Our final days of classes were this last week. Next week is finals week and while I’ll be in the classroom assisting students in their final submissions, many of the students finished their coursework this week and are done.

I taught (facillitated, really) an education course — teaching technology in the classroom. Most of the students are going on to become elementary school teachers. I really think that most of them are going to be really good teachers and that their students are going to love them dearly. I know that I will miss working with them and learned as much from them as I hope they learned from me.

Taylor Mali speaks about what teachers make. It’s not about the monetary rewards. There is so much more to it. I barely made any money off of this course but I got so much out of it.

One of the assignments in our class was to create a digital story, reflecting on whatever subject the student wanted to reflect upon. One of the students chose to reflect on being a teacher and posted the video to YouTube (so I’m not breaking any FERPA laws here). I think she sums it up so well.

While I may not be teaching children in the classroom (now or in the future), the reasons are the same. I loved seeing the students get excited about mastering a new technology. I loved seeing them think about the applications of the technology and about the pedagogical benefits of some of these tools. I loved going in to freshman English classrooms and sharing both rhetorical and technological issues with them while they finished up their semester.

I found out something this semester: I liked being in the classroom and really enjoyed sharing my knowledge with others and learning from them as well.