Karen, Reflection 4

I have been getting the hang of the blogs and e-portfolios. I know that we are only meeting 15 times this semester so we are not given a lot of time to learn how to use these resources, but I feel like I'm barely keeping up with what we are being taught in class. I have been using the informational links on Oncourse to help me figure out how to work with Microsoft FrontPage. I'm getting more comfortable with blogging and navigating around FrontPage a d I think I just need to take some time and get further acquainted with them. I think more W301 classes in the computer lab will also help.
Some things I like about blogging is that it makes having a website easy. Navigation around the site is fairly self-explanatory and it's easy for students to access. However, I like having the idea of having my own personal website because it is more professional than a blog. I think that I will be able to use my e-portfolio in the future when looking for jobs and maybe as a resource for my class.

Karen, Reflection 3

I also had a lot of experience with technology in middle and high school. My high school had two computer labs. The computers were dated and the internet was slow (compared to Indiana University). However, we did have these resources available to us. Also, I have owned a graphing calculator since my freshman year of high school. Like Angela said, there is a lot more technology avalible to students now. I have experienced the whiteboards in one of my classes at IU. It was held at the library and I don't think that they have the whiteboards in all of the facilities at Indiana University. I think that notebooks and clickers would help engage students to be more active in classes. I have not had any personal experience with these technologies but I hopefully will see them in my future.

Blogs and E-portfolios

The blogs we have created are going to be a good way to communicate within our group, but I still think we have yet to use them to their full potential. The e-portfolio will be useful to us individually, but I think they are difficult to fill out right now becuase we do not have much field experience, etc. to document. As time goes on I think the portfolios will become more useful as long as we have time to update them.

Summary: first 2 reflections

Over the course of my education I felt like I had a decent amount of exposure to technology becuase my schools provided students with plenty of computers, calculators, and advanced software and programs for both. After learning about all of the new technology in this W301 class I realize that I was not exposed to as much technology as I thought. I can think of many situations where technologies, such as notepads, whiteboards, or clickers, would have been extremely helpful and beneficial to what we were doing. Maybe my school did not have the resources to use these technologies, but I do not believe that to be true. I did not know what I was missing out on until I found out about the new technologies that I think would be beneficial and interesting to work with one day.

intro post

This is a blog that is dedicated to the use of search engines and wikipedia as educational tools.