Your final reflective learning journal will be done as a web page in your EPortfolio site

and should address the following:

As an educator, I feel my toolset has been dramatically overhauled after taking Instructional Design for
Technology. I feel that teacher efficacy comes from understanding our own abilities and strengths and
then applying various skills we learn to our instruction. There are so many various tools that I had no clue
how to operate or utilize from the beginning of the semester, which I know use frequently and even train
my colleagues in. Working in a high school self contained room can get pretty stale, so the multitude of
resources have made it much easier to find great learning activities to better meet the needs of my
special learners.

It is no secret that the roles of 21st century educators is very different from the past. New and improved
technology is omnipresent for usage within our various classes. It is up to us to know the tools out there
for us, see what could be applied to our courses, adapt those resources for instruction and execute
instructional delivery that utilizes the prime media to meet objectives we set. Knowing about
screencasting is an excellent way to make a lesson for your students even when youre not present.
Quizlets provides an engaging way to improve your students vocabulary acquisition. There are
innumerable skills that I am now aware of the usage thanks to this course.

While developing the different projects in the practicum part of the course, I found my ability to apply the
needs of my students to directly mold the various media based resources into meaningful assignments.
As a whole, I believe that the purpose of education is to provide solutions to real world problems.
Breaking down the different needs and objectives I set for my learners I was able to effectively make
engaging assessment activities, graphic organizers to support learning, digital stories to assist in making
significantly improved strategies for tackling behavioral issues, animations to synthesize information
learned and screencasts to bring a whole new level of instruction. All together my practicum assignments
have helped me build a huge set of instructional activities that can be directly applied to my learners life in
meaningful methods.

I chose my quizlet about Beauty and the Beast to demonstrate how media can directly support learning
literature. While reading an abridged retelling of the Disney movie/fairy tale, I was able to support learning
with a familiar lens. Students were able to learn new vocabulary by playing engaging games that
absolutely supported critical reading skills. In my class vocabulary is a huge focus, and presenting the
information in as many modalities as possible with quizlet was incredibly effective.

I have selected to display my Powtoon because of how effective the visuals were for stimulating curiosity
and showcasing information synthesized from readings with my learners. We utilized it as a talking point
for Internet Safety Day. Animations brought ideas to life and I believe generating inquiry through
captivating visuals along with audio in media form is an effective way to present several abstract ideas
and topics.

Finally I am showcasing my digital story that I created with Storybird. I used the service to create an
adapted reading that we call a social story in the realm of Special Education. Social stories aim to
address the behavior of a student utilizing literary focus to have students focus on themselves in a
different way. Inserting individuals as characters is an effective way to get students to take others
perspectives. The digital story I selected was actually utilized to curtail a certain behavior for one of my
own students. The visuals and text which looked like a real book were so effective and really helped make
a difference in the day to day life of one of my real life students.
The class discussions were helpful in filling in gaps I had about the readings and practicum assignments
throughout the course. I frequently found that other students offered diverging opinions or unique
perspectives that let me look at the presented topics through a more critical lens. I was able to build a
more concrete understanding as to what the ISTE standards were and how they should affect our
objectives when using media. I was able to find more information from my peers about how they would
apply different usages of standards to their classes, which in turn expanded my thoughts. My peers
methodologies with certain existent applications such as the ones found on iPads and smartphones also
helped me realize that plenty of useful technology is out there just waiting to be discovered. My
understanding on the constructivist philosophy was also bolstered my seeing the various methodologies
my peers support inquiry through their instruction and how they build knowledge constantly. Ultimately, I
found that other educators around me have a constantly evolving sense of what technologys use in their
class should be and that flexibility is key when deciding if a new resource has application in our
classroom.

The readings were informative and effective. I found that there is an almost hidden culture based around
technology in education involving critical features such as ISTE standards and what those mean for our
students. Learning with a constructivist mindset, I realized though several of my readings that its okay
that we dont know everything. Learning effectively means we know HOW to find out critical information,
take it in, evaluate whats important to our task, demonstrate the knowledge of the information and assess
how we learned. I found several of the readings gave me ideas on how to be a 21st century educator and
what skills I should possess in this ever evolving arena.

My lesson plans gave me a sense of how to directly apply theories and resources into my day to day life
within the classroom I am the leader of. I learned facilitating knowledge with technology is not always
easy and constructing meaningful tasks for my learners with an objective based mindset is ultimately the
best way to create a technology based lesson for your learners. Realizing as an educator, the one thing
you probably know best(after getting to know your group of course) is your students! These lesson plans
allowed be insight as to exactly what by students could do using an iBook with studying adapted biology
or utilizing Padlet to demonstrate critical job skills for future vocational use. In conclusion, the lesson
plans helped me build better instructional activities for my learners.