What I Need: Course Expectations

Lost, uncertain, and petrified would be three excellent ways to describe my comfort with technology up to this point. As my bio indicates, I've spent ten years in the teaching world, but I've spent every one of them avoiding technology. I would always have my husband create or fix anything I needed to use. I am now attempting to grow in such a way as to gain confidence and independence around computers and technology in general. I'm currently enrolled in a technology course (TPTE 486) at the University of Tennessee in order to help me reach that goal.

In my class I'm hoping to gain a number of things

• First, and most important, I want to lose the personal assumption that everything on the computer is too hard for me to figure out on my own. When little children can successfully use technology, I know that I have no excuse.
• Next, I want to learn important terms and jargon. Words like "wiki" and "blog" have been two such words that have been a scary mystery up to this point. (Obviously, since I'm currently creating "posts" in a "blog", I've already gained a lot in just a couple of short weeks.) There are so many thing going on out in cyber-world...I don't even know what I don't know!
• Because I'm looking to use my new technological savvy in the classroom, I am excited to learn classroom-specific ways to integrate technology into my upcoming career. Not only do I believe that learning tools for the classroom will be helpful for me in teaching, but also I realize that to properly equip my students for their own futures, I need to connect them with the modern advancements that they will use in their own lives.
• Finally, I really want to be able to use computers and the internet to collect a personal record of resources that I can access at any point in time. I believe I have heard about some kind of internet "cloud" that saves information. I want to be able to record and save my findings so that I will have long-term resources to access beyond this class. My short term memory will most certainly not be as reliable as some computer device or program.

I can't wait to go on this semester-long journey. It has been a long time in coming! While there is a lot of personal fear associated with this process, I know that it will pay off in the end. I feel that in life, major accomplishments worth doing are not usually easy. This is going to be one of those things. Whatever I find out, though, I will be sharing it here with all of you.

Now it's time for me to figure out a thing or two...

Wish me luck!