So lets review just what did we learn about in CeDO 515. This class started with the most useful of tools. The Delicious social bookmarking application has made working in remote locations and on my laptop magically easy. I have yet to set up the science department group but will get that done when we start the new year in the fall.

Week two material was fairly old hat as I use an online presentation tool several times a week. Though I was unaware that there were so many out there that could be used for free. With that it will be cool to have students working in Google docs on collaborative assignments in the near future. With that said weeks 3,4did a great job in setting up guidelines and structure for the implementation of collaborative and problem based learning activities.

Week 5 was both reflective and futuristic. It was interesting and helpful to set up goals based on what we have learned so far.

Finally it was interesting this week to follow-up our session on goal setting with a piece that looks forward to the barriers we will need to overcome in order to further our use of technology in our classrooms. I may be alone in my feelings on this but when reviewing what I do in my classrooms, I recognized there are new and exciting strategies that I am not using or if I am using them, they are not as tight and useful to my students as they could be. With that said, I continuously ask my self how I can implement the new ideas. This was a inner conversation I had from the start of this class, so many good ideas so little time to implement. After writing the paper I feel some of the barriers are not so high after all. With the warped and strange perspective of a motivated teacher overcoming the barriers could be considered opportunities. Yeah opportunities to improve the way I teach and the way my students learn. It reminds me of when you start a new work out program. You start with energy and vigor and see some pretty good results. Then you guessed it, you plateau or level off. The pounds do not drop and the weights don’t seem to get lighter. Though you are working hard and being productive the progress has slowed. To get to the next level you sometimes need to change-up your workout. Well the same thing applies to our professional lives as well. Time to get past some of those barriers and change-up my teaching!