The End...or a New Beginning

 

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In the beginning...

I have to be honest here.  Getting my master's degree-in technology of all things, was NOT my idea.  So I have to thank my friend Kelley Spiro for encouraging me and convincing me that this was the time and technology was the subject.  I also have to admit, that my first experiences with the technology courses were NOT the best in my academic career. This past summer, we took two classes Gaming in Education and Flipped Learning. Although I was excited about the prospects and ideas of the classes-in reality, they were not what I expected. I think when designing education classes in regards to technology, the designers neglect to include the littlest of learners-so much of the content is not relative to me. However, as I learned in this class, the Gen Zers and Gen Alpha's have technology embedded into their lives-almost from birth-they should be included in all planning for education courses-especially those aimed at teaching educators technology. 
Twitter @MarkMcCrindle


Still a work in progress...  


                                                                        

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I have come a LONG way since I started this particular journey in July.  But, I've come even further since the pandemic began in March.  I started out teaching from home-with very little materials and no knowledge of what I was doing or how I was going to do it. Teaching littles is hard enough-but teaching littles virtually is darn near impossible. Today I have more confidence in my abilities-yet I am still a work in progress. I am able to create video lessons for my kiddos using either Screencastify or WeVideo, and I can juggle in-person students and virtual students at the same time (WAY harder than it sounds!). I am comfortable creating a classroom page-and can add and manipulate this page to make it easily accessible and organized for my families. I can Zoom.  I know about break-out rooms and backgrounds and chat rooms. I even have my own YouTube page that I designed!

I am no where near where I want to be in regards to technology.  I fear that as soon as I feel like an "expert"-something will change, and I wonder if I will be able to adapt. 


From here forward...

I have created many digital pieces of myself in this class-that I never even thought about.  A blog and a webpage are the ones that stand out the most.  These were fun and educational-I learned many new things along the way-including how to embed something, what a "permalink" is (and how to use it), and found some web tools that I will use moving forward. I learned that Google is my friend-even when I can seem to navigate it at all! (Thanks to Nicole for showing me early on that Google owns just about everything I work with-and that they should all work in harmony-and will if you stick with it!) I learned about the difference between a PNG and a JPEG-who knew? 

Give thanks where it's due...

I want to thank all of you (the students of EDU 776)-for your words of encouragement, support and multitude of resources you shared along the way. I was in awe each week, as I looked at your blog posts-and how EASY you all made it seem!  I aspire to be like you in so many ways.  Thanks especially to my friend, Kelley Spiro-because without you pushing and encouraging me along the way-I wouldn't be here-so close to finishing my master's degree. Thanks for our late evening chats via text and our weekend conversations as we figured things out together! Because, after all, what are friends for?  Cheers to you all for making it through this class-I wish you the best! 




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