Final Reflection

When I first signed up for the fall semester, I was a little nervous because this would be the first time that I was working and going to grad school at the same time. At the beginning of the semester, I was a bit overwhelmed with the amount of work I had from both of my classes; once I was able to get into a routine, things seemed to finally fall into place.  In retrospect, I am glad that most of the projects in this class were in the beginning and middle rather than all at the end.

My favorite projects were the digital stories. I had always heard the term being used by educators around me, but it wasn't until I took this class that I really learned what they were.  I really enjoyed creating two digital stories, one on my favorite person in the world - my Godson and the second on my Portuguese culture.  After I completed my first digital story, I embedded it into a post on my cousin Rita's (my Godson's mother) wall.  She was so surprised and happy to see that I created a story about her family - she even cried - that made me feel so good! It also opened my eyes to see how powerful a digital story can be - visuals and auditory really do go hand in hand to make an impact on the reader/learner, such as the Mayer's Cognitive Theory states.

I also really enjoyed the visual vocabulary powerpoint as well as creating our own clipart.  Like digital stories - I had seen other colleagues work who had created clipart - I just didn't know how.  This class really seemed to bring together the pieces of the puzzle that I had already acquired.  The podcasts were also fun - I enjoyed reading to an "audience" as well as planning what I was going to say, and acting out "Romeo and Juliet" with my boyfriend. 

I really feel that I will be able to use the tools I learned in this class in my classroom someday.  I don't know where I will be teaching or what grade I will be in, but all of these tools can be watered down to any grade level - students working independently and/or dependently on the teacher.

Overall, I am looking forward to being able to one day incorporate all of these wonderful tools in my classroom.  For now, I am excited to take Production II in the Spring so that I can be more technologically savvy by learning more about the SmartBoard and all the amazing things it can do!

Happy Holidays Everyone!