End of the Year!

It seemed like the end of the semester would never come! Then all of the sudden it is upon us while projects, papers and tests are staring us in the face. I am quite exhausted with school and track taking up all my spare time!

Taking the EDCI 250 class online is a blessing in that I can work on my projects in my own time. The only problem I have encountered is going on trips with the team with no laptop and with a project deadline weighing me down. I learned not to put projects for the technology class off until the last minute after the Wikipedia assignment. How stressful! As for other assignments that we have completed in the class, my favorite was the Desktop Movie. I had no idea that every PC has the Desktop Movie program already installed. After completing my movie of the lifecycle of a butterfly, I showed my sister how to use the program. She thought it was as much fun as I did and now she creates Desktop movies using family photos.

Learning how to create a website and a Webquest was also interesting. I believe that I will utilize Webquests in my own classroom some day because it is a fun and interactive way to teach. Students are given the tools to learn and can be held accountable for what work they do. I also liked creating a rubric because I know it is important for a teacher to have guidelines about how they grade assignments. It is not fair to the students if no rubric is used for grading because then the teacher becomes too subjective whether he/she means to or not.

Overall, I really enjoyed taking the educational technology class online and I believe it was created in a very user-friendly way. I had very few questions throughout the semester and I enjoyed learning about the different ways technology can be used in the classroom.