Interactivity #3

     At first, I thought that finding a multitude of technologies to use in the English Classroom setting would prove to be a rather difficult task. However, the more I researched, the more enlightened I was upon finding a host of technologies that I was previously never aware of. Interactivity #3 was a collaborative effort that yielded interesting and insightful results. The final product is filled with a variety of different technologies that are extremely useful in an English classroom setting, most of which I had never been privy to. The technologies that each of us introduced to the group each proved to be another technological tool that would aid in students’ learning in our future English classes. The use of Google Documents was really helpful in allowing us to collaborate with each other and I really believe that it can be useful in my future classroom for group assignments. I was first assigned to use Google Documents in high school, and I was not a huge fan of it because I was never taught properly how to use it effectively. However, I do believe now that with proper instruction and guidance it can absolutely be a beneficial tool for future students to utilize in the classroom. The Online Writing Lab will also prove to be very useful for my future English students, in that, it is an aid to help clarify how to properly create citations in a paper that might be generally confusing when first introduced.

     The Discussion Boards and Blogger are of great use to me in the education classes that I am currently enrolled in due to the fact that it allows me to collaborate and keep in contact with other students in my classes with whom I might share similar ideas and thoughts as well as contribute and learn new concepts and ideas. This collaborative effort to find new ways of teaching English in the classroom truly opened my eyes to the vast assortment of technologies that are available that I might have previously overlooked. I tend to forget that technology can be beneficial to the way students learn new materials, not just detrimental by providing distractions and essentially doing the work for them. If we, as future teachers, continue to adapt these uses of technologies that we found in positive ways that really help our students not only learn new materials, but also enjoy what they are doing rather than their work seeming like a chore, then I believe we are doing our job effectively.