Reflections

Today I finished all of my learning units. I found coming up with the various projects to be difficult. This is mainly because I am not currently a teacher and I had to come up with things, I had no previous experience or anything like that. As I made the units I had to think of projects that would make use of various technologies. I found some programs that I really enjoyed and some that I hated.

My favorite program that I used was Xtranormal. I absolutely love this program and can see myself using it again. The program lets you create videos using characters. A lot of the characters that you can use are of famous people. That right there adds a lot of fun and makes whatever you are assigning more relevant to the students. By adding relevance and some humor students are more likely to not only want to do the project, but they are also more likely to learn something from them.

In learning Unit 1, my favorite tool was glogster. I really like the idea of making a poster online. It let's even the most un-artistic make awesome creations.
In learning Unit 2, my favorite tool was Xtranormal, but I also really like Wordle. This was probably my favorite Unit to make, because I really liked the tools. They were fun and easy to use.
In Learning Unit 3, my favorite tool was probably google presentations. Overall I was not thrilled with this unit. I would have like to reuse some programs.

I think that in an actual classroom I would use glogster and xtranormal without a doubt. I think I could come up with some fun assignments using those. I know that I really have no artistic talent, but both of these programs let me great some great looking things. I could never make a poster that looks half as good as what I can do on glogster. With xtranormal I am able to make a goofy video and I don't even have to talk I can just type in what I want said.

One of the programs I didn't use were the ones for screencasting. I really couldn't see how they would be useful to me in a class room. I actually found myself in that situation with a few other programs. I think one reason for that is that I am not teaching right no so it is hard to visualize what I would do with the technology. It is also hard to gauge what the students would be interested in. Just because I don't like something doesn't mean that they wouldn't like and benefit from it.

The biggest peace of advice I can give about these programs is that you have to experiment. There's no way to really know what you can do with them until you try it. Spend time messing with the different programs. There's so much that you can do with them it really is hard to know how to do everything. I would also suggest that you seriously consider what your class is in to. This can make selecting a program a little easier. If a class is interested in making comics you can have an assignment that does that. If they are into videos you could do that. You can even do podcasting.

If I did any of these in a real class I think there are things I would change. I think one of the big changes that I would make is that I could make a better more focused lesson. Again because I did not really have a lesson plan or students I had to just come up with what I think I would be teaching. Having a more concrete idea would really have helped me.