Reflection Post

Reflection

I can not believe this is the final week of Edu 776! When I first began this course I was feeling very excited but also nervous. There were lots of unknowns this year, especially transitioning from a year of remote only learning and living through a pandemic. Additionally, this is the second to last course I need to finish up my Master's Degree in Education at Dominican University. Overall, I am still feeling like the gif below that I shared in my first ever blog post. I am super excited to have worked with everyone in this course and also very excited and a little nervous to see what the future holds! 

Image source: https://giphy.com

Technology in Education

Throughout the past 8 weeks, I learned so much about technology in education. This course allowed me to really explore using technology professionally and sharing my own teaching experiences with others. I have never before blogged or had a Twitter account with the purpose of sharing my educational views and learning within the professional learning community of other educators. It was a great, new way to expand my teaching views and learn new things. Additionally, the amount of resources shared on each platform was amazing and showed me new ideas, lessons, and strategies to try out in my own classroom. I had no idea that social media could also serve as a professional and educational tool. 

One concept that really stood out to me during this course was using Flipgrid throughout the class. I really enjoyed hearing from my classmates about the topic for the week in video form. This video platform allowed me to get to know everyone in class, see their faces and hear their voices as if we were really in class together in person. It offered a new way to use videos to personalize topics and form a classroom community between everyone even though we were all virtual. I want to incorporate Flipgrid videos into my own classroom as a way to build our classroom community and share with each other. For example, parent teacher conferences are coming up and I think it would be great to have the students record and share with their parents a video explaining their life at school or something they are really working hard at. Then, they (the students and their families) could film a similar video at home to share with me so that  everyone can see the student shine in both their home and school life.