Reflective Journal

During my time in my Technology in the Classroom class, I have learned many things about educational technology. Even at the beginning of the class, we discussed what educational technology is (and what it is not). Educational technology is not limited to high-tech gizmos; educational technology is any type of technology that teachers can utilize in the classrooms to aid in learning. This can even include a whiteboard and markers. It can also include the high-tech gizmos, though; of which, I learned a lot about. I learned all about various types of technology that can be used in the classroom – from clickers to Power Point to educational websites. As I learned about how to use these, however, I began to think about WHEN I might use them. I began to reflect upon how accessible computers may be in my classrooms, how much free time my students might have to explore the wonderful sources I discovered, and more. It really got me thinking about the role of educational technology actually in the classroom.

While I did learn a lot about educational technology, I also know that I will face some challenges as a teacher, as I attempt to move from the “familiarization” level to higher levels of technology use. Essentially, expert teachers are experts with technology use. To increase my expertise of technology, I will definitely have to keep learning! Teachers get the luxury of being full-time students, in that we are always learning. In the case of educational technology, teachers must certainly keep up with the times! Even the use of computers in the classroom has changed drastically in the past 10 years. I can only imagine how much different classroom technology may be when I am teaching. I will also need to ensure that I stay updated on the current technology. What good would it be for me to master all of the applications we have gone over in my class, just to forget all of it by the time I am in a classroom? And these are just a couple of the issues that I will face as a teacher in the future.

Of the applications that we have learned about in my class, there are some in which I improved greatly, and there are some that I will still need to improve in. Before this class, I had barely or never worked with Power Point, Movie Maker, Audacity, and more. Through the class, however, I think that I have fairly mastered these applications. I created a Power Point with 3D planets rotating around the sun, a movie with actual video footage of me teaching, and 2 podcasts – one that introduces myself and one that teaches a sample lesson! I enjoyed working with these programs very much, and I do believe that my use of them has improved. However, I think that I would still like to improve in my familiarity with integrating sources. I seemed to have a few issues during the course in mixing my creations – such as posting podcasts or videos in another file to display them. Of course, most of my trouble here was because I had used a newer version of the application to make the file than the application on the school computer that I was working on. This caused some formatting issues, which caused more issues when mixing my files. I think most of the issues I faced could be solved mostly by just using one computer with the same application types, etc. But overall, I did learn a lot from the class that will certainly help me apply technology in the classroom.