To be honest (and I hope no one takes this offensively), I had mixed emotions about my experience in my UA Ed Tech class.  First, I would like that state that all of the resources taught and shared with me have POTENTIAL to be very helpful.  They make learning fun, different, applicable to real life, and most importantly it allows students to work at their own pace.  For all of the tools I have been shown, I am very grateful.  I also enjoyed working with many web 2.0 tools and especially learning about the different things that can be done with Google.  

I also had some negative feelings toward this class.  I think that teaching how to implement technology into the classroom was preached so heavily that it denounced and harshly criticized teachers who do not or can not use these tools in their class.  I was in a situation during my student teaching where technology was EXTREMELY limited (my classroom was given an outdated overhead projector), and the technology that we had was not up to date.  Using technology heavily in the classroom is a tremendous idea, don't think that I'm saying its not.  But teachers have to make use of the resources they are given.  There are plenty of effective, caring, and fun teachers in the world who use other methods.

Now that I have that off of my chest, I would like to state this....I would love to have as much technology in my classroom as possible.  I will do everything I can for this to happen.  And when the day comes, I will use this technology effectively.  Computers will not simply be used as word processors, or high tech typewriters.  Students will not just write essays and PRINT them out, when they can be submitted online.  Students will learn how to effectively use the technology.  This will make my classroom fun, a center of higher learning, and a place where students learn many skills that have real life applications.  Looking back at my original thoughts of this class, I stated that I had mixed emotions about taking this class.  I obviously did not want to take a Saturday morning class, along with my student teaching.  I also was not very interested in technology.  My interest has changed.  There have been so many amazing tools shown to me, that it would be a wasted if they were not used in the future.  I especially love GoogleDocs, Google Scholar, and Instagrok.

If you have not yet, check out MY WIKISPACE and the TeachersForTomorrow page

I have created a Wiki for this class.  The Wiki was created to teach a lesson on labor unions and wage rates for an economics class.  Check it out by clicking HERE!

The Wiki is a reflection of the material I have been teaching during my student teaching experience.  Although I did not teach this lesson exactly (these technologies were not used), I did teach all of this material and content.  I modified the lesson I taught to implement more technology.  My school is very limited in technology, therefore this lesson was completely hypothetical.  If the technology would have been available, this lesson would have been MUCH more effective and fun than the one I taught.  It required much more higher level thinking and cooperative learning.  I really wish our school had better computers and more available computers to support this technology.

Personally, I think creating this Wiki was a large workload.  I am trying to figure out whether it would save me time or not.  Although I would be doing less direct instruction, and putting learning into the students hands, the preparation for this website took a very long time.  Half of the problem was getting adjusted to using wikispaces, but a lot of the work was very tedious and monotonous.  Also, I honestly don't think this is something that would be very easy to teach kids.  I still am not very efficient with wikispaces.  Maybe I am just not good with technology (which is true to an extent), but I also think that this webpage was not the most user friendly.

Below are some examples of technology I used for the wiki.  

Technology Integration:

1.) Application-Students will create a quiz via GoogleDoc.  They will be expected to create a 10 question quiz that shows evidence of higher level thinking and efficient understanding of the subject.  Students will also be expected to create a Voki.