Bringing It All Together

What are some things that you have learned about effective teaching strategies when integrating technology?
The biggest thing that I believe I learned about using effective teaching strategies, is that you have to take into account your audience. Regardless of what teaching strategies I might try to use when integrating the technology, I have to think about what my students' knowledge of the technology is. Whether I am trying to bring a new web-based activity or a PowerPoint lesson into the classroom, it doesn't help my teaching at all without making sure that all my students can actually operate and use the technology effectively.

How did integrating web-based technologies help you think about and evaluate uses of technology?
After creating a WebQuest, a blog, a wiki, and a self-sufficient PowerPoint lesson, it really gave me an idea of how powerful integrating web-based technologies can be. It gives students a chance to work in a medium that they are for the most part very comfortable with, plus gets them learning at the same time. It makes me realize that if we want to better educate our students, we need to bring more of this technology into our classrooms to better present the information, as well as get the students to become more involved in their own education.

How have you met your personal goals for learning about technology integration?
I would say that I have met the short term personal goals that I wanted to achieve for technology integration in this course. One goal I had established in CEP 810 was to get a better knowledge and working with PowerPoint, which I believe I have accomplished by integrating the StAIR project into my students final exam review. Another large goal that I had was to create a better, easier to work with web page, which I also believe was accomplished by a few assignments in this course. By creating a web page, as well as using that knowledge to create a WebQuest, I think I reached the goals about how I could integrate these ideas into my classroom.

Do you have any new goals? What are your plans for teaching your new goals and your long-term goals after this course is over?
After completing this course, I really want to bring blogs and wikis into my teaching. I am hoping to have my students work off a classroom blog where they can comment and post their thoughts and questions on the material that we go over in class. Similarly, I am looking to bring the knowledge of using a wiki into my classroom, as well. I am hoping to create a class wiki where the students can edit the wiki and create a chapter review for each chapter as we go through them. From there, we will end up creating a full semester worth of material that they could ultimately use as an additional resource to study for final exams. I am also hoping to learn about more technologies that would also continue to get students more involved and excited about learning.