GOODBYE

I have to say goodbye for now to a great group of classmates. I have enjoyed this semester with you all. I wish all of you the very best as you continue to pursue your degrees and future careers. I hope to stay in touch with many of you and maybe see you again in other classes. Thanks to everyone that I worked with on projects! Major, Bailey, Emily, and Angie, I really enjoyed getting to know you, and working with you on the projects was fun. Each of you are great people and will make great teachers. Thanks to Ms. Averitt for trying your best to make sure the stress level stayed as low as possible. There were a lot of projects to do, but you were always encouraging and tried to make sure that we weren't too stressed out. I really appreciate that. Best of luck to you! Thank you all again for a great semester! :)

Summary

I have learned many technological tools used in education through this class, and most importantly, I have learned the importance of technology in the classroom. I learned about class blogs, which is something that I hope to use in my classroom. Google docs and iGoogle were things that I thought may be very useful to me as well. I found that my PLN is something that I can keep up with and use a lot in the future. iTunes U is an excellent resource and one that I plan on using with my future students. I learned about the usefulness of Excel, podcasts, videocasts, Skype, and Smartboards. I don't think there is anything that was left out that I wanted to learn about. We covered a lot of things this semester. I think that the videocast was something that I will probably not do in my classroom, but I think that videocasts and podcasts are good resources for research and curiosity. The thing that excited me the most was my introduction to blogging because it really opened my eyes to the possibilities of connecting students to the world and all of the other many uses of class blogs.

Although I didn't find anything in the class too challenging, some of the material was interesting to learn about because it affects me as a future teacher. I know that the things I learned in the class are things that I need to know to help my students succeed. Sometimes, I found a lot of down time in class. I know that while some class members worked on their projects, I had little to do because mine were finished. I think that this will not be a problem next semester, though, because the class will be online mostly and students can work at their own pace. I don't think I would change this course because the material is helpful and useful to future teachers. I think that while I am not completely technologically literate, I am more than I was at the beginning of the semester. Also, I have the resources to keep myself updated thanks to this class. For the sake of myself and more importantly, my future students, I need to keep up with my PLN and developments in educational technology. I know that technological skills are becoming more and more important, and I am glad that I learned to be more open minded about technology through this class.