Here Are a Few of the Projects That I Have Created During This Course:

Check Out My Website!

My Wiki

Using DoInk & Zoho in the Classroom

This is not the end but the start to a new beginning!

As our last night of class came to a close, I began to reflect on the readings and projects that I have completed during these last couple of weeks. This class opened up a whole new door of opportunities for me. Thanks to Dr. S I have learned so much about all of the different technology tools that exist today and the benefits to both the students and teachers when technology is incorporated into the classroom.

During our final class meeting together, we spent the evening presenting our final projects to one another. Our task for the project was to pick a Web 2.0 tool from a list that was provided for us and teach the rest of the class about that tool and some ways to incorporate it into a classroom. Everyone did an excellent job on their presentations and I learned so much about all of the different programs. Some of them I have heard about before but have never used them. However, after seeing everything that some of these programs can do, I can't wait to start using them and further exploring them! My project was about using Empressr to enhance teaching and learning. Empressr is a high-quality online slideshow presentation tool that create, manage, and share media-rich presentations online. Empressr contains a variety of different options that allow you to get creative and make each creation unique. The link to my project is below:

Using Empressr to Enhance Teaching and Learning

Although this is our last class together, this is not the end...It is the start to a new beginning for all of us! We will all be able to walk away from this class with this vast amount of knowledge that was learned in this class and begin incorporating it into our own classrooms. Aside from learning about all of this different technology from Dr.S, I really feel that we learned a lot from each other, as well! We had a great class, we all worked extremely well together, and truly believe that we taught each other a lot, too! Until next time... :-)

Technology Tips for the Classroom

One of our final assignments for this class was to complete a review of an educational journal article. The article I chose was entitled "7 Technology Tips for the Classroom: Strategies and Techniques for Integrating Web 2.0 Tools" (by David R. Wetzel). This article placed an emphasis on the fact that incorporating technology into the classroom to support teaching and learning requires a lot of careful planning to know how to keep students engaged in the lessons at all times. There is such an abundance of technology tools that are available to us these days that I don't see any reason why teachers shouldn't be using at least some of them in their classrooms. The seven tips that Wetzel discusses are as follows: 1. Embrace new types of technolgy. 2. Let technology support content. 3. Students need personal connection. 4. Create a personal social network. 5. Start small and expand. 6. Always have a backup. 7. Let students help. As educators, we need to face the fact that Web 2.0 tools are here to stay and will only continue to keep on growing. "The days of relying on textbooks and the school library are coming to an end. There is a vast amount of knowledge on the web. Teaching students to develop the passion for knowledge that is both readily available and accurate is a new skill all students need for the 21st century (Wetzel, 2009)."

Wetzel could not be more right about this. Currently, I am a substitute teacher in the different elementary schools throughout my district. It’s not exactly the wealthiest district, so their resources are somewhat limited. However, I’ve seen some rooms that are equipped with SMART Boards that never get used! I think that’s absolutely ridiculous. If you have the technology available at your fingertips, use it! In my opinion, the children would be so much more engaged in the lessons and it would be a change of pace for them. There is so much you can do with a SMART Board, it’s incredible! Another thing that I’ve noticed is that all of the teachers that I’ve talked to in the district (and that’s quite a few) do not even have classroom websites. That thought just boggled my mind. A classroom website would serve as such an important resource to not only your students, but to you and the parents, as well. And you can just forget about the thought of these teachers even having wikis or blogs! The majority of them don’t even know what wikis are, and the rest of them are just too lazy and say they don’t have the time to post blogs. These are such critical tools to use in your classroom, especially in the world we’re living in today.

Before I took my "Teaching with Technology" class, I'll be completely honest and admit that I had NO idea that more than half of this stuff even existed. The projects that we completed in class, along with all of the different readings, have really been an eye-opener for me and have given me a totally new outlook on incorporating technology into the classroom. That is why I am so excited to one day have a classroom of my own and share all of these new and exciting ideas with my students. I think one reason why many of the teachers I know don't use of all of this technology, especially in the district where I sub, is because, like myself, they don't know that all of this exists. I feel that if the district offered in-service classes or even monthly meetings on how to incorporate more of this technology into the classrooms, there would be a huge turnaround in the district. There would be happier teachers, successful students, higher test scores, happier parents, and pleasant administrations. I think some of these teachers need to wake up and smell the coffee!