Final Pause and Ponder

This course has meant a great deal to me and continues to play a major role in my teaching career. As I create lessons, the voices of the authors, Sara Kadjer and Troy Hicks begin to reverberate in my mind. As both authors concur, teaching writing is both a formative and summative process. So, in creating a lesson, I now think about what types of technologies I can use as well how to look a the formative process of the students. My idea of teaching writing has expanded to include different uses for search engines and the varied ways to produce a finished product. There were so many areas this subject touched upon, I could not think of an area I would like to add. I would say I would like to continue to learn more about the various ways I could incorporate using engines such as "wallwisher", "voicethread", and "photostory3"s into my lesson plans. I feel like I have only scratched the surface, and would like to become a more masterful user of these technologies.

I feel I have grown in finding more resources now that I have been introduced to the topics discussed in this course. I have kept the handouts contained in the curriculum and can find the websites at an instant. I have downloaded many of the tools the course has provided and of course have learned I can always go to Youtube or google, to find out how to do something. I have also learned to follow the blogs we created as well as find others, so there is always a place to turn for help. Being more motivated to find more information about these topics, can only enhance my teaching. I will certainly look for more opportunities such as this class, to further develop my use of technology. One such opportunity has already presented itself through a 3 day course at Coastal Carolina featuring Barry Levinson as the teacher. This course is a writing course which will immerse the teacher into the program in an attempt to bring it back to the classroom. I am a bit intimidated, but because of this course, am willing to give it a try.

I feel my professional abilities have been enhanced through this course since I have introduced some new technologies in class. Using "wallwisher" and google docs has allowed me to communicate in a more interactive way with my students. Some of the free educational sites engage my students to use the computer more than just a facebook tool, for example, they all enjoy the "Freerice.com" site and have begun a competition among the classes. They like seeing how "Worlde.net" changes the way their words look and what they can improve upon. The one site I know I want to continue to use is "paperrater.com". This site allows students to immediately get feedback on their use of grammar, word choice, spelling, sentence structure, as well as any plagiarism they may have inadvertently used in the paper. I have asked my students to use google docs as a form of interactive writing;however, what I need to reinforce is they look at my comments and use them in their next writing assignment. As often happens in paper and pencil responses, students are not taking the time to review my comments. I asked them to respond to each other and that seems to have worked--so I think I will incorporate more of that interactive writing next year. I also want to take more advantage of digital story writing. I know they know how to create movies and use photostory. Most have used these tools to create propaganda techniques in their own commercials, made videos to create their own interpretation of a drama or scene from a novel, or incorporated Youtube into a project which asked them to find a piece of music for a remake of To Kill a Mockingbird.There is so much more for me to learn. I would like to be able to use the Wiki page for a quick way to organize the clips of the films which go along with the curriculum we explore in the classroom. All in all, I know I am just a novice at this, so my desire is to become more confident in a few of the tools we used in this class, integrate them within my curriculum,and move on to the next types of technologies I discovered in this course and use them as well in my classes. Thank you for opening up a new world to me.