Round 2 - Final Reflection

We are at the end of the 17 Things to Chew On, Round 2 class. I really enjoyed the Master class that was offered this year. The best part was making 3 student assignments with different "Things" we learned last year. It really forced me to start applying what I learned. Although I loved many of the tools from last year, to be honest, I was lazy and hadn't planned on using any of them this year in class. After doing the Master class projects however, I have made some permanent changes to traditional projects that I like to assign every year. I also loved how the students liked learning new web tools. The positive feedback from them made it all worth it.

I personally believe that teachers should integrate a lot of technology into their classrooms. With all that is available, it is our job to educate our students and to prepare them for college. Some of the web 2.0 tools would be excellent things to use in college and in the future. Anyways, these tools are not difficult to understand and can be easily incorporated into any class.

If I had to describe my learning experience in one word it would be: innovative.

Round 2 - Thing 5

The final "thing" for this project was to explore Evernote. I really loved it! I've downloaded the app for my phone as well. Basically, Evernote allows you to organize websites, pictures, videos, etc. all in one place. It's a fantastic research tool! Also, it saves paper because you don't have to print all your sources. Simply highlight part of a website, right click, and save to Evernote. Once in Evernote, you can organize into specific folders. This would be awesome for students to use. So many classes have research projects attached to them, and students can save all their information and sync it with their cell phone app so they can access it at any time. If we can have Evernote installed on all the computers in the school, I think it would really be the next step to making our school paperless!