Final DED 318 Questions
Question 1: Discuss the TWO (2) tools that were your personal favorites from the semester and why.
- The first app that I really loved using was the Canva app. This app let me create different posters and designs the way I wanted to make them. I used Canva in many different classes, but the main project I used it for in Ed Tech was for my inspirational poster. I did a poster over J.K. Rowling and how she is an inspiration to many. This app let me play around with different designs and was a lot of fun to use. I can see myself using this app for many different things in my classroom. I can use it to create posters for my classroom information sheets that are fun, possibly worksheets, name tags, and many other ideas. My students could use this for many different things as well. They could use it for projects, create backgrounds for PowerPoints, or even just use it for fun and get creative with it. This app is free and it comes with many free options in it, but if you want more pictures or icons you can pay for them. Canva is in the app store and you get download it here.
- My second favorite app from the semester was ThingLink. I liked that you could pick any background you wanted to and link whatever you wanted to it. I feel like I have seen something like this on websites before so I liked that we are now able to do that. For my lesson I did State capitals of the Midwest. My background was an image that included all the different states and my links were located where the capitals are located. The students could move the mouse over the capitals and different information would pop up. Some of them had questions the students could answer, others had website links they could go to to explore, and some had images for them to look at. I would use this in my classroom to have my students explore new information in a fun engaging way. For instance I could do one over habitats. My background picture would be a different habitat and I could link all the different aspects of it so the students can learn all that goes on in that habitat. I think my students would also enjoy making one of these themselves for a project that is assigned to them.
Question 2: Look back through your entire website (yes the whole thing), look at all you have accomplished and learned this semester. Reflect on what you have accomplished & learned this semester.
- This semester I feel like i have learned and accomplished a lot. At the beginning of the semester I was a little worried about he class becasue I was not the best with technology, but at the end of the semester, I feel much more confident in my skills on the iPad and with technology in general. With all the cool apps and websites I found, I plan on using them in my class to help facilitate learning and to bring back the fun in education. I really liked using most of the apps we worked with and want to continue to improve my knowledge of them and hopefully learn more about them before I become a teacher.