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Ashley Alexander Duke's
MEDT 6401
Course Portfolio
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MEDT 6401 - Instructional Technology for Counseling Students
An overview of communication and technology as it relates to teaching
and learning; including the design, production and utilization of
materials and operation of audiovisual equipment and microcomputers.
Assignments
This assignment was a great experience. Being able to create a
website from scratch and upload all of my documents proved to be
somewhat frustrating and difficult at times. This exercise will
be put to great use when I am counseling in a school setting.
Many schools provide the counselor with a site of their own to
upload information students and parents might need. After taking
this class and experiencing actually building a site, this no longer
seems like such a daunting task.
Inspiration is a program that allows you to create both flowcharts and
outlines. The program is very simple to use and quite
user-friendly. It can be used to perform a multitude of tasks,
including lesson plans, activities for students, and many other things.
Inspiration is a program that could easily be used daily in a
school setting, or in any counseling setting.
This assignment brought back past horrors of all the term papers I have
written in a lifetime. While citations might be quite
treacherous, they are a very important part of the school environment.
Nearly all assignments that students will complete using research
will require citations of multiple types. It was also interesting
to learn when teachers can and can't use various types of media.
In the brief time I have been in the school setting, I have seen
the positive response students have to showing videos and presentations
in class. It is important for teachers and counselors alike to
know how they might utilize in media they can obtain. So goes for
the teachers, goes for the students as well. It is important that
they are taught appropriate uses of technology.
While doing my internship this semester, I have learned just how
diverse the student body of a school can be. This does not mean
just different ethnic backgrounds, but can also mean the actual
languages spoken by the students. I currently have multiple
students who barely speak English. It is always a challenge to
find ways to communicate the lesson to them when they do not understand
the actual words being spoken. Being able to come up with a
lesson plan that might help these students feel included while allowing
them to understand can be a difficult task. This assignment was
great practice for what I will face in the school system in the years
to come.
Being able to share the work I had started turned out to be a great
tool. I was able to view other student's work, which allowed me
to critique my own. The ASSURE lesson plan is a great tool and
template to use when creating your own plans for your students.
Most people do not realize all that goes into teaching a lesson, but I
feel that goes for anything. If you simply list them steps
you need to take in order to wash your hands, you will find you can
quickly fill an entire page. This activity performs two
functions. First, it makes you prepare for a lesson with a
greater attention to detail. You quickly learn all of the things
that must be prepared before you even step into the classroom.
The other task this accomplishes is by actually writing out the
steps to teaching a lesson plan, you open the door to helping other
colleagues. A lesson plan can easily be passed between teachers,
but the actually teaching will vary greatly. By having the steps
listed in detail, you can ensure all students are getting the same
information, no matter who is teaching.
This assignment turned out to be one of the toughest for me personally.
You never realize how difficult it is to compress what seems to
be like so much information into one or two sentences. This
exercise can be applied to almost any aspect of your life. Clear
and concise thoughts are sometimes a rarity, but can be helpful.
Whether it be keeping a email short and to the point or taking
notes at a lecture, precision pays off. Being able to write clear
and meaningful objectives in lesson plans is a skill that is difficult
to master, but kept once learned.
The Internet can be an amazing tool of endless possibilities. It
can also be one of the most worthless resources available. The
different comes in the sources you choose. When researching
online, it can be very easily to get caught up in sites and sources
that have to use and are not reputable at all. The skill comes in
being able to distinguish between the two. The evaluation form
used for this assignment is a great tool that can be applied to just
about type or site. By using the form, you can easily and quickly
determine a site's worth. Using trusted sources when teaching is
an absolute must. As teachers and counselors, we are 100%
responsible for what our students learn.
This was the most beneficial tasks I completed during this course.
This technology can be utilized in so many ways. Two of the
main uses would be the survey, but also using this site for testing.
Just as a survey can be done, so can a quiz or test. This
can be very handy in distance learning when a typical site like
Blackboard or Moodle might not be available. Another reason this
application can be so useful is that it can be anonymous.
Students can provide feedback on their teachers, their feelings,
or any other topic they might be hesitant about sharing. This
will be a tool I intend to use in many different ways once in a school
setting.
The ASSURE lesson plan format is a great tool because of its ease.
Each step is clearly laid out and allows the teacher to simply
fill in the blanks. Basically any type of lesson plan, whether it
be counseling, math, or art can be put in this format. The layout
of this lesson plan helps to create continuity among teachers.
When a school or school system adopts a certain philosophy,
teachers are able to work more coherently. This can create a much
more "learning friendly" environment for the students.
Creating a blog is a great tool for anyone, not just a teacher.
What a blog does for a teacher is to open the door for
communication. Teachers can post assignments, notes,
announcements, and just about anything else for both parents and
students to see. Parents also have a way to communicate directly
back to the teacher using a comment tool found at the bottom of each
post. I also keep a personal blog, so it seems very natural to me
to post daily and keep everyone informed. You can find my
professional blog at http://counselorashley.blogspot.com/
Technology was once slowing creeping into the school. It has now
taken over. You can now graduate from school in California while
sitting in your pajamas in Georgia. One day, technology could
render the actual brick and mortar school useless. Personally, I
hope that day never comes. There is something to be said for a
personal fact-to-face meeting. This assignment was helpful
because it does prepare you for the chance you will teach an online
class. With the role of technology becoming ever present, that
possibility is getting greater and greater.
Teaching the ASSURE lesson plan online turned out to be much more of a
challenge than teaching it in a classroom. The lesson I
taught online was the same one I taught to nearly 100 1st grade
students. As I said in the reflection above, there is something
to be said for a face-to-face meeting. Online technology is
great, but it has its difficultys. I think what I most got out of
this assignment was the lesson plans from the other students in the
class. I found it very interesting to see the ideas and the
lessons other students created because they were so different from
mine. An elementary lesson plan is obviously much different that
one geared for a high school classroom. It was great to see such
a wide range of plans because I could one day be in a much different
setting that an elementary school.
Creating this portfolio has been quite enjoyable. Whoever thought
school assignments would be fun. I feel I have learned so much
just by completing all of the assignments. I can honestly look at
all of the work I have completed for this class and know I will use it
again, very soon.
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