EDU 505 Final Reflection

Kristine McGovern

EDU 505

Final Reflection

         When I registered for this course I was unsure about what I was stepping into. I needed a technology-based course for my program and “Web 2.0” caught my eye as something new. Each of the five modules that we looked out throughout the course has introduced me to something new. This course introduced me to social bookmarking and I am very excited about it. Right before I started this course my computer crashed causing me to lose all of my bookmarks, photos and files I did not have backed-up. Now as I find websites I want to visit again I use delicious to bookmark them. The blogging and wiki modules were also very interesting. Although I knew about both blogs and wikis I had never thought much about how they can be used in the classroom or with school projects. Now I realize the possibilities are endless and that these sites can be child-friendly.

         This course has given me ideas and advice that I plan to use in my own classroom. As an early childhood educator I am often hesitant to integrate too much technology into the class. Young children especially need face to face interactions and having too many computer based lessons will take these interactions away. Blogs and wikis can be a great way to communicate with parents. A class can go green and send out a weekly or monthly newsletter through a blog. Creating a flickr account for my class is one thing I plan to do. This would allow parents to see what is going on in the class and what activities their children are taking part in. I am eager to start teaching and using these new tools. I really like that for each module there were several different options to use. For photos you can use flickr or photobucket or webshots, etc. If you don’t like how one website is formatted you can choose I different one (I’ve bookmarked all of these sites so I have access to the different formats in the future).

         Overall I have enjoyed this course and all that it has had to offer. Each module offered a different tool to experience. Although we had ample time to finish each assignment I personally would have liked to see all of the modules together at the start of the course.  I would take another course like this in the future.