Oh, so that's what I could do ...

Throughout these past eight weeks, I have had several “Aha!” moments. My first was in using iMovie to create my first concept map. It is one of those standard features on my Mac that I never really played with or considered. I had fancy Adobe movie programs for splicing and editing. What I discovered is that the biggest and fanciest tool, may not be the best tool for the job. So I learned to keep it simple instead of letting myself get carried away with the technology and possibilities.

My next “Aha!” moment came during wiki week. As an open dialogue tool, I was very leary of the idea of using a wiki for anything but documentation. I thought it was too free a format for use in a classroom setting. I have been working in a wiki for years and so the wiki we used was one of the early wikis and is nowhere as simple and straight-forward as the new wikis we used on this class. So, in this instance, I learned that technology always moves forward, and even though you are familiar with a tool the technology to use that tool will move forward as well.

My biggest “Aha! Moment came in seeing all the ways that people within the class are planning to use their new skills and understanding. I’ve always used technology a great deal in my work, and being married to a techno-geek, I hear about technology advances all the time. I had come a bi complacent in my thinking about technology and in my understanding of how technology could be used. I thought I had a whole lot more figured out than I actually did. What was key in this whole process for me was hearing the ideas of others. While I plan to keep looking for and playing with technologies, I know that I also will work to keep sharing ideas with colleagues.