Webtools Course Reflection

The past eight weeks have been a crazy adventure into the world of technology. Although at times the class has been overwhelming with content, I think this has been a necessary evil because of the sheer number of new classroom applications. I appreciated having to actually explore and create products of these technologies as part of our class work. I learn best by doing and this course had plenty of that! What I have found most powerful is the repository we have all created of our thoughts, ideas and projects – the blog. My blog will help me sort through and remember many of the new ideas that have been introduced during this course. I tried to be as detail oriented as possible with each of my blog entries to help document all we have learned. There are so many great ways to incorporate technology into my classroom. One of my favorite technologies is how to create ScreenCasts and upload them onto the web. I plan to use ScreenCasts to help me document for students how to navigate to certain Websites or presentations. Hopefully this will help save time because I will not have to explain the directions over and over.
I also thought it was very important to create and re-visit our guiding principles for using technology. These principles will help guide me as I further explore the technology applications we learned during this course. I now have a template from which to judge the relevance and value of each application I may want to share with my students. Most importantly, I have learned not to do technology just for the sake of doing technology.
Perhaps the most valuable aspect of this course was the development of my personal learning network. My PLN has given me the ability to effectively communicate with other science educators. We can easily share lesson plans, new technologies, and out thoughts as we navigate through the world of science education. I hope my PLN continues to grow throughout my teaching career.