EDM 510 Microcomputing Systems in Education is a requirement for my master’s degree. I was not sure what to expect from the course. I knew I would learn about current and emerging technologies. I was looking forward to learning about new technologies and how I would be able to apply to my schooling and career. I have always thought of myself as been tech-savoy. However, in this course, I learned that I have a lot to learn about technology.
I did takeaway some great ideas and resources from EDM 510. First, I learned how important it is to try out new technologies. By trying out new technologies, you are able to see how they work, if they are user friendly and what tools they offer. This gave me the experience to find out what technologies worked for me and what did not. Second, I learned that it’s okay to fail or make a mistake when trying new technology. When using technology and you fail, this is how you learn to use it. In this course, I failed many times before turning in an assignment. I would sometimes start over, google it or email Dr. Gaston. Through this process I became more familiar with new techniques and technology. After failing many times trying the new technologies, I was not as apprehensive about trying new technology. I knew that if it didn’t work the first time, just keep trying. Lastly, the most useful takeaway for me from EDM 510 is learning about how many free resources are available. If you’re patient, do your research, you are more than likely to find a free resource that will work for what you are trying to accomplish.
Throughout this course we had many assignments. My favorite and most challenging was creating a blog. It was the most challenging because I had never done this before and there were so many different parts to it. When I first started the blog, I was focused on making it look good. I wanted the right color combination and inspiring quote. I would download pictures, change the color scheme, and make all these changes and then lose everything I completed. Once I stopped worry about what the appearance of the blog was and started focusing on how the components of how the blog worked, I started to feel more comfortable with the blog. I ended up with something I like. I still have some trouble with posting a blog and remembering that I have the right settings in place. The more I worked with it, the more I enjoyed the process.
I would like to continue to use the blog. I am going to change some aspects of it and have more of a theme related to a subject matter that I would like to write about on a regular basis. My hope is to continue to become more familiar with using the blog, posting on it and having it as a place where I may be creative.
Thinking about what I learned in this course and how I may use it in my career forced me to review the whole course. There are two areas of technology that I would like to continue to use at work. The first concept is using google docs. My group used google docs to work on our group project for EDM 510. It was easy to access and easy to see the items that had been added. It is a nice central location for sharing documents and allowing others to edit a document. I have used google docs a lot through my education process, but I forget to also use it for my professional life. I have a lot of documents that I need to share with a group of people, and it would be so much easier to direct them to a shared folder then always emailing them.
In this course I learned about the Audacity. Audacity is a free digital editor and recording application software. It is user friendly and compatible with Windows. This is a great resource for doing voice recordings or using it for a podcast. I would like to use Audacity in my job as a way to provide information access to students. I can see it being used as part of a frequently asked questions segment. I hope to continue to experience with technology and use it on a regular basis.
