Final Blog Assignment

In EDM 310 I have learned how about so many new things, inlcuding:

Blogs- At first I did not even want to create a blog, but after doing so and seeing what blogging with other educators had to offer I enjoyed it. Creating and using a blog turned out to be simpler than I had imagined. Blogger is very user friendly and I have enjoyed using it and plan to use it more in the future.

Google Docs- Is amazing!! I would advise all college professors to use google docs the way Dr. Strange does. It allows me to be more organized with my assignments and I'm sure it is much easier on the instructor to send out an assignment, which he can update at anytime, to all of his or her students.

PLN's- PLN's can be very useful. I've developed tons of ideas and learned a lot from the teacher's blogs I was assigned to. I plan on keeping in touch with those educators and possibly creating my own class blog when I become a teacher.

Google Earth- Google Earth was so much fun! I think it would be very helpful for a geography or history teacher. I would like to work on incorporating it into an English class some how. Possibly use it to show where particular authors are form?

iTunesU- iTunesU is where college professors record and post podcasts of lectures for their students. This would be a very useful tool for me, if all my teachers would participate in it. There were issues with some college's where students wouldn't attend class and would just listen to the free podcast. These are tools to help you with your studies, not an excuse to skip class! I think that once students realize this and don't abuse the privilege, more college's will get on board with iTunesU.

YouTube- I knew how to use Youtube and even have an account of my own, but I just thought Youtube was used for fun and entertainment purposes. I was surprised to find out, through this class, how much educational information is on youtube.

Audacity- I had a lot of fun using Audacity. I had never used it or even heard of it before. Our first project with audacity actually took back seat to all the fun I was having mixing songs and stuff. I downloaded it specifically for that project, but once I started figuring out how to use it I found it hard to stop doing fun things with it and actually do my project. I got it done though...

We covered much more material than I listed above, but these are the things I actually did not know too much about before this class. Everything else we did I either already knew about or were familiar with it.

Honestly, I did not know what to expect from EDM 310. I had no hopes of what to learn or what not to learn because I was not aware of what the class might of had to offer. There is nothing this class has taught me that I wish to forget. Before entering this class I was neither excited or sceptical about any aspects of the class. I can say that when the class got rolling, and we were introduced to the types of materials we would be working with and the assignments we would be doing, I was very excited. I had never had a class like this one before. It was a great experience for me as a student and as a future educator.


At times I was bored with the weekly blog and comment assignments. If I were to change anything in this class it would be those assignments. I felt that after a month in the class I had proved that I knew how to blog and comment appropriately. I think I would have learned more and had more fun if we would have done those assignments only ever other week and spent more time on all the useful tools we experimenting with and using to do projects.

I would have liked to go more in depth with actually using the technology we were learning about vs. blogging about using the technology in a class room. I can't argue that talking about the use of technology in the class room is not important, but I believe that it would have been more beneficial to do more work using the tools rather than discussing them. Non the less, the class was very helpful and I enjoyed it.

I thought I was technology literate before this class. I was correct, to some extent. Yes, I knew how to use technology and could easily learn how to use new tools. What I did not know was the potential use of technology in the class room. I think that now I am even more technologically literate than before. On a scale of 1 to 10 I would have to say my technological literacy is an 8 or 9. Everyone can always learn something new at anytime or improve on what they already know.

I plan on maintaning my technolocial literacy by using what I've learned to benifit my school work in the future. I've learned so many useful tools I can use for research, presentations and things of that nature.