Summer of Change

Thinking about the journey of this summer, the theme would have to be "summer of change." I had spent other summers reading novels that I thought I could use to stimulate my high school students to read. This summer I read about educational technology, e-learning, universal design for learning and assistive technology. The structure of the course kept the intensity going to find out more. I know that I am only at the beginning of this journey but I am amazed about how much I have learned in the two week residency followed by two weeks of research and reading. I am always reading. When I don't have access to a computer, I will print an article or take a book with me. There is so much to know in the field of educational technology and its very exciting. I finished the draft for the educational technology paper today. It's interesting because now I know more than when I was putting everything together and almost wish that I could start over on the paper, but due dates arrive and there is only so much time. I am interested in following up by reading other articles that I discovered during the process of writing this paper.

As I read what researchers are saying about universal design for learning, I considered how this could impact my own teaching as I return to school this fall. Although I was already cognizant of curricular restrictions and had created broader opportunities for learning in my class, I have a firmer grasp of this concept that will influence my planning.

Throughout this process, I learned about CAST which is the Center of Applied Special Technology, a resource that will be valuable in this journey.