Reflection of Technology Guru ( of sorts)

This class has come to a quick end.  I am rally surprised at how quickly it ended.  When reflecting upon my brief time in TPTE I can recall a few things worked well for me. For example, the digital story was what I consider my biggest accomplishment.  Between that and the photo slide shows, those are the two most popular tools I think I will use in the classroom.  I can not stress how essential photos are to a positive and enriching learning environment. It is exciting that I can incorporate technology into this aspect.  The one thing that I struggled the most with was the Interactive Spreadsheet.  I have had little to no experience with them to begin with.  When you add in a grade, it became my most difficult task in the class.  Even though it proved to be complicated and somewhat stressful, I am glad I had a finished product.  In addition to being something I struggled with, the spreadsheet holds little value in early childhood.  Granted I could use them for record keeping, I see little use or benefit in using them.  The only thing that I would have done differently is ask more questions.  Questions about the program or tool we were learning about, and about what we were supposed to produce.  It was difficult for me personally to know what exactly was supposed to be completed for each project.  The rubrics were not always clear, and coincided with what we discussed in class.  I would have also liked to explore Piknik.  I know a few friends that use it, and I had tried in the past.  It usually ended with my getting frustrated and quitting.  I do have to say that Wordle was one of the funnest projects.  It was an experience exploring and unmasking different aspects of this web 2.0 tool, and since I knew nothing about web 2.0 tools I could be proud that I successfully went through the discovery process.  Now I have the knowledge to go out and find new tools and hopefully be able to integrate them into my future classroom!