As I wrap up this semes­ter in EDCI568 – Tech­nol­o­gy and Inno­va­tion in Edu­ca­tion, I’m sur­prised by how sig­nif­i­cant­ly my think­ing and approach to tech­nol­o­gy-inte­grat­ed learn­ing and teach­ing have evolved. The course intro­duced valu­able con­cepts and encour­aged me to think care­ful­ly about incor­po­rat­ing them mean­ing­ful­ly into my wood­work teach­ing prac­tice. I even tru­ly enjoyed the for­mat that evolved with record­ed inter­views that we could watch on our own terms, paus­ing and note-tak­ing when con­ve­nient.

Learn­ing about mis­in­for­ma­tion and dis­in­for­ma­tion was eye-open­ing. Explor­ing the SIFT method (Stop, Inves­ti­gate, Find trust­ed sources, and Trace claims) quick­ly became valu­able in my class­room. Ini­tial­ly, my stu­dents resist­ed ver­i­fy­ing infor­ma­tion beyond their first Google result. How­ev­er, mem­o­rable exam­ples like the Pacif­ic North­west Tree Octo­pus hoax and the Cana­di­an “house hip­po” pub­lic ser­vice announce­ment helped my ELL stu­dents under­stand why it’s impor­tant to eval­u­ate online infor­ma­tion care­ful­ly. Inte­grat­ing dig­i­tal lit­er­a­cy activ­i­ties became a way to encour­age stu­dents to think care­ful­ly, fos­ter curios­i­ty, and build informed skep­ti­cism. It rein­forced my belief that lit­er­a­cy instruc­tion must go beyond tra­di­tion­al read­ing and writ­ing to include authen­tic dig­i­tal con­texts.

Anoth­er sig­nif­i­cant take­away involved explor­ing open edu­ca­tion and Cre­ative Com­mons licens­ing. Pre­vi­ous­ly, I relied heav­i­ly on tra­di­tion­al text­books and sub­scrip­tion-based resources for wood­work­ing plans and teach­ing mate­ri­als. Dis­cov­er­ing open­ly licensed edu­ca­tion­al con­tent com­plete­ly changed my mind­set. It inspired me to cre­ate and share wood­work­ing project plans and resources freely with oth­er teach­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly those work­ing with mul­ti­lin­gual stu­dents. For my ELL stu­dents, open­ly acces­si­ble mate­ri­als enable quick­er adap­ta­tions, trans­la­tions, and per­son­al­ized sup­ports. This phi­los­o­phy aligns close­ly with my com­mit­ment to col­lab­o­ra­tion, gen­eros­i­ty, and inclu­sive prac­tice.

The top­ic of acces­si­bil­i­ty also deeply influ­enced how I now design instruc­tion­al mate­ri­als and dig­i­tal resources. Under­stand­ing con­cepts like pro­vid­ing alter­na­tive text, clear for­mat­ting, intu­itive nav­i­ga­tion, and uni­ver­sal design reshaped my teach­ing approach. This knowl­edge made me rethink how my ELL stu­dents and those with diverse learn­ing needs engage with dig­i­tal con­tent. Acces­si­bil­i­ty means more than just com­pli­ance; it fun­da­men­tal­ly means inclu­siv­i­ty. It rein­forced my com­mit­ment to cre­at­ing fair and sup­port­ive learn­ing envi­ron­ments so every stu­dent can achieve their fullest poten­tial.

Last­ly, exper­i­ment­ing with dig­i­tal anno­ta­tions opened new ways for reflec­tive prac­tice in my class­room. Encour­ag­ing stu­dents to anno­tate their own wood­work­ing project plans direct­ly with­in Google Docs led to deep­er self-assess­ment and engage­ment. I was gen­uine­ly sur­prised at the depth of insight that emerged. Stu­dents who pre­vi­ous­ly hes­i­tat­ed to par­tic­i­pate oral­ly found con­fi­dence anno­tat­ing dig­i­tal­ly. For my ELLs, anno­tat­ing dig­i­tal­ly in their home lan­guages and trans­lat­ing back to Eng­lish allowed thought­ful reflec­tions that weren’t pos­si­ble in tra­di­tion­al for­mats. This remind­ed me of the impor­tance of var­ied strate­gies to sup­port stu­dent voice and mean­ing­ful par­tic­i­pa­tion.

Reflect­ing on my final Mas­ter’s paper/project, Design­ing for Suc­cess: A Tech­nol­o­gy-Inte­grat­ed Approach to Sup­port­ing ELLs in Wood­work­ing Edu­ca­tion, I can clear­ly see how these top­ics shaped its evo­lu­tion. Inte­grat­ing SIFT and dig­i­tal lit­er­a­cy strate­gies now ensures my stu­dents, espe­cial­ly ELLs, engage thought­ful­ly with online resources. Open edu­ca­tion encour­aged me to design resources that are share­able and easy to adapt, acces­si­bil­i­ty guid­ed inclu­sive mate­r­i­al design, and dig­i­tal anno­ta­tions pro­vid­ed deep­er, mul­ti­lin­gual stu­dent reflec­tions.

This semes­ter rein­forced that mean­ing­ful inno­va­tion involves inten­tion­al­ly embed­ding tech­nol­o­gy with­in teach­ing to enrich stu­dent learn­ing, engage­ment, and empow­er­ment. It remind­ed me clear­ly that reflec­tive prac­tice in edu­ca­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy is key to mean­ing­ful trans­for­ma­tion in teach­ing and learn­ing.