Educ560

            Mrs. Amal Farhat, Our educational Technology Instructor, at the beginning of the semester she introduced us the “Big Picture” of the course. She maintained that this course explores technology integration strategies in education, and prepares future teachers to use technology as a powerful tool to enhance learning. The course also presents an overview of some learning theories and their implication on learning, and examines different technologies that can be used in the educational field, including visual media, audio media, computer tools, internet resources, multimedia applications, and instructional software.

              At the very Beginning of the course, she creates positive, comfortable, safe and secure environment through “Ice Breaking” activity. It was enjoyable and we became emotionally connected with our new classmates. At the end of the first session we completed an evaluation form that it could help the instructor to have an idea about our majors that we are studied and to have brief information about our backgrounds.

             The following sessions, Mrs. Amal introduced us the importance of PollEV in education. And then she explained how Google Forms are beneficial and helpful for us in teaching; it helps us to get the summary of certain survey easily and in an organized way. How to use Google Drive effectively was one of Mrs. Amal’s Goals. She made us aware about it and prepared us how to make it practical in our everyday lives.

            We knew absolutely nothing about blog or blogging. Once Mrs. Amal explained us how to create a blog by following certain steps, now we can say that creating blogs is extremely easy. In fact, the whole processing is somewhat automatic. By now, we have started to create our own Blogs. 
 
We almost have heard about webquests, but how do create it and use it in our classrooms was the problem. I personally always wanted to make a webquest but not sure where to start. Once Mrs. Amal explained us gradually the steps to follow to have meaningful webquests, we in pairs created our own creative webquests. they are designed for real classroom use. However,The aim of these webquests are; the students must take the information they have to research about without being confused where and what to search. 

What is a Webinar and How Does it Work? These vague questions were wandering in our minds. But later when Mrs. Amal clearly explained us about its value and how to use it appropriately, we change our belief about it.
Another new concept was introduced to us is the process of attending online webinars. it was really new idea for us and it was the first time attending an online meeting.Mrs. Amal made us aware about how to register for a webinar and how to attend and be an active participant in that particular webinar. It was great experience without moving from place to place without any preparation to go outside your home to reach to the decided area to attend a seminar. don't hesitate and be ready to register to online webinars and be active participant, too. they are useful enough to broaden your knowledge about specific ideas you are interested about.
  
what are posters? How do we craft a poster? what are they used for? Now, we are ready to answer for these questions. Posters usually include both textual and graphic elements. They are designed to be both grabbing attention and for conveying information. after Mrs. Amal help us understanding the main elements for designing a poster such as, which size we have to use, which software is appropriate to design a poster, she gave us information about layout, graphics and we had a long discussion about the whole design process itself. after we get introduced to all these skills we started working on our own posters that entitles a study that we had done in other educational course.

            Day by day, we are discovering the importance of technology in our lives especially in teaching domain. We are enjoying by attending and participating in this course. Thank to administration providing educational technology course in our teaching diploma curriculum. Special thanks to Mrs. Amal.