My+Reflection+on+the+class

**My Reflection on the Class**
Any technology that I learn is a benefit to my students as well as my practice. Throughout this class, I spent a lot of time on many of the little things that most people already know how to do everyday. For instance, I came to this class not even knowing how to link a document. This skill has already been invaluable. I have become a link maniac and I absolutely love the ability to link resources onto the class wiki for students to look at home and use as extra study tools. This said, it is clear that I was much further behind in my technology exposure than most in this class. I found many of the weekly tasks really time consuming as I have to watch every single tutorial for each tool. By the time I finally figured out the real use of a couple of these tools, the part of the lesson that I had intended to use it had past and I couldn't find another suitable use. For instance, I spent a lot of time learning Jing and Presi and I have yet to be able to put them to use in my classroom. Instead, I created a Presi for my 9th grade class that I will use next year because as I played around with the program this unit in 9th grade seemed to be the perfect fit. The other issue is that I am teaching a new prep this year in psychology and I only have one course this year so all of the technology must go into this curriculum. It has been a lot to fit in and I find that the science base of the psych class is less conducive to these activities as the survey history classes that I usually teach.

In terms of reaching the unmotivated and uninterested students, I think that there are many tools that make the material much more accessible and interesting to students than the traditional paper and pen exercises. I also think much of what I introduced to the class really helped to bring in the standard kids into the fold in an honors dominated classroom. Many of these students present as disengaged when they may just feel insecure and intimidated by the other students who dominate many discussion. Having the wiki as a place in which all students must post a reflection and have time to formulate their answers make these students much more empowered. The other group of students that I think that these types of tools really reach are the students who struggle with writing as the main mode for assessment. In history classes so much of testing is writing (essays, short answers, free writes) and multiple choice fact recall. There are so many students who struggle doing these tasks. Having more creative outlets like playlists, comic strips and glogsters allows these students to show what they know and have some success in this class.

What I will absolutely embed in my curriculum on a constant basis is wiki space and google docs. While I am still working out the wiki and how to get all I can out of it, I find it invaluable. Up to this point, I have been monitoring 2 separate wikis for my 3 psychology classes. It has been a lot to do on a daily basis. I find that I am rewriting or pasting and linking things 3 times. I am in the process of having all of my students go to one psych wiki and then have different class pages. I am still figuring out how to hide pages, put pages in pages etc. but it has been such a great tool for my class and getting tons of information to students quickly and efficiently. I still need to work on creating questions that are suited for a wiki discussion and can sustain for 25 students. In terms of the google docs, it has solved a huge problem that I have been having with students sending work through email. I reached the point this year where I would not except any work by email. I knew that I was going backwards in terms of society but I was fed up between the spam firewall, not being able to open certain documents and students claiming that they sent work. Google docs has made this a non-issue and I feel as if I am back in the 21st century.

I have enjoyed being exposed to so much technology through this class. I myself could have used more one on one tutorial time buy and there are many tools that I still am not sure how I would use them effectively but I am feeling more motivated to try.