Final Reflections

Wow! What a journey this has been! It feels great to be be done. I feel good about this big accomplishment! I can honestly say that I'm not so intimidated by computer technology anymore! It's just finding the time, but I have to say that having a laptop will make a big difference in being able to spend time learning more and just getting the everyday stuff done. I just need to hook up to wireless in my home and I'll be all set! I definitely will continue to explore more tools on my own and if you offer other courses, I want to participate! I found that I can print while off line and when I connect at school my stuff will print. How awesome is that!? I am so thankful that we had a year to get this done as my computer's hard drive crashed last summer and I had to get it fixed, which took about a month and then it was time to get ready for the new school year. As you can see by the late hours that I post that this computer thing is getting addictive. Trying to get through this course was challenging when I worked by myself. I seemed to be mentally and physically exhausted by Thursdays when your help was available. I really enjoyed working with a partner for a couple days this month, as we got each other going and motivated to finish! We each approached the tasks along a different path and shared our discoveries, which made for twice as much learning!
My favorites include Gmail, Pageflakes, YouTube, United Streaming, Google Maps, and blogging. This class has made me focus in on how to use technology in the classroom and our new computers will make it doable. I am really excited to get started. I am so happy to know how to download videos from United Streaming! I'm glad that I can look back at other participant's blogs and your comments and suggestions. They help all of us with suggestions and lesson ideas. If I see something cool that they did, I can ask them how they did it if I can't figure it out. What surprised me most is that I really enjoyed this course and that I actually feel that I understand most of what I'm doing.
Thank you Beth and Ryan for all the work you've put into putting this course together, the help you've provided and all the feedback! Don't feel guilty about the time we've put in as it's been long overdue. I would recommend this course to others.