Reflection on the semester

Looking back, I am very appreciative of having taken this course.  Admittedly, before the class began, I thought it was a silly idea to have a class that teaches future educators how to use technology.  I thought, "I know how to use word, excel, create powerpoints, etc."  Then during the class, I frequently got frustrated with not knowing how to use new tools that were introduced to us.  But in reflection, this class was incredibly useful.  I learned about and got experience with tools that can support teaching that I had never realized were out there before.  I was motivated and inspired to incorporate technology in my own future classroom, and truly enjoyed the experience.  I think the Web 2.0 project we did in pairs was very useful and should be continued in future semesters.  So long TPTE 486! I learned a lot and I won't forget you!

iMovie

Using iMovie was, perhaps, the absolute most frustrating thing I have ever done.  It drove me nuts that on some slides you can't change the font's color or size, yet you can on others.  You could not add another line of text if it did not already exist in the type of text slide you chose. Absolutely infuriating.  However, when I came to class I was able to help someone else out because I had fooled with it for so long, so maybe it will be easier to use in the future.  Adding and editing music was incredibly easy compared to the text, though, which I appreciated.  And in the end I am incredibly proud of the movie I made and have sent it to everyone.

Excel

I had an interesting experience completing my spreadsheet in excel. I was sick the day that we began this activity and went over direct instruction. Thus, I was really struggling to figure some of the things out required for the project. It wasn't until I was almost complete that my friend alerted me to the step-by-step explicit instructions that were available on the website. This helped ENORMOUSLY and previously I thought you had to have purchased the course packet in order to use these steps. After I had this sheet, the activity was easy were before it took me hours googling how to do specific steps. Explicit directions=GREAT