Where am I in Educational Technology?

Duffy, McDonald, & Mizell (2005) have defined Educational Technology as “any technology used by educators in support of the teaching and learning process” (p. 416). But does educational technology really includes ANY technology? Can we really use everything and anything in the classroom setting? My understanding of it is a little different and involves not just use of technology resources in education but the constant learning and introduction of new technology resources in an effort to make teaching and learning process a little easier and more attractive (and inviting) for educators and students at the same time.

I have taken many graduate courses related to educational technology and this class is just one of them. My goal in this class is to learn more of new technologies and hopefully more effective strategies to implement those technologies in the classroom settings. Learning new technologies without knowing how to implement the same in the classroom is pointless.

Being a technology facilitator for a large school district in Texas, I am privileged to constantly have opportunities to explore and evaluate many different technologies before they are implemented in to classrooms.

There are many educational technologies that I have explored and mastered in my ETEC classes that I would like to share with my classmates. Some of them are effective use and creation of WebQuest, benefits of some of Web 2.0 applications such as Social Bookmarking, and finally the power of an open source management systems such as Moodle.