EDU 675 Reflection

There is no doubt that technology will continue to play a large role in the world of education.  This was one of the main reasons that I decided to begin taking classes in educational technology.  EDU 675 provided an excellent experience for me to further my knowledge in this area.  There were many parts of this class that challenged the way I viewed and used technology in my classroom.  I am now much more aware of the ethics behind using technology from a copyright standpoint for my own projects and for my students' work.  This is definitely an area I overlooked in the past.

EDU 675 gave me a platform to create multiple activities that I will be able to use in my classroom.  I was able to build my own poster that provides the expectations/guidelines for using devices in my classroom.  Now that our district is going to 1:1 student to computer ratio it is vital that all of my students understand the proper expectations of using technology.  My plan is to hang these posters up throughout my classroom.  I was also able to create a collaborative learning lesson in Nearpod.  Discovering new collaborative tools to use in my classroom was my favorite part of this class.  My colleagues were able to share so many great ideas demonstrating collaborative learning using technology.  Using these tools can be a challenge sometimes if all students are not engaged and feel like they are not part of the lesson.  Nearpod has so many neat features that allow for student interaction but also provides the teacher with immediate feedback.  This allows the teacher to use formative assessments for checking student comprehension while progressing through the lesson.  As I continue to take more educational technology classes I look forward to finding new and exciting ways to integrate technology into my classroom.