Curby Alexander

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Course Planning

I've recently been busy planning my fall courses while my wife and twins are in Texas visiting family. This is my first time planning education courses where technology is not the central focus. I still plan on using a lot technology in my instruction, and I want the students to have the opportunity to use it as well. The question that keeps haunting me, however, is, "How much technology is too much in a non-technology based course?" I have no idea what they addressed in their technology courses, to what degree they were accountable to master the skills and concepts, or what their attitude is toward learning new innovations. From my own experience teaching ed. tech. classes, even my best students would promptly forget how to do things we did continually in my class (e.g., posting to a blog or creating a link on a webpage).

I have been relatively cautious this time around and have not drenched my class projects with technology. This will probably change as I get to know the students and the available resources. As a point of reference, I recently met a graduate of this teacher ed. program, and she was pretty darn tech. savvy. So, this is encouraging.