CEP 811-Final Reflections

     Throughout this class, I think one of the discussions questions that have really made me reflect on my area of curriculum looking at UDL principals, would be the question of "what are the benefits of analyzing the curriculum for strengths and weaknesses rather than focusing on the student's strengths and weaknesses?"  This really put into perspective, that I think we need to focus a little more on what could we do different within our curriculum to strengthen our education and meet the UDL principals.  The benefits of analyzing our curriculum for strengths and weaknesses would allow us the opportunity to see what we think is fully needed throughout our curriculum and use resources to scaffold our curriculum to the full potential.  I think I really learned that we need to find the important "core" standards that could incorporate much of the curriculum and still allow us the opportunity to help our students "master" the material they need to meet the state standards.  

     I think all of discussion and information provided about online teaching/learning opportunities makes me want to learn more and discover what more I can incorporate into my teaching.  An online/hybrid class is something that I will be striving for in the next few years within my school and I think many viewpoints allows me to see pros and cons of this type of environment.  I would like to learn more about all the many resources that are used and can be used with a online class.  And this class gave me the opportunity to dive deeper into some of these resources such as wiki's, class web pages, and especially learning and developing our own StAIR.
     For my future endeavors, I hope to be incorporating more technologies into the classroom and looking at a more self paced curriculum within my classroom.  I thought the idea of the StAIR was most resourceful!   I think this is something that I would like to incorporate into my classroom at all levels, whether it be hybrid, or face to face, this is a wonderful resource for my students to work at their level and understand what they are having problems and successes with!  Learning about the principals that incorporate both visual and auditory and how important that is not only in the classroom, but for use within your technology (and StAIR), was something that was very eye opening when I look to incorporate technology in the future.
    Learning about the UDL principals and being shown the many resources through MERLOT, web quests, within our groups, and evaluating each others works, allowed me to really learn how to evaluate efficient technology and understand the usefulness of such technology.  It made me look deeper into the online resources (since there are a ton out there) and really see if they hit the necessary principals and information that need to be focused on.  I think that this will make me more aware of not only online resources but technologies I plan to use within my classroom.    
        Within my personal growth plan, I hoped to find technology that I could incorporate into a face-to-face or hybrid class that I will be teaching in the near future.  I think that this class has really opened my eyes as to the many more technologies that I did not know were so accessible and easy to learn to use.  My goals still include furthering my integration of technology within both my face to face class, and a future possible hybrid, and these classes keep letting me experiment and learn more about such materials!  Every new thing I learn, leads me to grow in the technology world in some way!  I am thankful to be continuing my education of these resources and wealth of information throughout the rest of the educational technology program!