Artifact Reflection: Artifact #1 Collaborative Project

                One artifact that I created during this class was my Road Trip Project. The purpose of this assignment was to create a project where students would be working collaboratively. I chose this artifact because I am proud of the lesson I was able to create and am excited to use this assignment in my classroom during the upcoming school year.

                This artifact was one of the first assignments for this class. As such it held some challenges for me. One aspect of the assignment was creating a classroom site and utilizing a collaborative web tool. I have worked primarily in Canvas during the past few years, however, this seemed like a good opportunity to expand my knowledge of other technology resources. At first, I found the project challenging in that I was overwhelmed with options available and trying to determine what would be the best fit for my vision of my class site and the accompanying project. However, once I decided on a Google Site, I was impressed with how user friendly it was. I was happy with the aesthetics of the site, and I really felt that it made my project accessible to my students. Similarly, I struggled to determine the appropriate digital resource to best meet the needs of the project. However, once I got started with the Padlet, it appeared to be a good fit.

                I am excited to use this project with my fourth grade class this year. The social studies curriculum centers on identifying the five themes of geography of the five regions in the United States. It will be my first year teaching this curriculum and I believed this project will help get my students excited about learning more about the regions.

                Overall, I feel that this artifact is a great example of how my understanding about Educational Technology has improved. I feel that I took at topic (5 regions) that is already an element of current curriculum, and was able to transform it with technology to encourage a better understanding for my students.