Reflection on 8 weeks discussion of educational technology

The last several weeks flew by and were great. The one, huge challenge I faced was figuring out how to interpret assignments and apply them to my situation, which is not K-12. I agonized over what things meant and how to do the work, some of which was geared toward K-12. A great example is the last assignment: although an inclusion allowed for creating any type artifact (noting not everyone is K-12), much of the learning material for the whole lesson focused on school-applications ("3. Research technology use plans at your state level. 4.Find out if your school or district has a technology use plan" etc.). Because I teach and train for a corporation, and wish to apply my skills in education to the nonprofit sector - which I haven't entered yet - these were difficult things for me as I strove to do a good job with everything. For some of the course material and use of the Moodle platform I feel like there was an implicit assumption that students already knew and knew how to do certain things (academic background in teaching, etc.).

Reaching out to Dr. Haskell helped. He was really great. I should have done it more, but I dislike speaking up too much. I also would re-read and re-read and re-read the assignment material, and sometimes let it marinate. Sometimes time would go by as I'd still be fuzzy about applying something and I'd simply attack the assignment feeling blind, giving it my best shot, and at times feeling repetitious compared to previous work I'd submitted.

The artifact I feel is my best is my "Digital Divide/Digital Inequality" presentation, for no other reason than that I spent a lot of time and worked hard on it, and it's looks pretty good (although I am no graphic designer). I'm unsure how to judge the artifact, partially because I am still trying to understand what the word "artifact" even means (despite having looked it up and seen a definition somewhere) or what the purpose of them is. At the start of class it was described that we'll be making artifacts, but it was never really clear to me what they are or why we are making them. I probably just missed something among all the information.

I gained a lot from the course! I understand better how to research, and I've been exposed to a lot of source and material that is relevant to my interests. I've also learned about things I never thought to think about, which are important as well. The course helped give me a path for conducting research. As a result I plan to continue that research in my own time so that I can learn more.