Course 1 Ends... soon.

Course 1 ends soon. I just finished my project page!

I have five more blog posts that are still in the drafting stages, so look out for those in the near future. I have tons of interesting things to say!

I've had some time to reflect on my thinking throughout this first course and my final project. I've definitely learned a ton of new tools (Netvibes, Blogger, the list goes on....) and I've started to incorporate some of them into my life. I'm not efficient at using any of them yet, and I still have to remind myself to use my RSS reader. Old habits are hard to break. I used to refer to my New York Times homepage for a lot of things. I still enjoy browsing through it during my spare time. But I've found some blogs I really enjoy (like Michael Smith's Principal Page) and I think that finding more blogs I enjoy will help me refer to my RSS reader more often.

Blogging still doesn't come easy to me, and I usually write, read, rewrite and reread many times before I force myself to publish my post. Reading about other people who blog, and talking to people who blog has made me think that maybe blogging shouldn't be such a painful process. But I can't help it! Putting something out there for the entire world to read and access makes me want to publish something meaningful, something that reflects my thought process. I don't want to sound stupid. This blog can be interpreted as a virtual representation of who I am and that's something that matters to me. Maybe I just need to get over it.

Speaking of blogging, another thing I hope to do more often is to read the blogs of other people in my course. I've read some, but not many recently. You'll notice that my past three blogs have zero comments, as of April 18. If noone comments, I don't know if anyone is reading my posts! And that makes me a little sad. Even though I'm writing this blog for my course, I take time to write and hope that someone other than Jeff is reading them. So if you're reading this, please leave a comment!! I will try my best to do my part and read other people's blogs, and comment on theirs too.

In terms of my final project, I still struggle with ways to incorporate technology into my Kindergarten classroom. Our Storybird was risk-taking on my part. I had to sit with kids individually, and it took too much time. I feel that my students were not using the technology to their maximum capabilities. I know that this is not something that I'll magically find the answer to overnight. But it is something that is always on my mind and I hope to continue my learning so that I can be a better teacher.

That's all folks! End of Course 1! Woohoo :D