EDLD5363+Course+Reflections

Upon my completion of the course ED5363 Multimedia and Technology I had envisioned that I would gain enough experience to be confident enough to introduce this concept to my current 8th grade students. As a teacher, I do not necessarily enjoy teaching a concept that I do not already know a great deal about. I taught mathematics for ten years and never made an assignment for the students that I did not already complete all the problems myself. The thought of allowing them to do a multimedia project has always frightened me because I know up front that there will be issues that I will not know how to deal with. However, this class has allowed me to trust that even though I may not know in advance all the issues that may or may not arise, we can find a solution. I would say that I did achieve my goal of confidence and will now start preparing to introduce this material to my classes. I currently serve not only as a technology teacher but also as the technology coordinator at Boerne Middle School North. One of my goals as technology coordinator is to enhance other teachers’ use of technology in their own curriculum areas. We had digital cameras and this past year we also received some Flip video cameras that are all available for our teachers to check out and use in their classrooms. Up to this point, I was really only able to hand over the cameras and suggest that each teacher read over the manuals. I do teach digital photo editing to my students and have had several classes for teachers on how to take digital pictures and use digital storytelling. However, this class was the first time I have actually posted my work online. Our current school network uses web filtering and user restrictions that do not allow us to post online so completing this course was a bit of a challenge until I was able to persuade them to unblock teacher tube. The only outcome that I did not achieve upon completion of this multimedia class was probably an unrealistic expectation that I had about learning all there is to know about multimedia. There is just simply way too much to that field. People take years and years of courses and still may not know all there is to know about multimedia so I am not sure what I really expected to know after a five week online course. Plus the fact that multimedia is a field that changes so quickly. In just the past twenty years in education I have seen VCR tapes come and go only to be replaced by other various other forms of recording devices that have followed. Videos that we have taken with our family range from VHS tapes to tapes that fit in a VHS to mini DVD’s that can only be played with a converter, and so on. We now basically have a graveyard of technology devices in our closet and who knows what is coming next. I do feel as though I was successful in completing the projects assigned for this class. Largely due to the response in Nelson’s (2008) article suggesting that you “accept every offer”. Therefore when offers came in for help, I quickly took them up on their offers. This allowed me to leave the editing portion of the video public service announcement up to one of my partners that had more experience with that task. I was able to offer my talent as with Woordle and Power Point to provide the group with options of other media products to include in our project. It is slightly unrealistic to believe that any one person could possibly possess all the tools necessary to be a master of all the tools and techniques that accompany multimedia but it is very valuable that that person knows where to go to get help. That is what I feel made me successful in completing this course, I now have a better idea of where to go to find help. Upon completion of this course I believe that I have somewhat let go of the fear of teaching a concept that I may not know all the answers to. A huge part of completing a project as mentioned by Nelson (2008) is “it is important to have failed and recovered”. I have learned to embrace my failures instead of simply becoming discouraged by them. This is a concept I have tried to teach my students and my own children but one I have forgotten to focus on myself. As a leader in my school, teachers often believe that I know the answer to all their technology questions and I often feel a sense of failure if I do not have all the answers. This often leads me to having a bad attitude and I have even caught myself being very sarcastic. I know have a better concept of the fact that it is alright to not know everything but be able to work through the issue by taking the time to find someone who can help or to find a resource that offers assistance. Nelson, R. (2008). Learning and working in the collaborative age: A new model for the workplace. Edutopia. Retrieved April 23, 2009, from http [|://www.edutopia.org/randy-nelson-school-to-career-video]