Genius Hour Week 6 Final Reflection

Prior to taking tech class, I felt extremely nervous and overwhelmed because of my very limited knowledge regarding the use of technology. This course has expanded my knowledge greatly, as I have learned so many new skills and techniques that will not only benefit my self in terms of establishing a professional identity online and building my own portfolio of tools for enhancing my own projects and presentations, but it will also help me as a teacher to share these tools and strategies with students while also enhancing student engagement and learning! Before this course, I did not have any knowledge of the majority of the tools I learned about and used. This course introduced me to the world of blogging, Powtoon and so many other teaching tools and strategies, so I am definitely starting to feel more confident about ways to use technology in the classroom. A big challenge for me was stepping outside of my comfort zone to try new tools for presenting information, since the extent of my exposure and use of technology has mostly been word processors for writing formal essays and research papers. I have to say that although it was time consuming learning these technologies, I really did enjoy and benefit from them and I feel that these new tools and skills I have learned have really helped me to become more informed about different technologies and also a lot more willing to try new things!  Overall, I feel that I would not have gained the same amount of exposure and knowledge of technology that I did throughout the duration of this course about teaching digital learners in the digital age.