I believe that I really have grown as a result of this course.  This course is a great way to get more computer skills and it also helped me learn not to get as frustrated when things don’t work the way I want them to with technology.  It helped me to learn to try different things and something eventually will work.  As for skills, I have picked up many in this class.  I now know how to create a website.  I feel very comfortable uploading pictures, making new pages, and linking things to my webpage.  These are all skills I didn’t have before but now I feel very confident using.  I also learned how to make a digital photo story and many different things on Microsoft publisher.  There are not really any skills that I can think of that I want to know.  I think this class gave a very good overview of many useful computer skills. 

            I think everything we did in this course is important.  Each project we did taught us a different valuable skill.  In this course I learned how to make a webpage.  I can now make web pages using Google sites or NVU and Filezilla.  I also know how to make different documents using Microsoft word and Microsoft publisher.  I also learned to make a digital photo story; this is probably the skill I will use most often.  Every project we did will help with teaching in the future.  From making a class website, writing a parent letter, to making a web quest for students every project we did has a place in the classroom. 

There have been many exciting experiences as well as frustrating moments in the class.  I think the most exciting experiences are when something finally works.  Whether it be seeing my website on the internet for the first time or new links working, everything is exciting.  It is always a good feeling when your work pays off and everything works the way it’s supposed.  This is especially nice in this class because technology doesn’t always work the way it is supposed to.  The most frustrating thing in this class was not being able to get things to look or work the way you want them to.  There have been many occasions where I have had to re-link the same things many times, or had to move things around several times.  Having to repeat the same things until they work is always very frustrating.

One project that involved group work was our web quest.  Kristin, Jen, and I worked together to complete our web quest.  I really enjoyed this because it was nice to have people to help with the research and the design.  A project where I worked on my own was the creation of my digital story.  I think this project was fun to do on my own because I could make it one whatever I wanted using my own pictures.  I think both scenarios are helpful when it comes to learning technology.  I found that I worked best when I did projects on my own with my neighbors there for support.  I liked being able to figure things out for myself but being able to ask my neighbors for help if I really got stuck.

I think working in small groups is good, but I got a lot of help from my classmates on individual assignments.  I learned a lot from my classmates by just asking questions or seeing how they were getting things to work.  Any ideas exchanged with my classmates were used to enhance my own assignments or to make my projects work.  I think that group work will be very important in my future classroom.  You can use group work in any subject for any number or projects.  Groups might work well so students can learn from each other and bounce ideas off each other.  Groups might not work if some group members don’t participate or if groups are too large for the assignment given.    To avoid stressful group situations all group members must participate.  If everyone works cooperatively and does their part there should be no stress or problems with group situations.  

It should be easy to have students work together on different technology projects.  This could be successful if you have students share a computer or work together using individual computers.  It is important to assign roles to all students.  You have to make sure they all play an equal role in research and design.  You can assign grades based on the final project as a whole as well as the individual parts.