Final Reflection

Before the class began I entered the semester with no excitement at all. My first thought was "I'll just do what I need to do to fulfill my Computer Literacy requirement for my major". As the semester went on it proved to be very exciting because it was not only a class about learning about technology in today's school system but I learned how to apply several tools to integrate technology into the classroom. In the beginning I learned about NETS which outlines what teachers should be able to do with technology and provide's a rubric to determine a teacher's level of technology literacy. One of the most important tools learned in this class was the Dynamic Instructional Design model which provides a systematic way of developing a lesson plan. The Wiki Lesson Plan assignment further reiterated how do develop a structured lesson to present to the students. Another important topic that we covered was cognitive and learning style inventories. This helped me to understand learning diversity and how important it is to accomodate every students learning needs. One of my favorite assignments was the Dream Computer assignment because the topic of the presentation wasn't as important as how to use this tool in order to communicate with students through distance learning. This was a tool that I thought was very complicated before I began the assignment but I was wrong. This was my favorite tool because it was very simple to use and it can give a teacher the freedom to express themselves verbally and visually show a student how to, for example, solve an equation using the quadratic formula. The most important thing that I learned from the class is that technology is developing rapidly and teachers have to remain aware and very technology literate to better prepare their students for success in their education and their future career. Technology and computer literacy provides a means to learn and teach in several different formats and has evolved into a necessity in today's school systems. If there was one topic that I would have liked to learn more about, it definitely would be learning about very recent and future developments and tools in technology that teachers can utilize in the classroom. This was a great class and every assignment forced me to think outside of the box of education through textbooks and videos.