EdTech 501 Course Reflection

I wasn't sure what to expect when I got accepted into the MET program at Boise State. I am a lot older - surely not wiser - than all of my colleagues and have been out of university for quite some time.  To be honest, I wasn't sure if I had it in me to go back to school.

Most importantly, I am so glad to be learning again.  My brain is tired and I felt stress many times in the course, but, so far, it has been a truly rewarding experience.  I would like to thank all of my classmates who helped me with the assignments and I appreciate all of the constructive criticism and comments throughout the course.  I hope I reciprocated with honest, constructive comments as well.

The main challenge of this course was the fear of failure, especially in terms of technology and all of its uses.  Although I am on a computer daily and teach out of a computer room, I lack many necessary technological skills.  Before the course began, I was not on any social networking sites - not FaceBook, Google+, Instagram or Twitter - and, although I knew what a blog was, I have never saw the purpose in it.  I have never used YouTube to create a video, I have never heard of VoiceThread and I have never used Hangouts or Adobe Connect to video conference.  Other concepts that were foreign to me were cloud storage, cloud computing, digital divide, digital inequality (at least as a definition) and RSS and its uses.  Today, however, I feel confident in speaking about and using all of these technologies.

So how did I get through?  I actually put my mind to it and did it.  I learned - wow, what a concept.  I had it in my mind before I started the program that, no matter how little I knew, I would take as much time as necessary to learn the concepts.  I started very early in the week and tried to get as much done without the pressure of time constraints.  Mostly, I learned from trial and error but there were many times I needed the support of my classmates and my instructor.  Again, thank you.

I feel that every single artifact was valuable in the learning of educational technology. The artifact I feel the most strongly about was the one on the Horizon Report.    I created an information learning situation for my school board and school where I wrote a report defining cloud computing and its uses.  I then expanded on this by giving a presentation and a VoiceThread to further enhance their learning of the topic.  This type of assignment was valuable because I hope to get into administration upon my return to school.  This is the type of thing that needs to be done to get our technology integration to the "intelligent" rating and move into the 21st century.

Upon my return to school, I plan to be an advocate for all types of technology.  I will work hard to promote professional development and training so our teachers can facilitate our students' learning to the best of their ability.  I will be involved in the implementation and integration of technology into all of our classes.  I will also fight to end our ancient policies of "no cell phones" or "no BYOD on our networks." Technology is such a powerful tool, we need to harness the power and let the students run.