Final Blog Assignment

Question #1. Of all of the things we have covered in class, I feel that this would be the order, from most useful to not so useful, and the pros/cons I see in each:

1. Skype-I think I will utilize this in both my professional and everyday life. My students can hopefully talk to others and learn how other similar students perform academically.
1A. Timetoast-I really think my students would like to use timetoast and would benefit from using this site.
2. Picasa-I actually used Picasa before taking the EDM310 class. I think it is very easy to use and my students have created small projects with Picasa. It is very user friendly.
3. Google Docs/Forms/Presentations-Using Google is very useful and user friendly. I think it would be very useful for most communications between administrators, teachers, and students if they did not a mailing system in place. I think if properly used, Google is great.
4. YouTube-This is a great way to get speeches out around any given community. I feel that I can show quite a bit of knowledge to my students about any given subject. They can do searches with the proper supervision. For students that are absent, a well planned lesson could be recorded and made available to students. As long as it is not too long.
5. Podcasts-if the quality of the recording is good, then I think Podcasts would be beneficial. I believe the listener would have to have an interest in listening to a Podcast. I know that some we listened to were go very boring and were hard to follow.
6. PLN's-I believe that a properly built and maintained PLN is important to any teacher who is willing to build and search out new and exciting ways to teach. The information would have to concise and easy to ready but filled with information. I hope to work on mine after completion of class.
7. BLOGS-Blogs are varied in their uses and values. I can see a blog as being both personally and professionally useful, if maintained properly. Keeping in touch with family and friends, ex classmates, coworkers, building businesses, and many other areas could be utilized. I have mixed feelings about using blogs but I do know my way around them now.
8. Comments for Classmates, Kids, and Teachers-I think the most useful of the three would be the comments for teachers. You can get new ideas and thoughts on how to do many different web assignments and be even more creative as time goes by. Comments for Kids gave me some ideas on how to start kids out with technology or utilize what you have already in place. I don't believe having the Comments for Classmates was very helpful unless I wanted to see how someone else did an assignment but I did know theirs was in place if I needed to look. But I feel bad for whoever was assigned my blog because I did them on Sundays usually.
9. iTunes/iTunes U-I went through downloading and using these sites very few times. And I use the plural because each time I tried to use iTunes U, I had to reload everything. It was very frustrating and if I had more troubleshooting knowledge I may have been more successful. These are not sites I will use in the future if I can help it.
10. ALEX/ACCESS-I am still researching these sites for my current job. We will most likely utilize ALEX the most and my research will be continuing during my Professional Development days.
11. On that note I will address accessibility issues and the future of schools in regards of technology. in my opinion, as long as there are funding issues in our schools, technology will suffer. Teachers will be left on their own to get training and and at best have outdated devices to use. I know in the area of special education, we were always the last to receive new technology. And since inclusion is how things are being handled, you are lucky to have your own space in a school setting. Now with my situation being different, I am lucky that I have my own computer and access to five student computers. We have one that has not worked since I began in my current position and four others that are sketchy at best. Our programs are loaded, STAR Reading and Orchard Math, but for some unknown reason one will work one day but not the next. We have a tech company that supports our computers. The reason these computers are messing up is because the kids play games on them. Games such as www.freerice.com, www.funbrain.com, www.scrabble.com, and other "fun" games. But the students take what they can get, so Scrabble it is. I can't take away an incentive such as computer use. They do love to research and create on the computer and we do that, but they as well as I, get very frustrated when the computer shuts down in the middle of an assignment. Whoosh! All gone. So, unless schools can fund technology and the accessibility of technology, the future is looking dim. On a more positive note, you do have schools that have teachers who will seek out that extra training or have great systems at home and know the ins and outs of technology and are lucky to have a computer teacher/IT person at their school. I was fortunate enough to have taught for a short interim in one such as that. Smart Boards were used and used well.
12. Presentations-how to create the presentations were beneficial but for me personally, presenting in front of our class seemed to be a waste of time and boring. If we spent so much time on the presentations and loaded them to our blogs, why not assign the viewing of those for out of class. But that is just my honest appraisal.
13. Who I am as a professional-I am fortunate to work in a casual classroom/school setting. I have to conduct meetings with Department of Human Resource workers, foster parent's, counselors, therapists, and other behavior/health related individuals. I create my documents on the various websites we use and are required to use. Professionally, I want to engage my students more and think technology is a way reach those who will not open up in class and those who I may overlook "as long as they are being good".
14. I learned a great quantity of material in this class. Will I be able to recreate some of the activities in the future, I doubt it. For me personally, it takes more than a video and/or a podcast to learn something. Again, personally I require a more hands on approach. That may be because of my learning style or it could be because I was just overwhelmed by the fact that I was not a technologically literate person. If I see someone do it, great, if I can follow along and do it with them, even better. But watching a video then trying to duplicate is not very helpful for me personally.

Question #2 There is not anything in particular that I know of that I would have liked to have learned that was not mentioned in class. Possible some hands on assistance while in lab or some more lab instruction.

Question #3 I don't think that Twittering will be something that I ever want to do again. I believe there are several other applications to use and I in my opinion I would not utilize this at all.

Question #4 No, nothing excited me about this class.

Question #5 No, I did not find anything particularly "intellectually challenging". I found several thing to be interesting to reply to. Such as the Shift Happens video. I found out some interesting facts. I was much more "technically challenged" in this course this anything else. If I could get my laptop and Internet connections to cooperate then I would not have as many stressful, technically challenged moments.

Question #6 I was never bored in the class. I found some of the assignments to be "busy work". While I enjoyed the comments for classmates the first few times, I thought my time could be better spent working on the more difficult assignments.

Question #7 I would change this course by not having assignments so hard to find and by not changing them so much. The spreadsheets are nice and all but the "go down 5 spaces and to the right so many" directions are hard to follow. Perhaps in lab that could have been reviewed. Also, I believe we should have grades on our assignments as we go. I don't want to have to guess if I have kept my A. Feedback with points or grades would have been helpful. And I won't try to make an argument about the workload, but I will say it was too much to have to do outside of lab. If you want my HONEST opinion. I believe if an honest opinion is asked for, I should feel comfortable giving it. I mean that only in reference to the last part of question seven.

Question #8 At this time I think my technical level is medium. I have learned quite a bit and can get around to where I need to be eventually, it just may take me longer than others. I do feel that I am more literate than I was before.

Question #9 I will maintain my technological literacy by attending professional development classes whenever possible that deal with technology. I will continue with my PLN and talk with other teachers about new technology trends.