End of classes – part II

May 1, 2009 deboramarques

Summarizing my whole experience with EDTS, I can certainly say that I am extremely glad that I took this class. It was very helpful and enriching. I doubtfully believe I would have gained so much computer-related knowledge on my own. So I am grateful and would like to thank Professor Ransom for bringing so much into our lives. There are classmates that already knew at least half of the content taught in class (that was not my case). I hardly knew or had ever used any of the resources we dealt with throughout the semester. I don’t teach yet, but I intend to soon. Therefore, it would be great to start teaching using some of the technology I learned about. The least I could do was to fight to implement some of them in schools (fight for the ones that are not yet in use, the ones that are blocked). The only thing I lament about this course though is that I wish I had had more time to practice what we learned. Theory was well taught and clearly explained by our professor; on the other hand, I feel we had very little time to put theory into practice. And there was a lot of content for a short period of time. There were many times I was insecure and wasn’t quite sure what I was doing, if I was doing the right thing. So I was afraid of getting bad grades in our hands-on projects because I did not have enough time to practice them in class previously. My handouts and memories from what I had heard in class, were all I could rely on. Sometimes practice can be much harder and trickier than theory. In general, I enjoyed the class and would really recommend it to anyone who hasn’t taken it yet.

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3 Comments Add your own

• 1. Michael yawn  |  May 3, 2009 at 2:15 am

  I think the whole objective from what I understood from Dr. Ransom was just to give us a running start on whats out there in the technology world. Certainly, your points are well taken by me because I had the technology blues during this semester and I do think the class could use just a little tweeting in the area of time that we are given to practice in class. I feel without hesitation that I would recommend the class to others also.

• 2. Alicia  |  May 3, 2009 at 10:25 am

  I was definitely in the same boat too. I wished that we had more classtime to work on some of the things we learned and on projects. I know we were given a taste of what was out there and sometimes just knowing that was overwhelming. I really enjoyed working with you and Leandro on the Wiki project and am proud of completing what I had thought would be impossible. I would definitely recommend this class to others, but would suggest that the class description say some basic computer knowledge is needed.If I had had none I would have struggled more than I had.

• 3. Stephen Ransom  |  May 5, 2009 at 12:15 pm

  I hear you, Angela. If practice makes perfect, then you have the rest of your life to work toward that goal . However, I firmly believe that practice without the theoretical framework often leads to nothing but decontextualized skills that most likely will not be used since there was no framework upon which they were built.

  Undoubtedly, everyone would have liked more time to practice during class… some more than others. I do recognize this and continually look for ways to increase that time. I think I am going to use podcasting as one more way to do so, as I did with the podcast on podcasting. However, I also realize that not everyone does their reading/listening assignments in preparation for class. So, it is not as simple as that.

  Thanks so much for your input and your positive attitude in all you had to do and learn. This class was just step 1. Now you have to go on and keep stepping. Consider me part of your PLN and let me know if there is anything I can do for you.

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