This will be my final blog of the summer schedule. This is not intended to be a complete reflection of the entire semester. That reflection will appear on my ePortfolio site under NETS Teaching Standards.
I want to say as an introduction that I am emotionally drained after finishing my projects for this class and also dealing with student advisors over which classes to take in the Fall. I bring this up as supporting evidence of why I had to switch all of my writings that said I would graduate in December of '11. (Seriously, I have been telling potential employers for six months that I would have my degree in December.) Instead I will graduate in May '12; and I am not happy about it at all. Unless I am supposed to be some kind of mind reader -- or have access to a year's worth of class schedules at hand -- this was not due to a mistake on my part. I messaged my advisor many times between October '10 and May '11 about my schedule. At no point did the advisor warn me of what was to come. The bottom line is the classes I need this fall are all offered, but they're all offered in the final eight weeks; and I can't take that many classes during one eight-week period. What's more, none of the classes I need to graduate are offered during the first eight weeks of the Spring semester either. I could graduate in December if I took a class I had no interest in, merely to get the three semester hours; but I wouldn't want to do that, especially at the graduate level. So I am looking to May as my graduation.
Back to the recent tasks at hand. The NETS project was good. It gave me a great way to gauge the entire semester. I was surprised how many tools and resources we had covered. Then when I thought again, of all the nights during the first four or five weeks when I literally was bent over with my head in my hands not knowing what to do next. As I believed then, it all worked out. But I still feel like I missed something somewhere.
This blog was a big part of the process, and I have enjoyed writing it. The length and frequency of a web log fits my writing and thinking style very well. My Delicious bookmarks have been turned in; and I am a little surprised -- as I looked at my peers pages -- that I actually finished with quite a few bookmarks. Delicious is a great tool that I plan on using for a long time. Not only is it comprehensive, the fact that there is a 'Tag It' icon in my bookmarks bar makes it incredibly easy to add at a moment's notice.
Even as I put the final touches on my final NETS reflection, I know that I'm a long way from finished. I'll still be working on my ePortfolio site, which is my web page that I refer potential employers to. I still have four classes to go before I graduate; and I am assuming most if not all will be as difficult as this one has been. It's not that we got a huge amount of work for this class, it's the way it was given to us that threw me off. I just couldn't keep my brain around it.
I do want to say how much I have enjoyed getting to know Dr. Bass and all of my classmates. The only problem is I will competing with these classmates for job openings over the next few years.
No comments:
Post a Comment