One Last Thing

Where to begin...This was quite a journey. I feel pretty accomplished because when I began this program I knew nothing of the technologies we explored, and now I feel at least aware of the amazing things (no pun intended) and resources that exist in the virtual world. I also feel more connected than ever to my students because I existed in what I think of as their world. When I think of the technologies I enjoyed learning about, I have to admit that learning to set up and maintain a blog of my own was my favorite. I also enjoyed and got excited about the Google Reader, the image generators, and learning about the world of Creative Commons. It gives me a thrill to think that I know how to create links in a post and embed photos. Wow! I did that.

I would definitely participate in another discovery program, and I believe this program has changed the way I think about learning; I hope to use in classroom some of the ideas I thought of and those I intend to steal from my colleagues' blogs. The process of integrating these new skills and resources into my teaching seems a little too big when I think about in total, but I intend to take small steps.

As far as improvements to the program, I would have to say I was disheartened at first because of a lack of communication between me and my facilitator, but I am convinced that was a strange technical problem with gmail. I do think that the site should be checked and updated to make sure that obsolete and blocked sites are not part of the discovery exercises, but overall I am pleased with my experience. This was my first online class and I think I like the self-paced format. I recommend that the course dates be extended during the school year because we all have so many other time consuming tasks to take care of. I sometimes felt very stressed and pressured for time, and I think it made a difference in how much attention and time I could devote to each thing.