Integrating Mobile Technology into my Kindergarten Classroom and a Reflection on ED 610

This week's question is "Can I Integrate Mobile Technology into My Educational Setting?"  Type a blog post that describes...

• your thoughts on integrating mobile technology and how they may have changed during this class,
• your thoughts on whether or not ED 610 has been helpful for you, and
• your thoughts on topics that should or should not have been included in ED 610.

This class has opened a whole new world for me in terms of integrating mobile technology into my classroom! It has opened my eyes to the vast amount of educational, productivity, and presentation apps available for my use. Five weeks ago, I said this in my first post: "I hope to learn how to more effectively use my iPad for educational purposes. I hope to become aware of other forms of mobile technology that can be integrated in a kindergarten classroom. I would like to see how other teachers use these forms of technology in their classroom, discover new apps to use, and further branch out into other such realms." I feel like I have indeed learned how to more effectively use my iPad in my kindergarten classroom. In fact, just yesterday I met with a fellow kindergarten teacher who said she was tired of doing the "All About Me" beginning of the year project the same way she has done for years and wanted something new. I jumped at the opportunity to tell her of my final project for this class and the plans I have to help the students create such a presentation about themselves. She really liked the idea and will probably do it with her class, too. We also talked about the Listen to Reading component of the Daily 5, and I showed her the myriad of books I have on my iPad for my students to read. She was impressed that listening to reading can happen outside of a CD/tape player and headphones. We talked about me writing a grant to get more iPads in my classroom to further learning. There are so many other ways I can integrate mobile technology with my kindergarteners, and I feel like this class has provided me with many tools and references to use as I embark on this journey.

Through this class, I have greatly enjoyed participating in the App of the Week discussions, reading other teachers' blogs, and learning how they use technology in their own classrooms. I have discovered many more apps to use myself, or ones that I can pass on to my colleagues. Thanks to everyone who has shared and participated - I have learned a lot! For that reason, I can definitely say that ED 610 has been extremely helpful to me, as well as a class that I thoroughly enjoyed. It is my third online class I've taken (I have one more during Summer 3), and it is my favorite online class that I've taken. It is one of my favorite grad classes; my other favorite one was with Dr. Smith (can't remember the course name, but we were outdoors a lot learning about different flowers and plants.) I believe the set-up of this class is how online classes should be. The instructor was a fabulous facilitator and I learned so much from the other people enrolled in the class as well as my own exploration. I hope that I somehow still have access to things after this class ends, or else I'm going to have to start making lists and bookmarking web pages pretty quickly!

With ED 610 being only five weeks long, a lot was jammed into our time together. I felt that there was a good balance of topics in the class. I especially enjoyed learning about the presentation apps, since I didn't even know things like that existed! That was definitely my favorite part. I also liked how we were able to create our first presentation on anything. That made it easier, being the first time I ever did anything like this. I am glad that our final project is supposed to be something useful for classroom use. I am excited to use what I've learned!