Final Reflection

1. Through taking CEP 812, the most useful thing I learned was how to build web pages. I'd never even thought about designing my own web page and frankly, I was a bit scared. Luckily, the tutorials were very simple, and eventually I felt confident enough to start playing with HTML and even CSS. Since then my newest hobby, much to my husband's chagrin, has been editing Wikipedia. There are a lot of fun projects to collaborate on, and I'm learning how to do cool things like merge pages and copy edit.

2. The main technology I've integrated into my courses has been the use of Moodle Lesson. It was a challenging module to build, and I'm not sure I'll do it again unless I move into blended or fully online teaching. Still, it was great to be able to learn how to do it. In addition, a large part of this course was evaluating the utility of resources. My favorite session was the one on UDL because it really forced me to focus on what I could be doing to better meet my students' needs online. As a result, I've made a point of embedding videos into each of my online lessons to appeal to my many students who (I know) love that sort of thing. I've been keeping up with You Tube's autocaptioning initiative and really wish they would let users help edit the captions. Hopefully, in the future, they will!!

3. My goal for this course was just to build my confidence in using technology.  Although it's easy to feel like I understand something, I get nervous about trying it out for the first time. This class forced me to try things I never would have done on my own.  I'm really glad I had the opportunity to lear how to read and edit HTML. I've even started teaching myself a little bit of code just to be able to do more in Moodle. At this goal at least, I feel like I succeeded. 

4. My new goal is to learn how to read and write basic code. I've been watching MIT's free online lessons and watching these great online tutorials. Between the two, I've been able to write some really, really basic programs. Still, it's more than I've ever dreamed of doing. In the future, I plan to continue following MIT's coding course. In addition, next session I'll be taking CEP 812, which I hope will continue building my technological skills and confidence.  My long term goal is to get a Masters in Educational Technology and get a job in technology integration.