Internet for Ed – Summative Project

     The following is the summative project I created for my Internet for Educators class. This narrative briefly summarizes some of the discussions we had throughout the course, what I believe is the most important aspect of educational technology, and an example of how to use technology with purpose. I can’t believe that the semester is already over as it seems like only last week I was sharing my thoughts on the beginning of the semester.

     We almost didn’t have an Internet for Educators class as it was not originally slotted in our timetable. After some daily discussions with our Dean, however, we were able to get it put into the timetable and have over twenty students participate! It was Mr. Nantais’ first-year ICT course that inspired me to begin exploring the world of ed tech which subsequently lead to this blog, Twitter, and my addiction to my RSS Reader. Of course, I was naturally enthusiastic about having an additional course to build on my preliminary skills and introduce me to new information.

     What I enjoyed most about this course was that we were able to discuss issues that arise with educational technology like cyber-bullying, filtering, ethical and appropriate use, plagiarism, and purposeful incorporation of tech tools. When I eventually enter the educational field and have my own classroom I plan to utilize tools such as Twitter, blogs, file sharing, etc and I definitely feel more prepared after taking this course. One thing that I did not enjoy about this course was that I got distracted by my peers’ blog posts and felt that I had to read each of their reviews before I could appropriately formulate my own post on the subject. If one of my peers’ posts happened to be missing, I felt like I was unable to write my own until I read their post and saw the topic from every person’s perspective. This was, however, a minor detail that resulted from a personal quirk rather than from the course itself, and I still really enjoyed being able to take the course.

     I learned so much throughout this course and I am so glad that I have the network of blogs created by my peers to document our learning and look back on. I want to thank Mr. Nantais’ again for his guidance and support and wish all my peers the best in their student teaching placements!