Favorite Lessons Learned

I'm so stubborn and prideful that I just hate to admit this... But I like to blog. It's true. It kills me to write that down but I think that this very blog was the most fruitful part of this semester. It's fun even though it takes me ages to put up a post. And I don't mean time between posts. I mean I sit here editing posts for hours until I feel as if I'm wasting time in a major way. But I'm doing my assignment, right? Right. Sort of.

I will even go so far as to say that I will probably use my blog to post assignments for students. I like the idea of having a syballus in hand but I don't think it would hurt anything to have an electronic copy for students to access when they need. Some of the technologies we studied I know for sure that I won't use--and no guys, it's not just because I couldn't figure them out. I learned about recording myself on a PowerPoint presentation (I think that was another class) and I just can't figure out how it's good teaching to record yourself and force your students to listen to it. So that probably won't be happening. I would love for my students to make videos and give presentations but I don't feel as if voice recording is necessary or helpful to their active learning. I'd rather have them actually interact with their presentations and thus be actively engaging their classmates.

My other favorites were GoodReads (not shocking since I already love that site) and BeFunky.com (which I used for my final project). I had so much fun on that site and I got multiple comments from other people saying they thought it was awesome so I think it'd be easy to get my students to be excited about it.

(Those are the skinny legs belonging to myself and my two younger siblings)

I'm addicted to this website now. It's a little embarrassing. I should be studying and instead I'm playing with an online version of Photoshop. But it's for my blog, right? So I'm legitimately doing my homework. Yeah, ok, my time management skills need a little revamping.

 

(This effect is called "impressionist")

The point is (because I realize that I have successfully managed, yet again, to stray from it) that I learned some things about technology despite my disinclination to do so. And I'm actually excited about implementing some of these ideas in a classroom... in another five years when I graduate...