IDT516- 4 weeks of Reflection

As I take time to reflect on the last four weeks of class the information I consumed was invaluable. Although each tool was a brief overview it really opened my eyes to the amount of tools that are available to make our lives as educators a little more simple and the role of learning hopefully easier for our learners.  After all as educators our goal is to effectively teach the largest amount of students the best information possible in usually the shortest amount of time, correct?  During this course we most recently learned about the best tools for bookmarking, RSS, surveying, microblogging and podcasting. All of these tools hold a new source of value to potential learners. Previous to this class I had almost zero contact, (other than a bad misconception of Twitter) with the tools that we discussed. 
 The most important aspect I took away from the final chapter in our text books- Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms by Will Richardson included was the importance of Shifting. Shifting means understanding that in most cases we will be pioneers in our pursuit of incorporating new technologies into our learning environments and our decisions may not always be popular. Understanding that our main objective is knowledge retention it is important to always remember the end goal. Another important shift I noted was the need for students/learners to learn collaboratively (which includes posting work for global review) and with conversation between educators and learners and peers. Rarely a long lecture and an individual report is the best way to learn and retain new materials. With these shifts also comes a responsibility to help learners decipher credible resources on the Internet. We want our students to have knowledge but more importantly it must be reliable and factual information.

The most important skill and ideas I learned within the last four weeks brings me back to the large amount of tools and information that was presented and reviewed following the group projects. I learned a vast amount of information and even changed my opinion of the tool Twitter. I even unlocked my old account from several years ago.  I have immense appreciation for the other students in this class and I appreciate that each and every one of us has a different background, unique careers and are located in another place from one another. Those variables add another level of dimension and layer of conversation to each topic covered.

I have really enjoyed learning the new tools and the group project(s) in this class. This was my first experience with Google Docs and the almost limitless capabilities it unlocks for educators and learners alike. I would highly recommend any educator/learner to at least try it so they can experience the benefits themselves.  The skills learned from the group project is knowledge that I intend to use in my professional and personal life for a long time to come. It also gave me the confidence to explore tools that I have previously disregarded and I intend to keep that confidence in the future. I am going research tools as we did in this class, by critiquing them on their usefulness to store or research knowledge or information before rushing to judgement on if I find them useful in my personal or professional life.