Rachel Ong

EDT 180A

Mr. Lewallen

December 4, 2019

Final Reflection Paper

1. Looking back over the course of the semester, my approach to exploring the various

technologies changed. Near the beginning of the class, most of my focus was on technology as it

relates specifically to education. In particular, a lot of my research was about technologies that

were already being or soon to be implemented into actual classrooms and learning environments.

As the semester progressed, my focused shifted towards technology in general and how it applies

to myself. My later projects were themed mostly around my personal interests, as a means of

exploring how I could connect technology to the things I already enjoy.

2. Most of my challenges while completing these assignments were related to time

management. I had some difficulty completing assignments or components of the assignments in

a timely manner. Later in the semester I developed more of a strategy of starting to work on

assignments right away. Then, I would try to break up the work into more manageable chunks so

that I could make small amounts of progress on a regular basis. I also began to work to cut out

other distractions while working on assignments.

One of the other challenges I faced was not having access to certain resources. As a

perfectionist, it was sometimes frustrating for my project to not develop exactly the way I first

envisioned it. There were two things that I tried to do in order to alleviate this. First, I tried to

make sure my expectations were reasonable and that my visions for my projects weren’t too

ambitious. Secondly, I would just set a goal for myself to make everything as good as I could
within my given limitations, and not feel guilty if something didn’t turn out as professional as I

might’ve liked.

3. Before taking this course, I hadn’t really thought much about technology in conjunction

with learning. If anything, I was mostly concerned with the negative effects of technology on

children. The information I’ve learned in this course has reinforced my belief that we should be

cautious in our use of technology and how we choose to implement it in the classroom. However,

I’ve also become more aware of the benefits and potential benefits of using technology to aid

instruction, specifically with the unique opportunities that it can provide to students. I believe

that having received a fuller understanding of what these technologies actually are and what their

function is, I’m now better able to the positive potential that they have for the field of education.

4. I struggled the most with the Inquiry Module project, mostly because I was unsure of

what and how to research. I put off completing it, which meant that a lot of parts to that

assignment were hastily put together, with not as much thought put into my responses as they

should have been.

For the Construction Module Project, I started with what I want my project to be about,

then worked all the technical details out from there. I determined what I could realistically

accomplish and modified my original plan based on that. I also made use of the provided

example and resources to figure out how to edit the project effectively.

Overall, I can see that I became more organized and systematic about how I approached

assignments. I also started to be much more proactive with starting assignments in a timely

fashion, which helped me to be able to put much more effort and attention into each of the

assignment components.
5. A lot of my classmates chose to work in pairs or groups for some of the assignments,

while I completed each of my projects individually. In the future, I’m interested in possibly

doing partner or group work, as I think it would be a good opportunity to continue developing

my skills in communication and collaborating with others. Also, for those who worked in groups,

it seemed like a good way to draw inspiration from each other’s ideas and to get to know the

other people in your group better.

6. If I could redo any assignment, it would most likely be the Inquiry Module. If I were

starting over again, I would get more clarification about what the expectations were from the

very outset of the project. Specifically, I would make sure I fully understood the categories of

technologies that we were asked to research for the project. I would then try to start all of my

research much sooner so that I could have enough time to revise the whole project before turning

it in. If I had the time and resources, I might find a way to be able to personally test some of the

technologies, as was the original intent for this project.

7. The biggest goal I would like to set for myself next semester is to keep improving my

time management skills. I want to try laying out my whole weekly schedule so that I can dedicate

specific blocks of time to working on assignments for each class that I have in order to make sure

that I making good amounts of progress every day. I also want to work on allotting specific times

to leisure activities or other things that can have a tendency to distract me from assignments. The

third sub-goal I want to work towards is making sure I get enough sleep every night, because

being exhausted only detracts even more from the quality of my work.