EDLD+5363+Week+5+Final+Assessment

=Week 5 Final Assessment: Course Reflection Responses=

When I saw the title for this course: Multimedia and Video Technology, I was excited about what I would learn from this course. I envisioned learning the how-to’s behind shooting and editing video. Honestly, I expected to be learning foundational basics through practical experiences and to some extent I did achieve this. Through the making of my personal digital story, my podcast, and my teamwork on the PSA assignment, I got some practical hands-on experience with multimedia and video technology, thereby achieving some of what I envisioned. The outcomes that I envisioned for this course were perhaps more ambitious than time would have allowed. Learning this much new material in five weeks is almost impossible. I recognize the need to continue to practice my newly acquired skills in order to improve my knowledge and abilities, and to be a more confident educational and technology leader. Assuming the role of a technology specialist, I would consider the knowledge I have gained in this course to be relevant in helping others incorporate multimedia into their classrooms. With additional practice, I would share my new knowledge with other teachers on my campus, and give ideas as to how to use multimedia with their own students. A great place to start would be to share my personal digital story that I produced for this class. I would instruct other teachers on how to make a personal digital story about themselves that could be shown to their students on the first day or week of school as a “meet the teacher” kind of activity. I would also give instruction on how podcasts could be used as group student projects centered around a variety of curriculum. The key to incorporating any multimedia production into any subject or theme is to gain enough confidence to try something new that your students may have greater knowledge about than you do as a teacher. Because of the condensed time for this course, I feel that I did not have enough time to practice and become more adept at foundational skills by which to confidently teach others how to produce good quality multimedia productions. I did gain a great deal of knowledge in this course, but I recognize that I need continued practice before I would be ready to teach others. The main element that prevented me from achieving my learning goal was the condensed time allotted for this course. With the knowledge of Photo Story 3, Audacity software, and Microsoft Movie Maker software, I have acquired a beginning knowledge of video and audio editing software by which to build better multimedia production skills on. It is this new knowledge that will open the way for me to become a more productive and influential educational technology leader. For the most part, I was successful in completing my course assignments. Because the assignments changed and did not always match what was in the courseware, I found this course confusing at times. I was still able to complete my course assignments to the best of my ability however. I admit that I have been discouraged at times during this course because I had very little prior knowledge of multimedia and video technology from which to draw from. I believe it is important to reflect on this discouragement because it mirrors what some of my students may feel when they encounter new material that is totally new to them. I can say that I learned from my technical failures and difficulties in this course and can model that for my students when needed. The lesson to take away from this course is not to remember the confusion and the discouragement as much as I use the new knowledge that I acquired from this course in order to help others learn. I drew upon some of my leadership skills in this course, especially through the teamwork involved in making the PSA. I learned how important it is to build on each other’s ideas and not to judge others’ ideas and plans. Building up my partners and making them look good is a valuable point that I have learned that will help me as I assume a leadership role in the future. My technology skills were expanded as I acquired a great deal of new knowledge in this course. Overall, I have had a positive learning experience and attitude in this course and look forward to building on the new skills I learned as I assume the role of a technology leader at some point in my career.