End of Semester Reflection

What did you learn or take away from this course and how was your perspective integrating technology into education changed and grown throughout the course?

At the start of the semester, I was very skeptical about online and technology it is definitely not my preferred way of learning as most could agree. However, the course and my teaching practicum have taught me a lot to appreciate about technology. For one our STEAM courses this semester would not have been capable this semester without technology. I also did a lot better in my courses than I thought I would have it be with technology. It actually helped me having it online because of how far away I lived from Mount Royal itself and how most of my day would be spent on a bus or train to school rather than in class myself. This way I was able to attend all classes while still being able to go to my workplace. I have gathered a lot of different resources and learned a lot about technology especially my own computer. I have had this laptop for almost five years and there was so much I did not know how to access or how to work till this semester. My perspective has changed to a more positive point of view but I still worry about how this will impact student learning in the future when it goes back to not needing to rely on technology as much.

How did this course help you answer your burning question about the use of digital technology?

The course itself helped me understand resources and techniques to incorporate into lesson plans but after my third-year practicum experience, the use of digital technology was a big part of my practicum. For the first three weeks of in-classroom practicum, my cohort has designated computer days twice a week so my mentor teacher and I had to make sure that our lessons revolved around the use of those computers as we only had them on specific days and limited time.  The last week of my practicum also happened to go online due to COVID-19 and all grades 7-12 had to become virtual I had the opportunity to teach my last week of lessons in a virtual setting. My burning question was asking whether or not technology will be used more often after virtual semsters in future classrooms and will students be relying on Chromebooks and iPads to learn?  For the most part, my burning question has been answered. Before my classroom had to go online a handful of students in the classroom had their own devices where I would have to adapt my lesson plans to suit their devices as well as in the classroom. I had never seen students at this young age being able to whip out laptops during class to take notes, I have only really seen this in university and maybe the last year of high school. Never in ages this young. It is incredible to see because students who do not do well on writing on paper have the opportunity to type their thoughts but as sad to see because the brain remembers to learning content when you write down and scribe the sentence into your own piece of paper. I have had fun little debates with my students about this because they explain that I will be able to read their writing because their printing is "so bad" and I explain that how will you practice your printing when you write if you also rely on typing? It was a harmless and fun little debate to see the students' point of view. All in all, nobody really knows what the future holds in education with technology as it adapts more and more into our daily lives.

How did you contribute to the learning of others and what did you learn from others?

I was very lucky this semester to have a mentor teacher who has so much knowledge to share about computers and technology.  I learned a lot about using google forms for pre and post-assessments in my lesson plans to see what students knew before my lessons and what they learned afterward to help assess not only the students but for myself in order to know what to adjust in my teachings. I was also able to use the Scratch Program as we did in our course with the students because my mentor teacher taught his class how to use it as well. It was great because I already had practice making a lesson plan around scratch and I was able to see how a lesson around scratch would look in a classroom. Many students in the classroom knew how to work their way around a chrome book better than me (this is because I have a MacBook air) but it was so interesting to see how we would teach each other new tricks and helpful extensions to each other when it came to technology.