Well, I have finally completed all of the requirements for my Instructional Applications of the Internet grad class.  Between this course and my other summer grad course, I’ve learned about a lot of new pieces of technology and how to incorporate them within my classroom!  I am very excited about adding more technological components to my classroom this coming school year (especially ones geared towards communication).

     As for the Instructional Apps. of the Internet course, some of the things that surprised me the most during the course was how my thoughts about Twitter and blogging changed.  Before this course, I had pretty much sworn off Twitter and never actually acquired an account because I saw it as a purely social tool that people used to share information that’s usually irrelevant.  However, over the course of this class, I really came to like using Twitter as a communication tool with the rest of my classmates.  Most classmates made purely class-related tweets, and it was a great communication tool.  I now see how helpful Twitter can be if used effectively.

    Just like Twitter, I had also avoided blogging before this course because I saw it as a personal journal that’s open to the world to read; I felt like “who wants to read my personal thoughts and ideas about things in my life?”  However, I now see that blogs can be used as a means of sharing important information (beyond just personal stuff).  For example, I made quite a few blogs about interesting technology topics that sparked my interest over the past couple of months and received comments from others who read my posts and were interested in the topics.  I definitely think blogging would be a good way to communicate with parents within my classroom; it’s a quick way to provide parents with information and tips in a format that’s easy to follow.          

     I can’t wait to utilize these new pieces of technology next school year!