End of Semester Thoughts

December 6, 2009 joustrich
Tags: blogs, education, google docs, skype, technology

I really can’t believe that the semester is already over! Do not get me wrong, I am happy to be done with another semester of grad school, but it has definitely gone fast. I have to say that there are a lot of classes that I have taken that I have not truly gotten anything useful out of that I can bring with me as I enter the classroom as a teacher. However, I can definitely say that Introduction to Education Technology has NOT been one of these classes. I WISH that I could take everything that we have learned this semester and implement it in my classroom as soon as possible. But I have learned to take this new knowledge and fit it in little by little into my lesson plans.

For me, I think the most powerful thing I have learned this semester is how to use technology to connect my students with students around the world. This is what I did my research project on and it is absolutely what I am most excited about. As a language teacher, I think this will give my students truly meaningful ways to use the target language and a motivation to learn. However, I hope that teachers in every subject would want to connect their students to the rest of the world. I think in this day and age it is almost a disservice to NOT do this. Students are definitely going to have to know how to interact with people from different cultures when they leave the school environment. So why shouldn’t we help them to do this in any way we can? And I also think that we can use these internet technologies to connect students with others from around the world to facilitate cultural awareness and break down stereotypes which I think is so important for everyone!

I think out of all the technologies that we have learned about this semester, the three I will mostly likely use the most in my classroom in the future are blogs, Google Docs (specifically Google Forms) and videoconferencing technology (Skype) if the school district I work for has the tools available to work with these technologies. These are the ones that I am most comfortable with as a teacher and I think will benefit my students the most at this point in time. I really like the idea of a blog in a language classroom because students can use the target language to communicate with such a larger audience than just me, the teacher. I also think Google Docs is an excellent tool to use in the classroom for quick forms of assessment instead of wasting endless amounts of paper. And finally, I hope that I can connect with other teachers and professionals around the world (that I find by using my Professional Learning Network!) to bring them into my classroom and bring my classroom to them with videoconferencing technology.

I am so glad that I have taken this class and learned the things that I did! I know that my classroom will be a better place for my students because of it!

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One Comment Add your own

• 1. Stephen Ransom  |  December 8, 2009 at 6:00 pm

  You ask a great (rhetorical) question… If all of these opportunities are out there and can benefit our students (and ourselves), why wouldn’t a teacher want to try and incorporate them. You have produced some excellent artifacts this semester and I am confident that you will be looking for many opportunities to meet the needs of your students and make learning relevant and exciting for them.

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