Final Course Reflection

How will you apply what you have learned in this course to your future teaching and learning experiences?

This course has been a great experience for me. From where I stand today, my teaching looks pretty old school. I will definitely be incorporating some new technology at the start of the next school year. At the moment, my head is stilling swimming a bit - in terms of all the options I've learned about. I've got little sticky notes all over my office with different ideas. Now I need to consolidate.

Some givens....
I will be setting up a social studies web site. It will probably be 1 site that includes a page for each of the classes I teach next year, along with a general resource page for students and another for parents.

I will also be requiring my students to set up Diigo sites for all research projects going forward.

I will use the Current Events Blogging activity that I designed in this course. I will probably set up blog sites for enrichment activities (literature circles) as well.

I am hoping to create class texts on Wikibooks next year too. At present I've got about 15 curriculum binders taking up space on my shelves, and to be honest, I almost never organize them or update them in any meaningful way. I just keep throwing activities in them. They've become quite cumbersome, and I am really looking forward to transferring their content to the computer.

Overall, I will be working towards a more paperless classroom, encouraging students to post writings for view by authentic audiences, and inviting the rest of the world in - one student/pc at a time.