IRLO Reflection

Creating my IRLO was an interesting process.  I looked at the program a few times after being introduced to it, trying to figure out how to use it, but had little luck.  I watched some of the tutorials that Professor Boyer suggested we watch and that helped a little bit, but I still felt lost on where and how exactly to start.  On one of my rare Saturdays off, I spent six or seven hours figuring out how to use the Scratch program and designing my IRLO.  The easiest part about this whole project was deciding the topic I was going to use for my IRLO because I had already done my interactive whiteboard lesson; I used the same topic.  Once I figured out how to use the program and what the different blocks actually did when I inserted them into my workspace, I actually enjoyed designing the IRLO.  I admit that it was tedious work the way I did mine, but it was worth the time and effort I put into it.  Sharing my IRLO with my peers helped because they gave me good feedback about ways to improve my IRLO and make it a little more interesting.  One suggestion I received was to insert music, which after I thought about it was a really good idea because it was pretty boring otherwise.  Getting feedback from my peers also prepared me to take constructive criticism from colleagues once I get a job teaching.  I may not always agree with the feedback I get, but I have to be able to take it and use it to improve whatever it is I am doing.  I never would have thought about designing my own question game on a computer had it not been for Professor Boyer assigning us this project.  Now that I have done it and know I can do it, I will be more likely to use a program like this in the future to create learning tools for my future classes.  I may also have my students design their own since I would now be able to help with basic problems that they may run across.  My design would make it easy for me to adapt it to any topic that I may be teaching in a science class.  I just asked questions and the students have to type in their answers, so I could easily just change the questions and answers that appear.  I’m glad I decided to do this project, along with all the other things that were part of the A contract because they took me outside my comfort zone and introduced me to new technology.  I also had the most fun with the projects from the A contract and I feel like that is something that I can take to my students if I want them to do projects similar to the ones I did in this class.  School should be fun for kids because if it’s not, kids are going to be less likely to pay attention and won’t learn anything.  This IRLO project especially has taught me that using technology in the classroom helps students stay engaged and makes learning fun.

 Background music by Kevin MacLeod