Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, I DID Learn Something After All...

Upon entering my Powertools course as part of Meredith College's MAT program I knew how important incorporating technology into the classroom was and was looking forward to learning about the many different ways in which I could implement technology into my future classroom.  I also knew enough about using a few different forms of technology but by no means considered myself an expert in the field.

Through a number of the different projects we explored I feel as though I have deepened my knowledge and understanding of ways in which I will be able to utilize various forms of technology in the classroom.
One of the most enjoyable parts of the course was the class webliography project.           I found it extremely beneficial to learn about and explore the wide variety of apps and websites that are available to teachers.  From the very beginning this was one aspect of the course that I was really looking forward to and I was definitely not disappointed.  The one presentation that sticks out the was was Heidi Cleveland's talk about the IPEVO Document Camera http://www.ipevo.com/ nd all of the uses that it serves within the classroom.  This is certainly a piece of technology that I will be pursuing more knowledge of and investigating how it could potentially be added to my future classroom.

One project that I was dreading going into was the Flat Classroom Project Proposal.  What felt like the enormity of the project overwhelmed me as we only had one week to prepare our proposal.  Looking back on it now, however, I am so thankful that this project was part of our course.  Having the opportunity to present to a panel of experts in the education field and hear their feedback was completely invaluable for all of us moving on in our teaching endeavors.  I am truly excited about the program our group presented on, Kid To Kid International   http://www.ktki.org/,  I am looking forward to implementing this program into my future classroom in order to help flatten my classroom if even in a small way.

Upon re-reading my blog entries I see reflections of what I have been learning over the past 6 weeks.  Even though I am not a share-y kind of person being able to reflect upon what I was learning was helpful in bringing the bigger picture into focus for me in realizing that I was learning something no matter how overwhelmed I felt at the time.  I linked a couple of the blogs that I have been following to my blog in hopes that anyone stopping by would find something informative that might help them as well.  I was definitely NOT confident in my blogging and posting as I am not one to just write about myself and what my thoughts, opinions and feelings are.  I realized through this course that those thoughts, feelings and opinions may indeed be beneficial to someone else.

I now know, through the information I gained during this class that although I am not anxiety free about the fall internship and having my own classroom one day, I do have a lot of resources available to me and can enter a classroom with new skills, knowledge and experiences that will be beneficial to the students whose lives I will be impacting.