Reflecting on Foundations of Educational Technology

As this course concludes, there are some key elements that really come to the forefront of my mind. Being exposed to new and interesting programs was a nice break from focusing on the programs we work with most often. Delving deeper into online ethics was definitely eye-opening, and it was nice to be reminded that our team's efforts are aligned with current research and trends.

With the integration of Google and the G Suite Apps for Education in D99, there are so many great programs readily available, it's difficult to spend time researching and experimenting with new ones. Having these different assignments and discussions has basically forced me (in the most positive way) to do just that- experiment. Practicing on my own and reading about classmates' experiences with other programs has opened my eyes to other potential ways to collaborate and create.

As students, we learned the importance of citing work and appropriate use of others' property; but somewhere along the way we tend to forget these principles as teachers. The ethical dilemmas regarding licensing and copyrights were great reminders that just because we use resources for educational purposes does not provide us free passes to whatever we like. Luckily, the Internet provides easy ways to determine the legality behind using the information found.

Finally, we (the team of Instructional Tech Resource Teachers and I) are always trying to provide the best and most recent methods of integrating technology into the classroom, both directly and indirectly. We remind teachers of their necessary role as a facilitator and that technology doesn't always create the best lesson. These same points are consistently reiterated throughout all of the blogs and research that we covered in this course. It's confirmation that our message is aligned with other professionals in the field of Ed Tech. Yay!