Looking Back; Looking Forward

Wow.  That was a fast eight weeks.  When the course began, I didn't really know what to expect.  I feel like we've come a long way together.  For starters, If you had told me two months ago that I would have authored not one, but three separate blogs, I would not have believed you, and yet here I am. 

While I consider myself to be pretty technically savvy, all of the tools we used in this class were new to me.  I really enjoyed Movie Maker, although I wish we had gotten more time to "play" with it.  I can see so many ways that I could use wikis, blogging and interactive tools like Googledocs, Gliffy, and MindMeister in the classroom and at home with my kids.  Just this week we took the comic book my 7-year-old wrote and put it up as a slide show on Flickr so that my husband could see it while on a business trip, something that probably wouldn't have occurred to me before I took this course. 

While I feel I had a grasp of the concept of 21st century skills before the course began, I think my experiences here have helped me to flesh out the concept for myself and think more clearly about what 21st Century learning can and should look like.

I have really enjoyed getting to know all of the participants in this class.  Each one brought such a distinctive voice and perspective to our discussions.  I have learned from each of you and I am very grateful for that!

Thanks to this course I will think differently about my kids' education and, when I return to the classroom, I will take with me an updated perspective.  Not a bad use of eight weeks.