EDLD+5363+Course+Reflections

**1. What outcomes had you envisioned for this course? Did you achieve those outcomes? Did the actual course outcomes align with those that you envisioned?** In preparing for this course I naturally assumed that we would work with video and how multimedia technology is affected by technology. I think I expected a little more background information about multimedia and technology as well as the hands on experiences. If I am honest with myself, I certainly feel that I learned a lot about open-source video and audio editing software. I am particularly excited about learning a foundation to Audacity as it will become a useful tool in my classes now. I wish that I would have learned a little more history in terms of multimedia technology. As a current/future technology leader in my school district, being able to understand and present the history of multimedia technology to district leaders is an important part of my job. My school district doesn't understand having classroom equipment for multimedia technology and how it can benefit our students. I am glad to say that the projects of the class certainly helped me to better understand the use of this technology myself. I also feel that there are several ways I can use the multimedia technology that I have learned about to present to my school leaders the importance of its use in our classrooms.  **2. To the extent that you achieved the outcomes, are they still relevant to the work that you do in your school? Why or why not?** In my school district learning more about technology and finding how it will be relevant to various classrooms is extremely important. In my own classroom, I know that multimedia technology is the next step in preparing my speech students how to communicate in the 21st century. Until I have proper access in my school and classroom for my students to use this technology, I will begin to screen cast presentations with audio for lecturing, and video for examples of proper communication techniques. My hope is to implement all class lessons into YouTube videos by the 2011-2012 school year. After discussing needed changes to the Communication Applications curriculum with several other speech teachers, we also agree that there is a need for our students to learn how to create podcasts. More importantly, I hope that students will not only create podcasts, but be able to conference appropriately through video and audio using programs such as Skype or other web-conferencing means. I am also planning to work on helping other teachers find a way to utilize video and audio technology in their classrooms.

 **3. What outcomes did you not achieve? What prevented you from achieving them?** This question hardly needs revisiting, however for the sake of discussion I did not learn about the history of multimedia technology or how it can be used in the k-12 classroom. After delving into the class, I realized that this course was not a review of the history of multimedia technology, but rather learning how to use it. While it was nice to learn how to use the technology, understanding where it can be utilized efficiently in the classroom would have been extremely helpful. Ultimately, learning how to use the technology does not help me understand how I can show Math, Science, History, or English teachers how to use this technology to benefit their students. It does not take creativity or ingenuity to figure out where multimedia fits into fine arts and communication, but convincing administration and non-technology, core teachers that they can use multimedia in a way to benefit their students is a whole other task. I think the over focus on the team assignment, while interesting, left much to be taught in terms of the curriculum and instruction side of multimedia technology.

I feel that I was successful in completing the course assignments. Each assignment had its own set of obstacles. My obstacles seemed to revolve around the story for each of the videos. I am so much a scrapbooker and a persuasive speaker. It seems that those to things contradict themselves, and they do, but it makes writing stories or scripts near impossible, especially on a time limit. When working on the team public service announcement, I volunteered to write the script, and while I am confident in my writing skills, I found it very hard to narrow our group’s vision into less than 60 seconds. I also struggled with PC versus Mac when trying to choose software to create my podcast and videos. Mac seemed to have overall more user friendly software with more options. PC seemed force a more creative approach out of lack of choices. Both way, I have learned how to utilize both types of equipment, and I can say that Audacity is an easy choice anyway you go. My final struggle was with changing expectations on our assignments. I found it hard to stay focused on and interested in the assignments through some of the changes. The greatest change was how to use two voices, two narrators for a one voice script. While I know that some teams initially planned for multiple voices, our team planned on one, because it was not a written expectation in the rubric to have multiple voices. My team stepped up to the challenge. Each member recorded the script and Timothy's creativity made it sound as if the script was intentionally written for the two voices used.
 * 4. Were you successful in completing the course assignments? If not, what prevented or discouraged you?**

I feel like this course was a learning experience in structure. I found that there is an element of the traditional and physical classroom that I have faith in, and I ultimately need for comfort. It seems that the virtual classroom both offers an opportunity for changes and in some cases requires that changes happen throughout the course. While I like to say that I pride myself on my performance abilities, I also found that I am not particularly comfortable speaking over a microphone. It is simply a discomfort. I know that better equipment would help me feel more comfortable with my recorded voice. I am very confident in both my leadership skills and my overall technology skills. I have played with my video and audio equipment before and even had a class in high school about video technology. This experience was different though as technology has changed, and certainly become more accessible. I definitely feel that I still tend to take over as the director or leader in groups much like I did in high school and in my undergraduate work. I often initiate work, then facilitate throughout the process of group work. Though I understand that I lack an element of follow-through. It seems a staple of groups that I am a part of that I back away from the project as it steps into it's final stages. For instance, in our production of the public service announcement, I did the majority of my work in week 1 with the scriptwriting and creation of the storyboard. As the weeks progressed I stepped away from the work portion of the group and simply facilitated and organized the group. As I teach my students in class at school, group dynamics can affect the success or failure of a group and roles do change throughout the group process. I think for my group, it worked that I stepped back and others stepped up.
 * 5. What did you learn from this course: about yourself, your technology and leadership skills, and your attitudes?**