What I have learned this semester.

At the beginning of this class (EDM 310) I thought it was going to be horrible. I thought all this work was going to be a waste of time and just a bunch of busy work that would be overwhelming. I guess thats why they say don't judge a book by its cover. Once I got comfortable with blogging, this class turned into my best and most interesting class. I really enjoyed Mr. Sullivan as a teacher. He made sure we were up to date with all of our work and he showed that he really cared about teaching us the material. At this point of the semester I have three blogs, a twitter and facebook account, and I use skype on a daily basis. I never would have thought that this would be the case. I also enjoyed using Google Earth and Google Docs. Google documents is definitely something that I will use throughout my future career. Watching podcast and videocast in iTunes was another great network that will be helpful in the future.

I believe I have benefited greatly from EDM 310. Before this semester I was not considered a technoligically literate colleague, but I now think I can consider myself as somewhat technologically literate. The things I learned in this class have given me enough confidence to believe I can be successful teaching students. I want to have a positive impact on children and this class has provided me with some experience with technology that will help me in the future. I understand that there will always be new advances and therefore, I consider myself open to any new technological advances that will help me as a teacher.

I have two things that I wish I could have learned in this class. My mother is a teacher and she always talks about how difficult it can be to use STI Classroom for Windows and Smartboards, because nobody has taught her how to use this technology. STI is a program that is used for grades, progress reports, and lesson plans, all of which will be important to me in the fututre. I would like to have had the opportunity to learn how to use some of these online grading systems and smartboards.

Overall, I have learned a lot from taking EDM 310. Mr. Sullivan is a great teacher that wants everyone to be able to make a postivie impact on children in the future. I plan on using what we learned in the class to further my education and to teach children in the future.