Week 2 - My understanding of educational Technology.

My definition educational technology is any technology used by an educator to support the teaching and learning process. My definition of educational technology is same as the Association of Educational Communications and Technology (AECT). I have taken many classes in my educational process. I believe the classes that were the easiest for me to learn was the classes that used technology to help reinforce the material. The relationship between teaching and learning is very important to the student. If the teacher does not teach effectively the students will not learn the concept in an effective way. Most students learn the best from visual aids. Technology puts a lot of these aids in the palm of educators’ hands.

The best quote that I have ever heard was from the project called the National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS•T) Project. The quote was “The world is different. Kids are different….learning is different….and teaching must be different too. Today’s classroom teachers must be prepared to provide technology-supported opportunities for the students.” (NETS•T, 2002) I believe that students must have all the best opportunity to learn new concepts of technology. I graduated from high school many, many years ago, and the technology available to educators have triple since the time of my high school years. I had a technology culture shock when I started college. When I was in high school, students still turned in hand written reports. We had one computer teacher for the entire high school. Most of the teachers used the blackboard to write key words to help with studying. Now educators have to adapt his or her teaching styles to include new emerging technologies. To me PowerPoint is the best tool ever made available to educators. PowerPoint helps both the teacher and the student in the learning process.

Most students are visual learners. Educational technologies aid the educators teaching in a more effective way. As an example, PowerPoint presentations give the students a basic idea about the most important information in a lecture. On the other hand, the instructor has a basic guide to make sure that he or she explains all the important information to the students. The students can have a copy of the slides to make notes. When I was in high school, I would have to spend more time writing out the information that I remember and less time being able to absorb the important information that the teacher was talking about.

Technology makes teaching and learning easier for everyone involved. Educational technology makes it easier for educators to connect with students that have been difficult to connect with in the past. As the technology field increases in size, the educators must be able to adapt to it. It was hard for me to pay attention in class. If the educator had the available technologies of today, I would have had a easier time learning all the concepts.

My Personal Opinion of Cora

My name is Cora Borders. I am pursuing a Masters in Instructional Technology. IT 645 is my first class for the IT Masters program. I am a little nervous about this new adventure in my life. I am excited about being able to teach one day. I already have a Bachelors’ Degree in Office Administration from USM.

I currently am employed with Pioneer Aerospace in Columbia, Mississippi. I am the Human Resources Assistant for the company. Pioneer is part of the Zodiac company based France. Pioneer is one of about 35 companies owned by Zodiac Aerospace Corporation. I work on a computer about six of the eight hours of my work day. I have been with the company over one year.

I have taken about four classes online. It took me awhile to get into the flow of the online classes. I loved to take classes that I was face to face with teachers. I missed a few assignments because I did not turn the assignment in quick enough. It is easy to forget an assignment.
I work in Microsoft Excel and Word on a daily basis at work. I love to create PowerPoint. I use Adobe to create forms for Pioneer. I am really comfortable using most of the Microsoft suite. I have used Dreamweaver for an IT class that I have taken in the past. I really liked Dreamweaver.

I have to email all day for Pioneer. I would say that I am probably an expert in Outlook. I have used the discussion boards for some of my classes. I have never used Listserv. I would like to learn to use it. We use video clips and podcasts at Pioneer. I have web seminars about one a month. I find that podcasts are easy to follow. I like podcasts more than reading the information.
I hope to learn a lot in this class. I hope that I learn to use new computer programs. After reading the syllabus, I am excited to create all the projects. Ladies and Gentlemen, let the semester begin.