PhotoPeach was a quick and easy program to use. With easily accessible photos, I could put together a show in just a few minutes. In education, I would see its uses to be similar to Animoto, however, I tend to prefer Animoto because students can add text to their photos to personalize and add significance to each photo included. As a teacher, PhotoPeach would offer me an easy way to share photos from classroom events and activities that don't require dialogue.
By far, my favorite discovery in throughout this course was ThingLink. It was such a fun tool with multiple purposes in education. The possibilities for flipping learning in an engaging manner, more interesting than just a basic weblink or PowerPoint type presentation. It also has significant possibilities for use with students to present knowledge about particular subject.
This course has helped me to understand the importance of not becoming lax in regard to technology tools. This ever-evolving industry is constantly improving and without staying on top of the latest technology trends, tools and updates, students and educators can easily fall behind in best practices of the industry. We often tell students that one of the benefits of the internet is it's ability to update information as soon as new knowledge becomes available. The same is true for technology tools. As we find new ways to make them more efficient and effective, they are updated and recreated. Technology leaves no room for complacency.
One of my most unexpected take-a-ways from the 16 things exercises is the significance dialoguing about my experience with particular tools had on my ability to retain information and think through implementation of the tools with teachers and students. Although I've always used restating information with my students as a way to confirm acquisition of knowledge, I had not truly utilized this strategy for myself. As a new instructional coach, this technique truly helped to prepare me to guide other educators in effectively evaluating and implementing the best technology for specific classroom purposes.
I don't know that there is necessarily anything I would say to improve the format or concept of this course. I've enjoyed a course that is less "busy" than others I've taken, and allowed time for me to truly experiment with a variety of tools. Often I've felt like college courses give a list of tasks, but offer not real opportunity for implementation. This class allowed me to truly experiment, evaluate, and implement. Maintaining tools that support best practices in education will be an ongoing challenge to keep information relevant for educators.
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