EDCI 5825 Final Questions

How your view of instructional technology has or has not changed over the course of the semester?

I have gained general experience and knowledge about the types of technology that is available and how it can be appropriately incorporated into the classroom. I feel more comfortable with challenging myself to use new technology. 

The quality and appropriateness of what you have learned/created this semester.

As I've mentioned in some of my rubric reflection questions, I think for the Special Education teacher specifically the tools we've utilized in this class will be particularly useful with language arts. The SMART board activities provide auditory, visual and kinesthetic experiences, which are essential to language learning. The class Wiki is also appropriate for us to use with our classes and to serve as a forum for parents.  

Evaluation of your comfort moving forward with technology.

I'm more confident than I was at the beginning of the semester, but I think the biggest challenge is the short timeframe of our classes. I would have liked to incorporate technology in a more meaningful way, but due to the semester being only 6 weeks long, it was difficult to spend the appropriate amount of time on each tool.

EDCI 5825 Week Six

I really enjoyed and benefited from reading the blogs of my peers, especially the "Good Teacher" post from last week's EDCI 5065 class.  While all of us had our own definitions of what makes a good teacher, common themes existed throughout our group.  Most of us mentioned how our own values play a huge role in the way we teach, how we are role models for our students, how we need to be inspiring and encouraging, how we need to value the backgrounds and needs of each individual, how learning should be meaningful and purposeful.  It is essentially important that we stimulate interest and elicit emotional responses from our students to optimally engage them in lessons (the idea of hot cognition).  Most importantly in my opinion is the notion that our attitudes define how our students perceive us, and how we perceive them: that modeling positivity and optimism have a tremendous impact on the classroom.  Kaitlyn's "Good Teacher" post describes this perfectly:


"A smile is a curve that often sets things straight. A good teacher always smiles because she wants to show that she is content to work with her students. Positivity. Optimism. She achieves the objectives for the day and provides a purpose for learning. She connects the curriculum with the students experiences in order to make the material relevant. "