Looking back on the time spent in this class, and on my post from the first day, I can conclude that my opinions regarding this class have changed. While I initially held reservations about this class, and technology in general (I think I rated myself a 3 on the initial survey asking how tech savvy we were.) It's not just because of this class that my opinions have changed, it's from the whole summer experience in general.
Before the summer semester even started I met with my future host teacher for the upcoming school year. Through talking with her it became clear that she wanted to use more technology in class (set up the school paper online, have the kids start using edmodo, along with other things.) While it sounded interesting I have to admit, I became a little nervous. But throughout this summer I've gained a better understanding of just how much technology influences everyone in the modern world. Our middle school mentor teacher made us all quite clear on his opinion: technology is here to stay, and it is our duty as educators to prepare our students for the world, this includes technology.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm no longer so nervous about using it. I might actually even be a little bit excited to start using some of these new tools. While some of the websites and applications we looked at didn't seem to be extremely useful for my discipline, and it could be a little frustrating having so many different sites for all these different uses, there are still things that I will definitely utilize.
I'm also reflecting upon my own opinion of BYOD. Obviously I still have a lot more to learn about the issue and how it's working in places where it had been implemented. I don't think I'm completely sold on BYOD and it will certainly depend upon the percentage of students that have smartphones and other portable devices in the school that I'm at. I'm still not sure how I would incorporate BYOD, I'm much more comfortable with contemplating how I will use computers in my room but it is definitely something that I'm thinking about.
