One Final Reflection

Final Blog Reflection

Part 1:
I must say, I am going to have a hard time with this part of this final reflection. I do not know if there are certain course objectives that I have either met or not met throughout this course. I say this because so many of the things that were discussed in this course were either things I already had knowledge about or there were things that I learned that were somewhat new and built upon. I think that this class has made us more knowledgable about what we need or can use as future teachers with the world that technology has opened us up to. Technology is something that is either hit or miss even when it comes to us digital natives. I feel like I have gained more of an appreciation for what is out there in terms of technology. There are certainly tools that I will continue to use in the future when it comes to working with my students. I think I will build a wiki, use vokis, etc. for my students. I just do not know if there are objectives that were either met or have yet to even be learned. I feel as though I am definitely more well-rounded in terms of the technology that I have learned about. I definitely think I was less aware of the different technologies that are out there for teachers to use and I look forward to trying to use them in my own classroom. I just think that I can adequately explain in a blog how what I have learned will help me in the future and where I stood before I even took this course. I definitely think that this course should be one that is required and should be done before any other course work. The reason I mention this is because one can use any number of these different technologies in other courses or even in our free-time towards working with students. I apologize ahead of time if this does not seem to directly answer this question or if this is what was expected in terms of this series of questions.


Part 2:
This question is equally difficult and equally challenging to answer. Technology (as I alluded to before) is either hit or miss. There are going to be certain circumstances where using technology as part of the curriculum and lessons that we do with our students and other times where it is not. There are definitely certain age brackets where technology may not be a benefit. However, the users of technology continue to get younger and younger. I am not sure how many of you have heard about the young baby who was looking at a magazine and kept expecting it to react like a tablet computer. There are so many barriers to technology, i.e. money, availability, and proper teachers. Kim, with regards to the knowledge base you have, it is not surprising how much of this stuff seems to easily be taught to us. Technology should be used in such a way that we can help our students and hopefully not make them feel inadequate. I still remember that way back when I was in at least second grade that was one of the first times I used a computer (I even remember it was an Apple IIE and a dot matrix printer.) I do not think that technology should always be integrated into what we are teaching. It is matter of appropriateness and the usefulness of it. We should do whatever we can to try and overcome these barriers, but it is not vital. We have to be aware of what happened B.C. and B.G. (before computers and before Google.) It is imperative that we think of those what ifs. ESL teachers can certainly benefit from using technology so that our kids can be taught grammar in a fun and entertaining method, but it is not vital for our students.