Favorite Assignment

My favorite assignment for the course would have to be the podcast assignment.  I found the podcast assignment the most useful for my classroom.  There are numerous activities that you can do in a U.S. History classroom with a podcast.  A couple of ideas that I have already thought of for this upcoming school year are character interviews of the Great Depression era and student interviews of Vietnam Veterans.  I really feel the podcast will help with the feeling of "boredom" that students feel some time with a history class.

Continual Learning

Even though I am a fairly young classroom teacher this course really scared me.  I consulted our district multimedia teacher multiple times with worries and he always assured me how much this would help me in the classroom and how it wasn't as hard as I was making it. I felt proficient in many areas of technology already and how to implement them into my classroom but this course has really helped to broaden my ideas for my classroom.  The possibilities are endless, especially with my U.S. History courses.  This has been the most beneficial class to me so far with my graduate work at Union College.

Keeping up with Technology

     I have gained a lot of knowledge of the new technologies that can be implemented into our classrooms. On top of that I was forced to learn much more; It seemed that every time I downloaded something for an assignment a new problem arose with my PC. I think I spent as much time figuring out these problems as I did the assignments.
     Overall the experience was very beneficial to me. I believe I would have a better grade if the assignments were graded more on knowing how to use the technologies rather than how we will use them in our classrooms. Personally that is where I'm at with these technologies, I am learning how to use them and once I have a better understanding of them I will be able to effectively incorporate them into my classroom.

The thought of actually using a blog in my new classroom was an idea I had struggled with for a while.  I had a really hard time figuring out how to get my posts to publish (until I realized that I hadn't joined the group) and have had to ask for help a hundred times, but now I realize that I panicked for nothing.  I like the idea of setting up a blog so that parents and students alike can always know what is going on in the classroom.  I think this may eliminate some excuses for not having homework.  I do see it as not working for some of the students that will be in my class due to lack of internet access at home, but I feel the benefits will out weigh the cons.

Technology was an extremely scary word to me until this class.  I have learned so much in such a short amount of time.  I will begin my first year in the classroom in August.  I will definitely be using some of the things we did in class in my classroom.  I had struggled with the idea of how to implement technology in a way that the students will enjoy and learn from, not just have the technology there to say we used it.  I have already written down an assignment in which I want my students to make a podcast to deliver to the class.  I think this will help them enjoy  Social Studies and hopefully lessen the stigma that it has to be boring.

Technology

This has been one of my least favorite classes at Union so far, although it is probably one that I have learned the most. I am good with basic technology, but struggle when it starts asking me to download a program and then convert and post..and so on!  I guess I just don't have the patience for it. Through this class I realized the work is worth it. The more I create the different types of technology the easier it will get. Our students are so advanced in technology, it is important that I can keep up with them. Another great thing is that the technology introduced to me in this class doesn't involve the school having to purchase anything!

Podcast

I thought the podcast assignment had a lot of steps to complete it, but it will be a great technology for me to incorporate into my program. My brother let me know of a a wireless device that will automatically record to a MP3 file. I think this will be a great tool for my mentoring program. While I am out on a college visit, I can interview students about their experience at college and see if they have any advise for my high school students. Then I can easily upload it on to our school web page.