The document discusses the author's experience in an online technology course. While apprehensive at first due to changing rules, the author found the readings on integrating technology into classrooms to be interesting. Exposure to new tools like blogging helped the author see opportunities for students. Though the course did not meet high standards, the information was worthwhile. The author plans to share ideas from the course, like blogging and podcasting, with colleagues and research tools before presenting them. Overall, the exposure to new technologies was the most interesting part and the author sees potential for tools like blogging in the classroom with proper precautions.

1. Well to be honest I was apprehensive at the onset of this course. It really concerned me that within the first week the direction and rules of the game changed multiple times. I understand and embrace change but the overall rocky start for a course in technology didn't bode well with me in my opinion. Overall I found the readings interesting and informative about infusing technology into the classroom and the road blocks and situations administration faces when trying to meet the Long Range Plan for Technology the state has developed. Having the class develop and publish our work in the blog format exposed many of us to the new Web 2.0 tools that are available and showed me the many opportunities that these new things can provide for our students inside and outside the classroom. While I wouldn't say the class met the high standards that I like to see in my coursework , I would say that the information shared was worth it. I always say it best to try and take something away from the material you study and try to apply it to your unique situation. It would be impossible for Lamar to tailor a technology course to fit around the individual technology scenarios that exist in 1,000 plus school districts. As a member of the technology committee on my campus that is tasked with continually updating our Technology Plan, I will take some of the ideas like Blogging, and podcasting to the committee. These areas are represent the cutting edge of technology and if we build professional development around integrating ideas like these into our classrooms, our students will be competitive in both future education endeavors they tackle or the ever competitive job market. I also plan to be proactive with these things by readily researching and using them before I present them. If I have had experience with them it will easier to answer the do's and don'ts many teachers on the committee might have. When I look at things that I did not achieve I feel like we really only scratched the surface on using the tools like Blogging, Wiki, Podcasting, social bookmarking, and RSS. While I understand the concepts and ideals behind the use of these items, I really don't feel comfortable enough to wade off into using these things on a daily basis without some apprehension. Combine this with the fact that our current filtering system at school makes it almost impossible to access blogs at the moment, my only time to access this media would be in the evenings and I am quite busy in the afternoons and evenings with coursework. I think I would have gotten more out of the course if the weekly segments would have been broken out into focus areas like week one blogging, week two wiki's, etc. This would have allowed me to focus more on each respective medium. The way we looked at this stuff was what I call a
shotgun approach
and really isn't the best way to learn a new technology. I didn't have much trouble working on the assigned work as most of the things we did or worked on weekly mimicked the normal online course format many of us have utilized from the onset of the coursework with Lamar. The one thing I did have trouble with had nothing to do with the Lamar system. Two of the resources we were to utilize to setup our slide show presentations took an extremely long time to upload from my system. It could have been a connection issue on my part or it could have been just a large amount of traffic but I never was able to get any but the slideshare application to function properly in reference to uploading documents or power points. When looking at what I learned from this course I can say the exposure to blogging, and podcasting was the most interesting thing we discussed in the coursework. I have always considered myself reasonably technology literate, and I was able to pick up on the new technology pretty easy. I have always been told I have a lot of patience and from what I am seeing from this emerging technology, it's going to take someone with a lot of patience to help older teachers embrace and utilize these new things. As I said earlier, I have always been a person to accept change and readily look for new ideas and concepts that can help my students improve the education they are receiving. I think the one thing we have to look at from the leadership aspect is to be sure we include teachers in the decision-making process when evaluating software for use in the classroom. Stakeholders have to be involved as they are ultimately the ones charged with ensuring student success. It is important to note that the Principal, as the instructional leader of the campus, has an obligation to stay abreast of current trends in technology and to model proper usage of technology for the staff. When looking at Blogging, I foresee great potential with use in the classroom. I can see things like a teacher made homework blog or discussion page where students can log into see assignments, critique each other's work, or post comments on a story they read. I can also see potential in student-lead group discussions online where collaboration blogs are the focal point for this activity. The pitfalls that I see include making sure the students are protected from outside evils and that all the laws about compliance and the internet to include: CIPA, COPPA, DOPA are abided by when students and teachers participate in the blogging process. In some of the last readings/videos discussed intranet for blogging was mentioned and this would be a great way to allow students to utilize the tools without risk of exposure to outside threats. If this simply wasn't an option to host this within the districts server capacity several online hosted sites are available for teachers to restrict access to the students they choose to minimize the potential for outside threats.