Final Reflection

 Upon completing my inquiry project, I wanted to reflect upon the process and my next steps in learning. While compiling resources for my databases, it was easy to find teachers who created resources for each of the technologies in the form of blogs, videos, etc. It was more difficult to find scholarly articles that related directly to the technologies and the integration of them in ELA. In my group discussion with Giulia, we both expressed this difficulty and concluded that technology needs more time to be appropriately researched and scholarly reviewed.  

The final project for each of my technologies is a database that includes solid resources that range from scholarly articles to YouTube videos. Each of the resources included in my databases includes a brief summary and important notes. I also elected to include the resources that I found that did not answer my distal goal. The reason for this is that I wanted to show that I was regularly reflecting on my distal goal while compiling resources for each of my databases. These resources may also prove to be beneficial to other colleagues who want to integrate technology into their classrooms.  

Next time, if I was completing this project I would edit my distal goal to include a set number of resources I wanted to compile for my databases. I was not specific enough when creating my distal goal and as a result each of my databases has a different number of resources. While compiling resources, my intent was simply to find articles, blog posts, etc. that fit well with my topic of study. I think stating that each database needs to have 10 resources would have been a good addition.

Moving forward, I want to begin using my databases to integrate robotics kits, 3D printers and Minecraft Education into my ELA classroom. While completing this project, I was already seeing connections to writing and reading activities. I think that my next distal goal will be to test out some of the lessons, information, etc. that I found to see what works best with my students. My first experiment will be to have students program a robot to reflect the characteristics of books character.  

I am excited to integrate technology meaningfully in my ELA classroom this upcoming school year!