final comments

I learned a lot from this Web 2.0 class that I will definitely use in my classroom in the future.

I really liked the lessons on Social Bookmarking and wiki's the best. The social bookmarking is amazing and I have used it several times since I created it at the beginning of the summer already. My list of favorites was long and almost unmanageable because there was no way to orgaznize them. Also, if I was not at home looking at my laptop I could not access them, but now I can access them from school and my phone as well. This has proven to be a useful tool that I have shared with others as well! I had an idea for using wiki's in my classroom for vocabulary. I will put a list of vocabulary words onto a wiki and have my students add tips on how they remember the meaning of the word. Then other studnets can access the list and will be able to use tips from their peers to remember the meaning. I will allow class time for students to add to the wiki and I will require that they add 2 tips for every vocabulary list. I have also created a wiki to work with my group in another class on our final project. It is much easier to have one document on the web that we can all add to and we don't have to keep sending the document back and forth.

As a non-traditional student, I have made one of my goals to learn new things about technology on a regular basis. This course has certainly met that criteria. This course has also reinforced my resolve to continue updating my classroom use of technology because through this course I have improved my teaching by increasing the engagement of my students. It will also help prepare my students for the technologically advanced society that we live in. I will certainly consider taking more courses like this in the future because I can see the value of it in the classroom.

My sister is a high school English teacher in Florida and I was so excited about the things I was learning that I called to tell her about it. She loves the idea of a social bookmarking site too. She has a school laptop and it crashed on her and she lost all of her favorites that she had compiled for herself as well as for the students. I sent her the information from this class and she was delighted! For me, this is an unexpected outcome because she has been teaching for almost 20 years and it was wonderful that I have new information that I can pass on to even experienced teachers. When I get a full time job in a building I will be sure to show this amazing technology to other teachers so that we can share resources. I will also let the librarian know about it because she is the technology person in the building.

I do not have any suggestios for improving this course other than the last learning module. Many of the videos I tried to access did not work, which was unfortunate. There are so many things I liked about the course though. I was very concerned going into the class that I was not going to be able to learn technology from technology; I was wrong. This is a very user friendly course! The Angel site is easy to navigate, the directions and examples and reading are very simple to navigate. When I had questions all I had to do was refer back to the learning module and re-read what was posted and I was able to complete any and all assignments.

This was my first online course and my first course on technology and I am delighted with the outcome. I learned a lot about technology that I can use in my classroom and in my life!