Week 8 Class Reflection

This class has been a great introduction to "Educational Technology" in my opinion.  With that, I suppose I will answer the last question first.  I feel that this is an excellent course for the beginning of the program, allows for a variety of hands on experiences that many students have not already had, and allows for expansion of those services for those students who may already use these them.  The assignments each week seem to provide enough of a challenge that I feel like I have gotten some quality experience, but not so much that I feel overwhelmed.  I have been pleased with the integration of new ideas, and the variety of different services that have been assigned to use. 

As far as support goes, I have really enjoyed the wikipedia info, video and article links, and the introductory info that are provided on a weekly basis.  I think that prompt responses are given to questions on the blackboard site, and each of the tools (as far as I've noticed) have had easy suppose links.  In addition, all of the tools we have been introduced to so far are common enough that there is plenty of information available when necessary.  I do have to say though, there are times (because technology is not fool proof) that things do not work the way they should or are designed to, which can make for some stressful (but still successful) learning.

There are definitely some tools that could be used effectively in my professional work, and in fact I have used some of them already (Ex. Google Reader and in the process of creating a wiki) If nothing else, the experiences using the variety of different tools has provided useful knowledge, and has helped in other areas of technology that I am already using.  There are some things that I would be hesitant to use in the classroom, but could still be useful to teachers and school districts.  (Ex. photo sharing)  

Suggested improvements... though I don't have any real complaints, I suppose there are a couple of things that I have thought of along the way.  First, though I think that the assignments have all been just about right as far as how much is given, difficulty level, and number of tasks to do, I think it would be great to have one additional (a little tougher) adventure be given on these tools, that steps outside the basic use and challenges the average user to understand a little more of the capability the tool has.  (Note: I assume this could be part of the advanced Information technologies class as well (EDT 6440), so it might not even be possible)  Another change that I would suggest would be to do a couple more group involved projects.  I am not sure exactly how they could be incorporated to each of the tools, but being able to work on small projects with a couple other people seems to give it a more realistic/ business feel, and would provide us with ideas of group activities for our classes.  

Overall, I have been very pleased with the variety of tools we have been presented.  I especially liked the wiki assignment where we were asked to work with other people to complete the assignment.  It allowed for a lot of different ideas to be seen and shared amongst everyone, and as a class we had a finished product that we all had a part in.  With that... I'm looking forward to the next half of this class.