Looking back, an emerging theme would be to stay patient.

I know it can be difficult,

especially when beginning something new. However, when you take the time to understand it, it

can actually come easier to you. What stood out the most to me was my willingness to consider

other’s ideas. As bad as it may sound, before I would take constructive criticism as just that,

criticism. It was not helpful because if I would keep that mindset, I would never allow my work

to reach its full potential. So, I was really proud when I was able to actually read through my

classmates’ suggestions and be able to add them into my work. I feel it made my work way

better and more thought out. I was surprised how I am not too terrible with technology and how

open, and a little excited, I was to be able to learn about new technologies. I usually have a pretty

nonchalant mindset and attitude when it comes to technology. So being able to actually want to

learn and know how to work with technology really surprised me. Also, knowing it isn’t as

complex as it seems made the work a little easier.

Some problems or challenges that I faced were not knowing what direction I wanted to

take. Technology is just a broad term and it was hard when deciding what media type I wanted to

use for my projects. With that, though, came the understanding and the different technologies,

which also was a challenge. Like I have mentioned before, technology does intimidate me and

learning about the different types was hard for my understanding. I eventually got through it,

though, so it was only for a little that my confusion lasted. Another big challenge was the

exporting of files. I would be confused on how to do that and what programs to use. To

overcome this, I would read many articles and go through various YouTube videos to help better

my understanding. My strategies changed from being dependent to more independent. The

reason being I realized in life I will not have others’ help so I needed to be able to find my own

resources to help myself. Over the course and the projects, I became better at overcoming issues.
 I will admit, when beginning this class, I had no intention of using technology to learn. I

for one dislike it and how powerful it really is. I thought it would be unnecessary and dumb, for

lack of a better word, to make technology such a big part of the teaching curriculum. However,

the more technology assignments we were given, the more I saw its potential and its ability to

really help students. Now, I am constantly thinking of ways that technology can benefit students

and allow them to learn better. I think my mindset changed because I was able to look past my

bias and really examine how beneficially technology could really be. Not saying it should be the

entire teaching mechanism, but in some cases, it can really help benefit the learning of students.

Considering the first podcast assignment we were given to our interactive prototype

assignment, the approach I gave each assignment was vastly different. I will admit, it was kind of

difficult to plan the first few projects because I would not deeply think about what I wanted the

end result to be. It was way different when looking at the interactive prototype because in that

case, I had a clear understanding of what I wanted and how I would go about it to achieve my

outlook. So, comparing my approaches to both, the first one was less thought out. But, in the

same way, because it was one of the first projects, I was more stressed about getting stuff done.

The last few, like the interactive prototype, I took more time and was less stressed because I had

thought about it more and knew how I wanted it. The difference in planning and approach was

seen a lot comparing my first few projects to my last few.

What I admire about my classmate’s work process that I would like to try is their ability

to stretch assignments out. For me, it is easier to do big parts at a time. That way can cause me to

get overwhelmed. Their way would be more productive because I would be able to focus more

on one thing at a time so that it can be more thought out. It also gives time to go over the work I
have done and saves time for more edits and changes if necessary. Because of that, I really like

their approach and would love to implement it into the way I do my own work.

I would like to redo the philosophy of education assignment. The reason being I did not

like the outcome at all. I had an idea and it seemed great. I did my recording, because it was a

podcast, and I loved it. However, for some reason I had some technical difficulties that ended in

me losing my entire recording. I had to redo it and it was not half as good as my original. That

was not why I would want to redo it, though. The reason is I began to get some cool ideas of

doing a short video clip. If I would have had more time, I could have created a really good video.

It goes back to my time management issues and being able to think through my projects to be

able to get the outcomes that I imagine.

For next semester, I have the goal of being able to stretch my assignments out. That way I

feel like I would be able to achieve better work outcomes. I would also like to plan my

assignments better. Compared to this class work, I would rush myself to get the stuff done. This

way was not the best because I was not working towards my best. Which ties into my other goal

because taking the time to go through my assignments is easier and more beneficial to me. It will

also allow me to have more time to edit and add on to my work. A major goal I would like to set

for myself is to have more people look at my work. Personally, for the longest time, I enjoyed

self-checking my own work. Thinking back now, it probably was not the best because seeing the

same thing over and over could have caused me to miss mistakes. Having gone through the

revising assignments in EDT was really helpful because having others’ insight helps to further

expand one’s own writing and knowledge on assignments. Overall, I learned in EDT to take my

time with my assignments. Also, being able to have an expansive plan is beneficial so when
things do not work out, there is always a better way to improve it. Peer-review also made it

evident that other’s opinions help to better our work to ensure it is the best that it can be.