing us, while allow us to move at our own pace (which is a major strength of the online layout!).
GROWTH
Personally, I believe that I have grown in a number of ways.
First off, I believe that I have a much better grasp of HOW to use technology in the classroom. I feel that in the past when I was challenged to use a new tech-tool in my classroom I analyzed the easiest way to use a tool and incorporated it in a way that wouldn't disrupt the classroom environment too much. I also had the impression that technology integration was something that teachers were either ALL-IN or ALL-OUT on. After reading about the SAMR and TPACK models and evaluating all of the different ways that technology can be used in a classroom, I believe that there is a lot of middle ground. There are simple ways that every teacher can use technology to facilitate their everyday lessons, and there are also more complex ways to use it to redefine our classroom instruction.
Next, I feel better equipped to use technology in the classroom. This class was full of 'firsts' for me. Over the course of the class I created my first Vlog/YouTube video, first online comic strip, screencast, google site (this one!), and video. Each tool proved to be challenging initially as I tried to figure them out on my own for the first time. However, after a little bit of trial and error I found that these tools were not very difficult to use. I believe they can be easily integrated into projects that I already assign today.
ON TO THE FUTURE!!!
First of all, as I complete this website I am recognizing how easy it easy to organize information in this format. In the past I had always been adverse to creating websites out of fear that it would monopolize my time and take away from the time I needed to lesson plan (thus effecting the quality of my instruction). While this website took a good deal of time to construct due to the nature of the assignment, I believe that making a class-website with multiple links and resources would be extremely easy to create and maintain. If my next school does not have a Learning Management System, I will definitely use Google Sites to make a class website.
I also think that I am going to create more assignments that ask my students to make/edit videos. In this course we vlogged, screencast, created videos, made audio recordings, and much more. The most important part for me though, was that it wasn't difficult. Because of that, I feel ten times more confident that my students will be able to use these tools. The best part is that these tools offer my students the freedom to demonstrate their understanding of the content in their own way. Plus you can use them in a variety of ways including formative and summative assessment!