Final Reflection for my COETAIL course...

So this is my final reflection for the COETAIL course one I have been taking... late, but as I often (too often) say, better late than never! I have found this course really interesting, and can say now, looking back on it that I have used a lot of technology and learnt a lot in doing so. I have picked up a variety of skills that I feel have culminated in my final project.

I know I have picked up some great IT skills that will eventually save me time, and help me to develop more as an educator. Using GoogleDocs is a huge time saver for registration of athletic events not to mention surveys for kids and collaboration prospects in the classroom. Blogging on Blogger has been an easy technical skill to master, although I still struggle to blog regularly. Using my Google Reader has taught me a great deal in how to manage the endless amounts of information continually arising on the web and participation within the class wiki on wetpaint, has been a great chance for me to understand through participation what a wiki can do, and the collaborative potential it holds.

I have gained an understanding of a few of the issues that are surrounding the integration of IT into education, and needless to say I am concerned about some of the outcomes of diving in deep into Information Technology. I am more firmly grounded on a few key principles:

• IT is one of many tools that assists learning.
  
• When IT begins to draw us away from reality we are becoming too hyper-connected, this is a dangerous state.
  
• IT has to help our lives. It has to free us up more to do the important things in life.
  

I see a great potential in integrating IT into Physical Education and I am looking forward to researching more and continuing my blog to help enlighten any willing readers to understand ways they can integrate IT to improve student learning in PE. I can't wait to implement my multi-cultural games unit to my grade 8 students and see them collaborate with a class from another school. This has huge potential for inter-cultural understanding and appreciation.

Thanks to Kim Cofino and Jeff Utech who have been our mentor lecturers during this course, you have done a great job with a class of over 50! I have been challenged, extended, frustrated, excited and dismayed, but most of all I have learned.