EDCI5825 Final Post

At the beginning of the course I was unaware of most of the technology that existed for educators.  When we started to go over the resources, I was hesitant to use them because they seemed too complicated and I did not think they fit into my content area, but I have found that they are easy to use and I can do a lot with them for my classes.  I still think some of what we did in this course will not apply to the classes I teach, but since there are so many different disciplines in this class it is difficult to find resources that everyone will find useful.  Regardless of whether I use them or not, it is good to have the knowledge of how they work because it gives me more opportunities to be creative in my classes.  I am much more comfortable with technology than I was when I first started this course.  I know that I still have a lot to learn and I am not comfortable with everything we used, but I think I have a better understanding of what is available to me.  I will feel much more confident exploring other resources when I teach because of what we have done in this class.

EDCI5825 Week 6-A Summary of the Course

After reading the blog posts of my classmates throughout the course I have found that the resources we were provided with have been very helpful.  Most people did not know about a lot of the resources.  Now we have more material to use in our classes.  I believe we all have more confidence in our ability to teach because we see that there are plenty of websites and forms of technology out there that can help us to engage our students and create a meaningful experience for them.  Regardless of our content area, we were all able to find sites that we will be able to incorporate into our classrooms.  All of us acknowledge the fact that technology is an important part of the lives of teenagers today, so it is important to include it in our classrooms.

One idea that stood out to me was from Sarah's blog.  She mentioned in her post about technology for students with disabilities that the iPhone and iPod are useful resources.  I never thought about that, but so many students have iPods and, as Sarah mentioned in her post, they are pretty affordable.  Students would probably feel less out of place using an iPod, since they are so common.  This is a great alternative to other assistive technology.  Of course, it cannot be used for every disability, but where it can be helpful it is a great resource to have.