Friday, August 5, 2011

The Closing of a Class

Well, it's time to close out my time in my my Masters class. It was called Instructional Materials Production and Use. My first blog about the class was to evaluate and discuss my strengths and weaknesses in technology. I stated that I am a quick learner of new technology but struggle with learning the little details of a technology. If anything, now I feel like there are so many different types of technologies out there that I may not know about. I feel like part of my weakness may be that I will try and guide someone in the right direction when they are seeking information, but I may be missing a newer and better technology that could save them a lot of steps.  I have to find a way to stay updated on the newest internet and information portals. I won't always have a college class to lead me to newer technologies. Thankfully, I work for a school district that provides many opportunity to continue educating myself. The district seems to be pretty well advanced in many technologies. I plan to utilize this as long as they keep offering.
In my class I have created a blog in which I am setting up my classroom library with video reviews of books. After students have read and enjoyed a book they can write up a review and record themselves reading their review. Eventually, my students will be able to go on the class blog and choose a book that they are interested in reading and watch the video for it. Hopefully they will see that other students liked it and they will want to respond by reading it themselves. I'd like to also start a wiki in which my students can respond to skills and information they are learning.
I've learned a great deal in my class this summer and I hope the remaining classes have the same outcome.