Final Reflection

Social networking is very quickly becoming more and more popular in the educational setting. Teachers can use social networking to collaborate with other teachers, parents, and to allow students to communicate with one another. At an elementary level there are some drawbacks to using social networking, however. One of the issues of using social networking sites is the idea of cyber bullying. True, teachers are monitoring what their students are posting, but it will be a hard sell to parents and administrators knowing that the issue of bullying could potentially become more prominent. Social networking sites also require that members have an email address which if most students do not already have one could become problematic as well.

One of the things that I enjoyed about the social networking site was the ability to post resources that could be viewed and shared by everyone involved in the group. I was able to find and utilize a few new tools and sites based on other teachers' recommendations. When teachers are able to collaborate on sites and tools that they have already used it helps teachers sift through sites and tools much more quickly. This kind of collaboration is positive for everyone involved as they can share their successes as well as reach out for further support and help if necessary.

Technology has greatly increased my knowledge for implementation of Universal Design for Learning. Utilizing the tools generated by my social networking group opens up many more strategies that I can use within my classroom. Varying assessment options becomes much less laborious of a task with the aid of technology.

One thing that I would like to start doing as a result of this class is to using technology in conjunction with UDL and differentiation. Differentiation is not a new concept to me, but up to this point I have used technology separately from it. I would like to use the tools and sites that I have gained from this class to fit the two together to make my classroom more engaging and motivating for all of my students.