CEP811 Final Reflection

Through CEP811 I was introduced to some new technologies that I think will help me meet my goal of having my students interact with technology.  One technology that I found especially useful is StAIR projects.  I think these could be helpful for my students who are struggling with a topic and need extra review of it.  I'm excited to use the one I designed for class with my students.  The problem I have is trying to figure out how I want students to do it.  Do I want them to do it in our classroom on one of the three computers?  If so, then what will the other students be doing?  This would make sense in a way because not all of my students need to review the information taught in the StAIR because they have already showed competency with it.  

On the other hand, I could take the class to the computer lab and have them do it there.  The difficulty with this would be having the students navigate to it on their computers (not a big deal for older students but could be a huge undertaking for first graders having to deal with multi-step directions even if it is being modeled on a projector).  I also found that a lot of the StAIR projects that have been created by others to be sub-par and I would not want to use them with my students.  Therefore, I would either have to spend a lot of time adapting them or creating my own for a topic.  

The same goes with WebQuests.  I think WebQuests could be a useful way for students to learn or review material and practice what they've learned.  However, a lot of the ones available have broken links or are not the easiest to navigate.

Before this class, I was using technology to give my students new information.  My goal was to get the students to use the technology.  This goal I still have in place.  My students have started using XTra math a few times a week to practice their math facts whenever they finish assignments early and at home.  I have also been looking into having the students publish their writing using an online book building site like BookBuilder.  However, as you can see from above, there are a lot of difficulties when it comes to first graders using the technology themselves.  One of the biggest conflicts I have is time.   For first graders using technology takes a lot of time because they have to be taught how to use it and if it involves typing then that takes even longer.  

A new goal I have in place is having my students do more personal goal-setting.  Through the UDL checklist, I realized the benefit it would have in motivating my students to learn.