C&I 438 - Blog Reflection 4

I really can't believe that this course will be over in a few days. There are so many things learned from this course that I will not forget in the near future. Obviously, many technology-related skills will not be forgotten, such as how to upload, publish, and share documents in GoogleDocs. Yodio is so simple to use, and I am excited to use it to create podcasts for my students to use for practice and review of vocabulary. Wikispaces is more complex, and sometimes I forget where I went to do some random things on my wiki, but I will not forget the main points. However, how my thinking has changed in regards to teaching and learning is probably the most important aspect I will not forget.

Participating in this course has legitimized e-learning more for me. I feel that online courses and degrees are taken less seriously, and with my online experience, this is outrageous. I have worked harder and more independently in my online classes than in my face-to-face classes. In face-to-face classes, it is all too easy to just sit back and let others carry the conversation. Students are able to rely more on the professor to explain things or help with projects. Online, I am forced to be more confident, assertive, and independent. Especially in this course, I felt comfortable asking my technology questions and sharing my learning with my classmates. I think I will try to foster more independence in my students as a result. I will also incorporate the technology I am familiar with and investigate the plethora of web 2.0 tools that exist.

I have already been sharing some tools and ideas with my colleagues. I look forward to sharing Yodio with my foreign language colleagues, since it is so easy to use and requires only the Internet and a phone to produce a podcast. Google Forms is also a useful tool that less tech-savvy teachers could use. Google Presentations is a great sharing tool that we could use to share different presentations across the district.

There is a lot of advice that I could give other students beginning their journey in this course. Familiarizing yourself with the wiki and tech tools in the first week will make subsequent weeks easier. On the "Community Questions" page, select to be notified of all new discussion threads and comments. And, on the "Announcements" page, choose to be notified of all updates. These were all sent to my email so I could stay updated and see more easily what new questions and information there was. Furthermore, don't wait until you have to create or upload a document to try to figure out how to do so. That will just cause stress and possibly make you miss a deadline. Starting assignments early will also help with this. If you finish an assignment two or more days in advance, if technology issues arise, you have time to figure it out. As Dr. T says, do start building components of your class into your CMS as soon as they are approved. Even if you make changes or have a lot of information to add, having a skeleton of the course will making building it a smoother process. Lastly, do not hesitate to ask questions. My classmates and Dr. T answered several important questions I had and gave me simple solutions that worked.

Overall, I have gained much from this class. It was a fun process and I really enjoyed the time that was focused on building my class wiki. I am pleased that I chose to take C&I 438.