Final Thoughts

It is hard for me to believe that this is my final journal entry and that I will be graduating from the IDD program one week from today!  Over the past several years, I have devoted much effort and time to my studies.  Now that the end is here, it is quite bittersweet.  I'll miss seeing my cohort buddies on a weekly basis, but I'll soon get to rediscover all the free time I once had. 

 

I'm so proud of the project I created during Studio this semester.  So far, the faculty at my school is excited about the opportunity to use the tool to pat each other on the back for using technology in the classroom.  Since we've been extremely busy at school, the site hasn't received as many hits as I would like.  I'm fine with this for now because Digital Dogs is something that I look forward to maintaining in the future.  I feel that I have gained so much from the contructionist approach.  This approach was definitely new to me, but at the same time provided me with many opportunities in which to learn more about myself. I appreciated the fact that we could choose our own project basing it on something in which we have a passion. While it was highly suggested that we chose something of personal relevance, I focused my Studio projects around my career in teaching.  This freedom allowed me to focus on something I believed would help others at my school.  Kafai & Resnick (1996) provide support to this by stating, "Constructionism suggests that learners are particularly likely to make new ideas when they are actively engaged in making some type of external artifact."  The Studio experience also allowed me the time to explore different tools that I had not thought of using.  I feel that I was able to get my feet wet in several new tools in the Adobe Creative Suite, and I look forward to diving a little deeper in the future to learn more and apply them to my career.

 

So...where do I go from here??  As I've said many times before, I'm completely happy in my current position as a 6th grade teacher.  My future goals include being an LSTC or instructional technologist where I am able to use the knowledge I gained from the IDD program to help teachers teach technology.  

Kafai, Y. & Resnick, M., (1996). Introduction. In Y. Kafai & M. Resnick (Eds.), Constructionism in practice: Designing, thinking, and learning in a digital world (pp. 1-8). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

**Dr. Kopcha:  Thank you so much for your support throughout the program.  I've enjoyed working and learning with you over the past year and a half!