Thing 23 - The "END" to the journey

The biggest thing this journey has taught me is that all people can learn to use the web products. Many of them are very user friendly and there are tons of sites and videos to teach you to do anything. My biggest concern was that not all students have access to the internet so it would be difficult to make the new technology a requirement. Also the amount of time it takes to implement and run these technology endevors is a concern. I still have these concerns. For instance right now we use edline to communicate announcements with parents about classes, and only about 50% of parents are connected to edline, and I find myself posting less often. However, if a parent has an e-mail address I find myself able to communicate more regularly with a parent if necessary.

I can see that this movement will really begin to take off in the future when access becomes more available. For instance, my cousins go to a middle school that has a program which requires you to have and use a laptop regularly. I think this may soon be how all schools operate. Instead of making copies the students may download the document to their computer complete the work and submit it online. Blackberry's are making access to the internet a 24/7 activity.

In the meantime I believe this technology should be used among the teachers, administators, etc. because once you get the staff on board the technologies will slowly start to integrate themselves into the learning environment. I think the wiki will be a good place for me to start. This is a place I can collect my lessons and assignments which can be edited and added to by my collegues. I think that the wiki would also be a great thing for group projects and might be something I decide to do in the near future. The good thing is that the possibilities are endless.