Final MMP & Reflection

Check out my final MMP here: https://sites.google.com/view/integratingtechformative/home 

Note: The Vocaroo link and Screencast guide/tutorial will be added sometime in the near future. I have been sick for the past week (or suffering from terrible allergies - can't tell) and am unable to produce a quality recording. 

Reflection  

During the MMP Proposal stage, I had created the following learning objectives.

• The audience will understand how to use technology to formatively assess their students.
• The audience will learn how integrating multimedia and technology will be beneficial to their instruction
• The audience will learn how to use various resources effectively and quickly.

While creating the MMP and going through the various stages, I found that I experienced both successes and challenges in meeting the objectives.  For my first objective, The audience will understand how to use technology to formatively assess their students - I felt challenged in the way I should best present the tools in order for it to be easily understood by someone who is not tech savy. After reviewing my proposal and trying out various websites (from Adobe Spark, to Weebly, to Google Sites) and getting feedback from others, I was able to create a fairly streamlined resource for my featured tools. I ended up organizing the tools by "type" and for each one I gave information about the pros/cons, uses in the classroom, and provided a video example or tutorial. This will also be further explained in the screencast that I am planning on creating to show my viewers how to navigate the site. I am confident that my audience is able to learn at least one new way technology can be used as a formative assessment from this site. For my second objective, The audience will learn how integrating multimedia and technology will be beneficial to their instruction, I focused on what formative assessment was and why technology is beneficial to the classroom. Before the audience even reached the bulk of the website, I wanted them to be able to go through the homepage and view the purpose/reasons behind it first. I was able to fulfill this objective by integrating the information in a clear way on the first page that the audience sees. I also included a video on formative assessment as well as corresponding text on to why it is important as well as information as to why we should integrate technology in the classroom. For my third learning objective, The audience will learn how to use various resources effectively and quickly, I focused mainly on making the website as easy to navigate and as organized as possible. I wanted it to be a simple resource that is not distracting or overwhelming. This was a challenge at first, but in the end I was able to play around with a few sites before I realized that Google Sites was best for my needs. The tabs I had used to organize the site was also instrumental to making the learning occur as fast as possible. The screencast that I will be adding is also important as it showed the audience how to browse the site and learn from it effectively. In addition to that, I took my peers feedback into consideration and ended up not including all the sites that I found but just the ones that I thought showed best practice or best uses. Narrowing the amount of sites down ensured quality for all tools that I had chosen. 

The role of technology in teaching and learning can be tremendous. For example, this course we're enrolled in was entirely online, yet with the guidance of the resources, assignments, and interactions - I could say that I've learned a lot and maybe even more than I would've if I was in a face to face classroom with no technology. Technology opens the doors to opportunities and knowledge as the internet is vast and has many capabilities that make learning an possible. For this project in particular, it was interesting to see how many different modalities and features can be put together to create one cohesive idea that is shared to others and is able to communicate innovative ideas. 

By creating this project, I have learned a lot about the resources that are out there and also about the different ways that technology can be used as a medium for learning. The composing process taught me that there's not one certain way to go about creating - especially since there are many different applications and programs that are built to do a singular job (ex: many different website creation programs). The internet and its resources, ideas, and tools are endless - and while it may seem easy to put together a lot all at once, it is important to take a step back and realize that not everything needs to be included. After reading the various articles and book assignments from this course, I've learned a lot about the rules of design and wanted to apply them in my project's overall look. Google Sites made it easy for me to keep it streamlined and simple, as I aimed to complete everything within a color scheme that was as less distracting as possible. 

In the future, I could see myself making adjustments to this MMP as I learn what can truly work in the classroom. As a pre-service teacher, I do not have the experience to say that these resources will 100% be beneficial to your classroom and work wonderfully with your students. As I gain more experience, I would like to try out each of these tools that are on my MMP and revise it as necessary. I also want to eventually be able to host a professional development workshop (in my future school) on technological formative assessments. I think it would be beneficial, especially for teachers who are apprehensive about incorporating technology into their classrooms. I would market this product to my audience as something that is "easy" to learn from if you just give it a chance with an open mind. I think that what sets apart this project from another professional development tool is that this allows you to review and go back to refer to something if needed. It also keeps all of the tools in one place, without you trying to remember - what did I want to try out again? In addition to that, this website provides support and resource communities to learn from - which is something that anyone could refer to if they are confused at any time when trying out a tool. 

Overall, I enjoyed creating this project and I think it is a great addition to my personal technology toolkit. I am looking forward to using it in my future classroom and sharing it with my fellow teacher peers.