Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Reflection on Project

I really enjoyed the challenge of trying to create a lesson that could use technology. I just did not want to create a lesson where the technology came first, but rather my goal was to develop a lesson and think of ways in which technology could be used to support the lesson. As a result of this guiding principle, I thought showing the Web quest would not meet my goal.

I also think that 15-20 minutes is a short amount of time and I did not want to pack too much in, but rather have this be a slow paced lesson and go from there. Overall, I think I met my goals for this lesson. The lesson came first and technology was simply used to support the lesson without being the center of attention. I also attempted a lesson that required class participation because my other goal was to have the opportunity to teach. The only other class that I have taken that has required us to create lessons and deliver them ended up not having us deliver the lesson, but rather talk about how we would deliver them. I really welcomed the opportunity to practice my delivery since I don't have the opportunity to present in my current life as I had in my past life.

However, I chose not to use this opportunity to teach math because I could not figure out an easy way to use the technology with math without having to do lots of explanation. If I were to do this project again, I would have spent more time thinking about how I could have taught specifically a math lesson. I may have been weak on content, but I did not want to do too much with the short time we had.

I really enjoyed using Wiki spaces and I see how this can be a very useful and accessible tool for any classroom. I think it was the right choice for my presentation even thought it can be a challenge for having 20 people trying to edit the same document simultaneously.

Thank you for the opportunity and I am exciting about future opportunities for determining when to use technology and how to use it in the classroom.