CEDu510 - Week 5 - On Line Class, Evaluating Technology

This week class was held on-line but by the wonders of technology, we were still able to hear each other and see Louie, our instructor. Fortunately for me, one of my group members, Megan, has a Mac laptop and is comfortable using it. In addition, our group still met and we were able to have dinner together during class. It was a fun, valuable, and stress-free experience for me. As a class we took the time to watch an on-line video. The speaker had some really interesting points and it was interesting to be able to discuss it with my classmates immediately following the viewing. After my initial fascination with the fact that I could talk into my phone and a second later hear my comments being echoed out of the computer speaker, I was able to put together a couple of appropriate remarks to share about the video. Ha.

In addition, much of the class and homework this week focused on how to effectively evaluate educational software. I think this was a beneficial subject to learn about because as we become "technology experts" for our district, we will be called upon to help out in this area. It was interesting that one of the individual assignments was to complete an evaluation of some software because that is something that I have had on my "to do" list for the past three weeks at school. I was provided with a free 30 day trial of Speak Q and was asked to evaluate it. If it hadn't been an assignment for class, I may not have completed the evaluation in time!