Reflection

Overall, I feel our MITTEN project was very successful.  A large part of that success is due to our students being  very excited and eager to work with the technology available at our school.  As teachers we tried to work off of this excitement by creating lessons which had our students working with different types of technology that could maximize the use of their creative skills.

The problems we encountered with our project had little to do with the kid-friendly software (Kidpix, Kidspiration, Card Shop Plus).  We were able to teach lessons using these software programs with little problems and high success among our students.  Most of our problems revolved around the web cam.  Being able to trouble shoot the exact problem and then seek assistance in fixing it was perhaps our largest roadblock. 

If I was to do this unit again there are very few things I would change.  Rather, I would add lessons to it in order to develop the teaching of the elements of fiction further.  By this I am referring to including a lesson for each individual element of fiction. 

 I gained an incredible amount of knowledge during this project.  My knowledge of Macintosh's is much greater than it was prior to participating in MITTEN, as is my knowledge of the software and hardware we implemented in our lessons.  I feel using technology in the classroom is imperative to today's society.  As teachers we need to give our students the tools to succeed, and how better to offer those tools than through the use of technology.