John Gipe

ISTC 301.005
May 7, 2016
ISTC 301/501 C. Wood
Final exam Reflection Respond to the following question in a
substantive narrative; remember to double-space your text and use
either Times New Roman or Calibri 12 point font.

I asked you at the beginning of the semester to reflect on your use of

technology for learning as you were growing up and how your teachers may
have used technology tools in their teaching. Looking over what youve
learned this semester in terms of theory and practice, how does your belief
in the role of technology in teaching and learning differ today from that of
the beginning of the semester? As you are responding to this question, you
should reference what you have learned about UDL, TPACK (Technology,
Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge), assistive technology, Common Core
Standards, and various applications we have used in the course. What
content has made the greatest impact on your personal philosophy of the
use of technology in teaching and learning? How has your knowledge of
effective teaching practice been altered by your participation in this course?

When I was reflecting on my use of technology in learning at the

beginning of the semester I thought I used technology a lot when I was
growing up in school. After learning about all the terms, practices, and tools
that can be used in teaching with/through technology, I realize that my
teachers really didnt use technology at all. In the beginning of the semester,
my idea of technology in the classroom was using the internet or going on
the computer. Its safe to say that after this class there is so much more to
the integration of technology in and out of the classroom learning

environment. I think I used more forms of technology that can be used for
teaching in this one semester of college than I did my entire high school
career and thats something that is a little concerning if you think about it.
Through the several of applications weve used in this course, I think
the Keystone lesson plan/project had the greatest impact on my personal
philosophy of the use of technology in teaching and learning. Of course its
always good to create a lesson plan with another classmate because it gives
you a different perspective on teaching and may help foster some ideas that
you may never have thought of. The thing that made the Keystone project
different from regular lesson plans Ive created was the fact that we needed
to integrate a form of teaching through technology with something that
weve personally done in class. I though this aspect was great because it
really showed me that TPACK wasnt just some set of principles that we
learned about once and never really used. The Keystone project was a
perfect example of the TPACK (Technology, Pedagogy, and Content
Knowledge) principles being used in a lesson and I didnt even really know I
was using them. I was using a form of technology in the Active Inspire
(Promethean) whiteboard to have students come up in front of the class and
find key words in word problems. I was using pedagogy in having to work
with my classmate to co-teach a group of students and work together to find
a method or practice of teaching that fit us both well. And finally, I was
fulling the content knowledge by providing the material about word problems
in math and how to solve them with key words to look for. TPACK was really

something that I never thought I would use until I actually finished a lesson
and realized wow, is going to be a part of my everyday life when I become a
teacher.
My knowledge of effective teaching practices has altered after
participating in this course in the sense that Im not going to teach my future
students in the same way that my elementary teachers taught me. Ive
learned so much about 21st century learners and how teaching in todays
classroom is much different from how previous generations and even myself
were taught by our teachers. Its not enough anymore to simply stand up in
front of your students and recite information or write things on the
whiteboard and give out worksheets. In order to effectively reach and teach
the students of todays generation, teachers need to find and incorporate
multiple means instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments
that work for every type of learner within your classroom. Universal Design
for Learning (UDL) is something that I now realize is vital to teaching
nowadays and not just something we learn about for fun. Ive taken other
courses at Towson where we talked about UDL but never really incorporated
it into our class or got a chance to use it. On the other hand, this class
basically made me use UDL in everything project or assignment I did. Doing
projects like making your own podcast or creating a Voki, makes you realize
how many other ways there are to provide information or content. I think a
perfect example of something that Im going to use when Im a teacher that
satisfies all the elements of UDL is the Glogster project. I simply love the new

age interactive poster that Glogster provides users because its so much
cooler than a boring old poster board that everyone is so used to doing.
Glogster lets its users create a one page web poster that allows users to
insert text, pictures, videos, audio, external links, etc. to make for a fun and
innovative way to display information. This is a great tool that can be used in
classrooms for a variety of projects and lessons. This provides multiple
means of representation, action and expression, and engagement to an
otherwise paper poster board that only provides text and pictures.
Overall, I think this is one of those classes where Im going to keep all
the assignments and projects I completed so that I can use them for when
Im a teacher (which will be really easy since all my work is on my Weebly
site). Its one thing to learn about technology in education and various
application that can be used in teaching, but its a completely different story
when you have to use the application to complete your own work. This
course showed me how to integrate so many different forms of technology
into future lessons by actually having me used the technology.