Thinking differently...

Last week in class was a lot of fun for me! I thoroughly enjoyed the debate activity and thought it was very appropriate for what the group was talking about! I originally thought that our Team! got the short end of the stick on what we had to debate but I actually ended up convincing myself while trying to win (competitive much?!). We argued that it is better to force students to use technology that they are not currently using and I now truly believe that. I knew that this class would push me out of my comfort zone (which is extremely small) when it comes to technology, but I also knew that in order to stay current and keep moving forward, I needed to expand my knowledge and students need the same thing.

The other team discussed synchronous teaching and I currently have very strong feelings on this! Our whole degree is done with synchronous teaching and I think there are pros and cons that come with this. On the positive side, it makes the education more available to the greater population and can be more flexible than a face to face class. On the other end, it seems there is always some type of issue with Wimba kicking someone out or the camera not working, or someone's chat bar not working. I think that it would be cool to use Skype or something like that in my classroom if I wanted to have a guest speaker that was from my home state.

The Facebook Fast is going surprising well! The only time that I am tempted to log back on is when I have extended down time. However, my time spent on Pinterest has increased significantly so I don't really know if I'm being more productive.

Until next time...