The end of Another, the Beginning of Something New!!!

This is the last blog for my Technology Tools class. I am going to take some time and ponder on the highlights of the course and what beneficial material that I received from it. The first thing that I want to describe is the online collaborations that we have had with our groups. Using Skype and online word processors, such as Google Docs, has been a great experience. The amount of knowledge I learned from the programs and the numerous teachable moments I encountered throughout the activities are endless. I truly believe that online collaboration is the way that our education system is moving and in five years when I reflect back upon the education system, I envision online collaboration being mainstreamed throughout all education.

The next thing that I really enjoyed with the program was the information from the text. That book was packed full with tons of information that has been useful now and will continue to be useful in the future. It will take some time, and I will probably have to reevaluate the text, to truly grasp the power of all the information in the book. I don't think a six week course does justice to the amount of material that can be found within the text. I hope to utilize numerous ideas out of the book, specifically examining the creativity and problem based learning portions of the text.

Another major thing that I found interesting within this class was the research we did into the presentation programs. So many of us are used to using PowerPoint to provide presentations. With programs such as Empressr, we as educators are able to create virtually the same documents, with the difference being Empressr is free and is held virtually on the Internet. I plan to implement Empressr into my classes because I think students need to be able to create online presentations to stay up to date with technologies that are available.

The last thing that I found interesting about the course was looking into software evaluation. As educators, we are going to face the decision, sometime in our career, on what types of software too choose. For many of us, being exposed to a software evaluation was uncovering another stone for us. I realized through the experience that there are a lot of different ideas and opinions that one must take into consideration when evaluating software. I also realized that the amount of work put in on the forefront will result in better experiences for the students.

So alas we are done with course two, onto three and beyond.