EDLD+5364+Personal+Final+Observations

Throughout this course I have learned much about different types of technology that I can bring into my classroom. Ebooks and Gizmos are the two biggest tools that were revealed to me in this course. Since I teach senior English, I can see my students making (hopefully) sophisticated ebooks over various parts of Shelley’s Frankenstein or Shakespeare’s Macbeth. I count these as tangible, positive effects of taking this course and the kind of learning I can use in my future teaching. I have to admit, that my skeptical mind was getting tired of dealing with ideas like James Gee’s that it is all about bringing video games into the classroom. Edutaining students seems to be the focus of much of the current thinking in education. The readings and videos for this course seemed in lockstep with some of the more outlandish professional development sessions I have had to attend the past few years. In his video, Gee stated “ Video games put you into worlds where you have to solve problems. All a video game is is problem solving. A video game is just an assessment.” (2009) and that seems to a big part of the rationale that many in education have for the newest trend in education- get more technology. However, in listening to this video and others, I was able to see that other educators are questioning the validity of giving in to the digital natives thirst for all entertainment, all the time. One of the most obvious examples of thinking that was critical of edutainment was Pitler stating “ effort is the wisest choice for someone who intends to achieve success or maintain it, as it is the only one within an individual's control" (Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K., 2007, p 155). This affirms one of my basic beliefs in education. Students are in control of how much effort they put into their assignments. Parents and teachers can guide, coax, cajole, punish, reward etc. but it all comes down to the students’ individual effort, especially at the secondary level. Reading this in the Pitler book gave me hope that we as educators are not totally throwing the baby out with the bath water. Good study habits, perseverance and personal initiative still have to be part of the equation in modern, technology-based education. In approaching our assignments, I quickly figured out that little pieces add up to big accomplishments. Learning to work ebooks was a small task that helped with my own UDL assignment. My own UDL assignment helped with my team’s final project. Being able to work on these smaller tasks before trying to tackle the final project strengthened my own performance as a team member. I am a visual and kinesthetic learner. While the videos do include many excellent bits of information, I sometimes find myself losing focus while viewing them because there is not much visual stimulation. Being able to work through ebooks played to my kinesthetic strengths. Hands-on lessons definitely stay with me longer. These are both areas that I try to include in lessons in my classroom. As I stated on my wiki- Gizmo rocks and I would never have known about it without interacting with my other team members. Although the Google docs discussion could be cumbersome at times, group editing our assignments was definitely beneficial. I have always known that it is hard to edit your own work. This was really brought home to me as my other team members constantly threw out suggestions to improve our assignments. As we worked together on this project, I was dramatically reminded that project based learning “ allows for alternative approaches that address students individual differences, variations in learning styles, intelligences, and abilities and disabilities” (Solomon, G., & Schrum, L., 2007, p, 39). Our comments back and forth over the assignment demonstrated this idea as we each shored up each other’s weaknesses, helped each other to understand the material through our different learning styles and put together a viable product. On the other hand, I felt that the web conferences were very confusing. Since we were all using different computer systems with different speed Internet connections, we seemed to step all over each other in the audio mode. I just sat back and listened, but I could not help being reminded of talking on the CB radio when I was younger. I am looking forward to working on other projects with more of my colleagues in the next courses. Being able to pick their brains helped me see the value of what we are trying to accomplish in the classroom. I also enjoyed their frank assessments of the state of education in Texas. It’s good to know sometimes that you aren’t the only one questioning the validity of some aspects of our jobs. In the future, I plan to further research how to bring more realistic, product-based technology into my classroom. I want to see more practical lessons being demonstrated in real classrooms. I have noticed that most, if not all, of the videos that we have seen about technology in the classroom show kids in either private or magnet schools. I want to see how regular public school kids work with technology. Perhaps that is something I will have to learn on my own as I use the technology in my classroom.

Edutopia.org (nd). //Big thinkers:James Paul Gee in grading with games.// Retrieved on Oct. 5, 2009 from [] []

Pitler, H, Hubbell, E, Kuhn, M, & Malenoski, K. (2007). //Using technology with classroom instruction that works//. Denver, CO: McREL.

Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2007). //Web 2.0: New tools, new schools.// Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education.