Well, what a semester! I simply cannot believe that this week was our last class. It went by faster than I had anticipated! But don’t they always? However, I would like to say that this class has been a huge eye opener for me in regards to technology and innovation. Prior to this class, I personally thought that I understood technology rather well and that I had a good grip on it. However, this class expanded my knowledge of technology immensely.

Throughout this semester, we learnt about a variety of different social media platforms, different ways to teach using technology and also gained insight on innovation techniques from a few guest speakers. Each class I recorded notes from our lectures, and even went back over the lecture slides to ensure I recorded all the information that we learnt. I found that each class was highly beneficial because we always learnt about a new platform of technology that we will one day be able to practice in our future classrooms.

This week, as our final class, we learnt about how gaming can be used in the classroom. At first I was shocked, because gaming to me reminds me of sitting in front of a computer screen playing an Xbox or Playstation with headphones on isolated from the world. However, I enjoyed learning that gaming can actually enhance students understanding of certain material. It was interesting as well to see which subjects that gaming enhanced, and which games teachers utilized the most. Below, I have attached two pictures of the slides from our weekly lecture this week that point out important information regarding this. I believe that students crave diversity in the classroom away from verbal instructions by teachers. Although that is the teachers main method of instruction, diversifying lessons away from verbal instruction can increase student engagement, motivation and responsiveness to the material. When teachers incorporate gaming into students learning, they are able to participate in hands-on learning and experience a physical way of learning this material. Consequently, this physical experience of learning will stay with them innately and they will be able to refer back to these experiences in the future.

Overall, this class was definitely a favourite of mine from our second year in this program. It was eye opening and highly beneficial because we now have an in-depth understanding of various ways to incorporate technology in our classrooms, and throughout the subsequent two years of this program, we will be able to continue using them in future projects and practicums. Thank you for everything, Michael! 🙂