Class Reflection

After Saturday's class, at least I'm not the only one that finds aspects of social networking a bit uncomfortable. One of the challenges I'm facing is sitting down and putting my thoughts to words with a keyboard. While I have learn a great amount during this semester, the greatest growth achieved in Integrating Technology class how my view about students in the digital age has changed.

While I had taken an online course in 2000, it seems that I must have forgotten what it is like to be a student in an online environment. It seems that the sense of uncomfort must go hand-in-hand with my online experiences. Regardless, my views and instruction of online education have taken a different form. I'll begin putting my new perspectives in play immediately with the course that I'm currently teaching.

Another Week of Reflections

My reflection of this week tends to be one of application-based. It seems with each read in this class, I come up with one or two new ideas of ways to improve my instruction and enhance technology. Actually. . . this enhancing technology thing has more to do with enhancing my instruction, rather than simply improving what I'm already doing.

As I begin to think about what I'm learning (hmmm. . . . metacognition :) I'm actually molding and determining exactly what my view of technology in the classroom is. Additionally, I'm fortunate enough to begin placing much of the topics in this class in action with the Instruction Design project that I'm working on in our ID class. Further connecting the dots, the ID project is a course that I will be teaching in the upcoming semester . . . how much more of an application-based assignment could there be?

Finally, I do feel that my view of technology implementation is developing each and every week. I also knew that I could begin implementing tools in my class, but never really knew where I wanted to start. Though I'm not totally decided, I feel that I have a strong view about how I will initially introduce technology further in my classes. With that said, I still need to research further and review assessment data to determine what successful implementation may look like.

Implementing Social Networking

One thing I'm concerned about when implementing much of the social networking tools in my class is what impact does all of these free services have on my computer. Recently, my computer has begun to act up. Actually, both my laptop and my desktop have begun to act weird and go through periods of slow connectivity.

I feel that all of the commercials and cookies that come with the free software tools could have an impact on my computer. With that said, I feel the need to be extra cautious when considering which tools to implement in my class.

Overall I'm beginning to get used to the services, but I feel that I need to plan further to keep up with the multiple sites with multiple user id and passwords.

Technology

I’m beginning to understand how I can begin implementing many of these tools to support instruction in my classes.

I feel fortunate that I am taking this course and the Instructional Design at the same time. I’m beginning to add many of the tools we are learning about in the class as I create activities in my class. As an instructor, one of the issues I have experienced with online courses is creating an active environment that encourages student to communicate with one another. The typical communication that occurs in my classes is through email and discussion postings. While this has been useful, I don’t feel that I’m gaining the quality of communication that I desire. By incorporating twitter and blogs, I feel that the quality and quantity of communication will greatly increase. The greatest challenge will be to provide adequate technical support so that students are able to utilize the technology available to their use.

Work ... Jobs

So I'm off to start my second job of the day - my homework for the Ed.D. I'm not sure which one I like the most. Work(work) pays me, while work(school) requires me to pay... hmmm. My current reflection is twitter vs. blog. Since I'm new to both, I wonder if a tweet is different than a blog - other than number of characters.

On a positive note, this class has really got me thinking about technology, how far it has come, and how immersed you must be to stay current. For instance, fifteen years ago I started as a Computer Programming student at Shepherd University...um College then. I was also employed in the Information Technology department at a hospital. I spent a large amount of time learning technology. In fact, I worked four years in the IT department and actually changed my major; however, I did complete a minor in CIS.

Fast-forward to 2009!!!

While much of what exist today is totally new, the foundation I gained in programming has absolutely framed how I learn and the methods I actually employ as a faculty/administrator in my current position. That being said, nearly EVERYTHING else has change. The Internet today is vastly different, social networking has greatly improved from my online fantasy baseball teams and IM which I frequented BL. BL would be "Before I had a Life." : )

Now with a life (albeit boring at times) I struggle to keep up with the massive amount of technology. In fact, I feel like I'm being invaded and need to fight back. So, fighting back is what I'm doing. So, I'm tweeting, blogging, and IM(ing) to keep up with this invasion, lest I become extinct like the dinosaurs.