My name is David Watson. I am in the Bachelors Plus program at Ashland University. I am changing my career from being a Social Worker to becoming a certified Math and Language Arts teacher for grades 4 through 9. In this EDCI 505 course I am looking for ways to become a more effective teacher by adding technology to my instruction. In this course I have learned how to design an Information Portal, which I can definitely see me using for my class. I like the fact that students will be able to access my Portal at any time outside of class. The Portal also gives me the opportunity to reinforce the lesson or give students other information they will need for my class. I see myself changing my information Portal bi-weekly or monthly. The next tool I will be using that I have learned in this course is the Glogster - Interactive Poster. I will be using the Glogster to extend my teaching to outside of the classroom. The topic or unit we will be working on will be covered in the Glog. I will be providing students a variety of multimedia resources to help them understand the key topics they should comprehend or be learning from the unit we are working on. I really find the Glog to be a way of teaching my students without having to actually be there with them. This can help students with reviewing and studying the information they need to know for the class. Although this is my first experience with being exposed to these teaching tools, I did find them to be fairly easy to use and very effective for teaching by way of technology.
There where times that I did think the Information Portal and the Golg provided the same technology. I do question what is the difference between them? Is one better than the other..... maybe I can just use one of these tools for my class instead of both of them? However, I am very satisfied with how the course is evolving and with the technology I am learning. When I ask teachers that are in the profession now about Gloging - Interactive Posters or Information Portals, they have no ideal what I am talking about. I do feel the tools I have learned about thus far in this course are preparing me to become a teacher in the 21st century.
