This class has been very eye opening for me. I was looking for new ways to incorporate technology into my classroom since I have gotten an Epson Bright Link last year. This class gave me exactly what I was looking for.
My favorite discovery was the social bookmarking and the web-quest. Before this class I have never heard of either. I almost feel like I was living in a internet cave, hidden from all the good things out there. Using delicious.com has made my personal and work life completely different. This website with students and having it organized (which I am in my work life) with tags has made doing research and other things much more manageable for them. I will set up two different accounts, one for students and one for personal use. Students can now share with others all the interesting things they find on the internet for lessons and research all in one place. The other favorite discovery was the web-quest. I had never even heard of one before. Creating one give students a whole different way of learning information. Students are always wanting instant gratification and this give them it. They no longer need to spend time flipping through what seems like endless encyclopedias and reading books that don't all pertain to what they are studying. The only thing with web-quest is that they can be very involved in setting up. Maybe not all web-quest have to be as involved as the one I created but I feel like you are doing the students a disservice if you aren't putting in as much effort as well.
This course has affected and assisted me as I am going to use these tools starting in the school year in September. I feel what makes a great teacher, is one that is willing to grow and update their teaching. That as the students grow with age teaching changes and our time is changing towards a web 2.0 teaching. That is not to say that some old techniques aren't still valued because they are. I just think we need to update with the times. I will continue on this path to learn new ways to incorporate new technology that is being invented every day.
I would say that everything we did surprised me. It was nice to see another Art teacher in the group and to look at what she has created as well as mine and see how we can both benefit from each others creations. I went into this course just hoping to take away something new to use in my classroom, and I am walking away feeling very confident in using all the web 2.0 tools we used and more. I will be doing more research to see what other kinds of lessons or activities I can find with web 2.0 tools to use in my classroom. The only thing that I can think of to maybe change is to maybe make people work together on the web-quest, like at least 2 people must work together. I think this could have given me a better sense of group work and what to expect from it. I offered to work with others, but maybe it is hard when you only teach one content area. I liked that the whole class was like a web-quest. We did everything via the internet and used our web 2.0 tools to complete it. I gave me a better sense of how you could actually run a class on the computer.
I would definitely take another course like this, even if I already had my Master's. This kind of program should be offered to school districts in a professional development. It might be hard to do 3 projects but I think if you really focused in on one area many teachers could benefit.
~Katie
