Final Reflection

Final Reflection on EDU255

I must say that I have learned a lot in this course.  As the weeks have gone by, I have speculated about how technologies that I have experienced in this course would be useful in the classes that I teach.  I feel that several of these tools would be useful to me in both my online and face-to-face courses.  Here are my ideas:

The most useful technologies that I will employ in the future will be Blogs and Jing videos.  I would use a Blog in the place of a website.  It would be subject specific in that I would create one for each of the courses that I teach.  I hesitate to use a Wiki in that I would want more control of what was posted.  Students could still post comments on the Blog, however.  I would encourage them to add tips that could help their  fellow classmates understand the mathematical topics presented.  Another advantage of the Blog would be that it lives outside the “Blackboard” environment so that students could access it when they are no longer enrolled in the course.

Jing videos are ideal for math problems.  I create PDF documents with the mathematical problems typed out and then add a video of working the problems out on a Bamboo tablet .  Students can view the problem being worked out and hear the explanation.  These are perfect to help the online math student.  The videos are short and get right to the student’s question without having them sit through a whole lecture.  I am in the process of collecting topic related videos and will house them somewhere so that students can go in to view specific topic Jing videos.

While there are other great technologies such as photo-sharing and podcasts, I do not see myself using them very often in math class.  It is the combination of being able to see and hear explanation of math problems that helps students learn. 

One thing I am certain that I will not use in my courses would be social networking sites.  I feel that they are exactly that—social and thus, a casual attitude would be the rule.  Some subjects lend themselves more to this type of setting.  However, I don’t believe math is one.  It has been pointed out that such a site might be a great place to start dialog on the usefulness of math and to essentially improve the image of mathematics.  I feel that while this idea is worthy, math “haters” are hard to convert no matter what logic can be shared on the situation.  It is kind of like convincing a Democrat to become Republican or vice-versa.  What is really achieved in the end?

In conclusion, this class has enlightened me as to what is out there.  I am taking baby steps and will incorporate these new technologies gradually in my courses.  I believe these technologies  will help me better address the learning needs of today’s student.