Final Blog Reflection

During this semester in IT365, I have learned so many new ways to incorporate technology into my life, as well as ways to incorporate technology into my future classroom. I feel that I am leaving this course with more confidence in being able to assist any and all types of students that I will have in the future.

My strongest point in this course was of course, the blog. Because I was very familiar with blogging technology (I created and continue to maintain my own cooking blog), I was confident that I was doing well on that part of the class. However, I didn’t expect to be so successful with creating my own website, but I surprised myself and It ended up being another one of my strong points in this course. I had never considered using a classroom website before, but after having a positive experience with it, I am certain that I will create and maintain a classroom website for my future students and their parents.

My weakest point in this course, surprisingly, was using the “Ease Of Access” features on Windows. Perhaps because it was not familiar to me, I struggled trying to understand how to turn them on and off, and when they were on I couldn’t use them successfully. I do plan to use those features (when I can figure out how to get them on) more often in the future so that if and when I have a student that needs those tools in the future, I will be available to assist them should they need help.

In order to help myself improve when using technology, I plan to return to school after achieving my bachelor’s degree and take more technology courses. I feel that having a strong background in technology is a great idea for teachers, especially because technology is being incorporated into the curriculums more and more.

I plan on incorporating technology frequently in my future classroom. I plan to use Blogging as a type of portfolio in my future classroom. Having the students post journal entries on a blog versus in a notebook can be more beneficial in my opinion. Also, It would give them the chance to keep it forever as a way to see their growth! I also plan to use Ipads and tablets in my classroom for struggling students that need extra help in areas.

All in all, I feel that this course has been extremely beneficial to me as a future educator. I now have all of the tools and resources I need in order to run a successful classroom that integrates technology into it!

Reflection: Assistive Technology Assignment

This week our assignment was to pretend that we had students that needed assistive technology and we were told to adapt to those students' needs. When the assignment was first given, I was very nervous about using assistive technology and thought it was something that I would have to download. Imagine my surprise to see that it was built into Windows and was available all along!

For example, on one section of the assignment we were required to adapt to a child who was a low vision computer user. This meant we needed to change the settings to a high contrast setting.

We also used the magnifier, toggle keys, on-screen keyboard, and several other accessibility options.

I found this assignment very interesting and I feel that this will be the most beneficial lesson in my future as an elementary teacher. I feel this because this lesson has taught me how to accomodate my future students, however the need to be acommodated.

This lesson goes in hand with NETS-T Standard #4, Objective b.