EQ2 Week 8

EQ2 What lessons did you learn about yourself (such as perspectives, attitudes, and skills) with regards to learning and teaching with technology? How different are you today, compared to Week 1 of this course?

2)When I started this class, I thought myself fairly competent with technology and its uses in the classroom. Rather like learning to ride a bicycle, I viewed learning as a quasi dotted line; I laid a framework and the students built off that. Technology was a tool to that means but of no importance other than making things easier.

Now, weeks later, I realize how much I was selling myself (and my eventual students) short. Through this class I have come to fully realize all the posibilities that technology can allow. Never before did I realize how simple it is to obtain and implement tools that can greatly enhance your classroom. Skype is a really good example of a tool that was completely overlooked in my mind. Before this class, I knew of the possibilities of video conferencing but had not quite made the connection with the classroom. This and many other technologies (twitter, facebook, blogging) can have not only a place in the classroom but a meaningful one if the teacher takes the time to implement it.
I realized from this class that my goal of trying to be at least moderately open-minded is still being realized. As stated above, I really did dismiss Skype when it was first mention by Israel but I made myself keep an open mind about it and in the end it was worth it. This also rang true on the other side of the spectrum when I visited another classroom at the school I observed in. Just as I was beginning to see technology as the closest thing to a magic pill we've got (and dismissing naysayers as too conservative and "set in their ways"), this teachers class set me straight. The teacher described to me how, while 75% of the students excel with the use of other technologies, there still remains a good 25% that do not and about 5% of that who are outright technophobes. I knew something like this to be true, but so mesmerized had I been by all the new and wonderful uses of tech that I had swept it to the back of my mind.
In closing, I would surmise that I am a more well rounded person after this class, enriched by the discussions and knowledge given. While not a "perfect fix," technology--as part of a creative, well thought out curriculum--can be yet another tool in helping more students "get it."