Week 1 Reflection

The first week of class was a little bit confusing and stressful to say the least. This is my third online class and it has been the most demanding so far. Even though this course has been more time consuming that I had anticipated, it is still very manageable if you work at it hard enough. That is to be expected of a course that is only three weeks long. I do like the fact that the entire course is constructing projects, because they show more than an exam. After making it through the first week of the course, I feel that the remaining two weeks will run more smoothly considering I know how to properly manage my time for the assignments. I am very interested to see how week two is going to play out because we will be working in groups without every meeting face-2-face. That is something I never thought I would have to do.

I have really enjoyed working through the various assignment in this course. They have all taught me a lot about the uses of technology and how I will one day be able to implement these in my own classroom. Even though I was fairly familiar with most of the programs we were expected to use to complete our assignments, there were some that possessed some difficulty. Out of all of the assignments, I feel the bookfold in Microsoft Word was the most difficult for me considering I have never heard of one or knew it was possible to make one using that program.

One positive thing about this course being a web based course is that you have to explore the possibilities yourself. I feel that exploring these technologies with limited instruction will make us remember what we are learning better because we are teaching ourselves to use it.

I know that as a Special Education teacher I will have many uses for a great deal of these technologies in my classroom. The use of Microsoft Excel will help me keep grading records to monitor the individual progress of my students, Microsoft PowerPoint will allow me to create visual, organized lessons that will greatly benefit my students, and various resource websites that will be of assistance to me as a teacher.

This week have been very challenging, but also very fun and rewarding. I look forward to participating in some cooperative learning in the week to come with my fellow online classmates!