So welcome to my last post of the class. This semester has been my hardest to date. I don't know if it was because I had a lot going on with work, church, and homework. But yeah this semester was pretty rough. I had started out with not turning in my assignments on time, but because my professor gave me a chance I turned them in as fast as I could with the best work I could produce.
Over this semester I feel that I learned a lot about education and mixing technology. There are so many things that we as educators can do to make the classroom a more fun and productive. Among mixing technology and a classroom together there were other experiences that I made in this class that I have never experienced before. I feel that after this post that it has made me a better person, educator, and a student.
In the beginning of the class we learned about how it is important to give credit where credit is due. This was a big part in the class I feel. Whether it was pictures, videos, or a website You always want to give credit where credit is due. At least that is how I was taught. I would put up my picture but I would forget to put where and who it came from. But after doing it almost every time it started becoming a habit and now I can not, not put where and who it came from. Doing this type of technique is great to teach and make students understand its the right thing to do but also an ethical issue, be honest.
Another part of the class that I really liked learning about was how to make a
Delicious account, this is where I can take all the tabs I have on my home computer and carry around lap-top and just put it all on one website and anywhere there is a computer I an just log on and open up the Delicious website and everything I've saved is there for me. no more trying to figure out whether or not I have it on my phone, home computer, or my carry around laptop. I love using this, definitely saves me so much time. I'm sure my future students will like it as much as me. they will probably think "seriously where was this in my life."
Knowing how you want your class or project rubric to be is one thing, but actually making it and putting all the details into is another. This was pretty tough for me, I know how I wanted to "grade my future students" but making it was really hard. Because you have to make from like Poor, Good, Great, and Excellent type of grading. I was able to understand and learn to start with the Poor and Excellent and then work in between the Good and Great. But because my professor wanted us to learn the hard part first which was learning to write the rubric and understanding the process. She let us in on a little secret which was
Rubistar. This website really does help a lot! It helps you choose a subject in which you need the rubric for, then it gives you different categories that you want it to be graded on like presentation, organization, spelling etc. I also lets you download it and you can pull it up as PDF form.
The Lesson plan was one tough assignment for me to do. It wasn't the assignment that was hard, but the overall of working with other people. I had to work with two other people. One I actually got along with because I have her in my other class, and I felt we connected on a level. But my other partner not so much. There are times when she is talking and I felt like she was trying to over shadow the professor when the professor is talking. It seemed irritating and kind of annoying. It was pretty much like my horse is bigger then your horse example. So I work during the week full time and so does my other partner. We both work in the medical field. So my 3rd partner, apparently goes to school everyday, I mean good for her cause she can do it, but when it came to understand our schedule I felt like she wasn't understanding as much. But any who, my connected partner and I had class on Saturday and after class we worked on it for 7 hours, I kid you not! I felt like we did the best on our part and for 7 hours that's a lot. Well then we share what we have with our other partner and it was pretty much a slap in the face. That we didn't do it right, we didn't follow the common core standards, and it was a lot for me to handle. It was pretty much insulting to me and my partner. So we decided to meet on Sunday and just finish it. It was hard sitting there and having to hear our 3rd partner trying to be a "show-off" or saying inappropriate comments. But 6 hours later and we were done! I just wanted it to be over with because I couldn't handle that type of pressure working with her. I'm normally a really nice person, don't like fighting, or making rude comments but when people push others will definitely shove back you know?
My suggestion for this class would be to keep it the way it is. I don't think there were any negtives for me to change about this class. It was a small and I liked it that way, so that way if I had a question I didn't have to wait behind like 10 other people. It was fast and right to the point. At least that's the way I see it.
Overall when I first walked in this class, I had assumed it was going to be easy. But I was definitely wrong. My professor was a bit tougher then most. She actually expected assignments from you and to learn them and use them in the classroom. She definitely had me working over-time during my lunch at work or when I had any free time to make my projects better then they were. I liked how she listen to my suggestions and then help me tweak them. The passion she has, she has been a professor for a lot of years and I hope I can still be like that when I teach my classrooms. Overall it was a great class to take, I would suggest it to anyone who wants to better themselves as an educator.
Resources used:
Flicker
Maloy, R., O’Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.
