All Good Things Must Come to an End!

I thoroughly enjoyed this course. As a learner, I found that my interests were piqued on a regular basis, and that we were challenged in our thinking, as well as with different aspects of the technology that we may not have been familiar with. I wish this course was mandatory for all teachers, as I feel that so many students could be benefiting from the integration of technology, if more teachers were implementing some of the things we learned about. I will explain some of my top takeaways below.

I really appreciated all of the time that we had to check out the assistive technology ourselves. I found the balance between learning a concept and demonstrating our knowledge in a creative way to be helpful. I am someone who usually enjoys specific directions, but part of me enjoyed the freedom we had with the tasks throughout this course. I have heard about the Universal Design for Learning approach before, but I really genuinely understand it now, and why it’s so important. I remember how amazed I was by everyone’s books in the first assignment, and how different and creative they all were. I think if students got to experience that same freedom more often, we would see some amazing things happening in our schools.

One of the quotes in the article “Take the Pencil Out of the Process” really stood out to me as being pivotal to what we discussed over the weeks: “When we think about the meaning of literacy, it is the thought process that is the most important element”. I feel like this belief is often neglected in our classrooms. When I think back to doing the task analysis of both reading and writing, I still can’t believe how many elements there are to each. If we are expecting so many processes to be taking place simultaneously, and students are struggling in one, if not many, areas….then it’s no wonder we have students who shut down when they are asked to complete either of the tasks. It actually makes me feel really fortunate to be capable of both reading and writing without having to consider any part of the task consciously except for my thought process. I was at the library earlier tonight, and an audiobook caught my eye...it really made me think about how older people are not typically judged for needing larger print, or to listen to a book. Why, then, does there continue to be a stigma that students feel about being “different” when they are accessing information in an atypical way? I really, really hope that as we continue to integrate more technology in our classrooms, students will seek out the assistive technology that benefits them and not feel any shame.

Going forward, I have a different outlook on my approach to teaching. I have already been excitedly explaining the things we have learned to my teaching partner in Career Access as each class went by. I want to continue to encourage her to use some of the technology next year, as she is the English teacher and there are a number of our students who could benefit from help with both reading and writing. I am hoping to expand my awareness to other teachers on staff, and may even bring up the idea of doing some PD for them with my administrators. I would like to investigate access to iPads further, as we learned about so many amazing apps that I would like to be able to use with my students. Like I said during my case study presentation, I have been teaching my students different features of Google R&W as I have had the opportunity to, and I want to continue to build their awareness of what the tool can do to help them.

Lastly, I just want to thank everyone in the class for their insights and for teaching me along the way! It has been a pleasure to participate in the course with you all - and especially you, Barb! I appreciate you sharing just a piece of your wealth of knowledge with us. I have enjoyed this course immensely, and I look forward to using the tools in my teaching practice from here on out.