My name is Jesse Ducharme and I am currently enrolled in the education program at the University of Regina with a math major and physical education minor. A few things about me that I’d like you to know, I love travelling and I my dream travel location is anywhere in Germany. I love animals, but my favorite animal is a dog, which I have 2 of. Their names are Finn and Diesel. I also have 3 cats, named Salem, Randy, and Holly.

I’m very excited to be a part of the Educational Technology class because I need to learn more about incorporating technology in to my classroom. I believe that there are a lot of benefits to incorporating any form of technology into a classroom. It brings an unlimited amount of possibilities such as anonymous opinions. Students can be shy to speak up, which means you can use anonymous polls as a very powerful tool to include everyone in the class. Technology doesn’t stop there! Blog posts are another great way to encourage students to participate in your class. Having students reflect on the previous class or a reading prompt is an important way to track your students progress and ensure that they remain on track with the course material. Even though I’m supporting blogs, I actually have mixed feelings about them. On one side, they are great tools to help students understand materials in class and make sure they are on track. However, without proper instruction on how to use a blog, they can be a fairly negative tool. As an example, i was in a previous course where a blog was necessary, but I wasn’t taught how to use it and I got a worse mark based on my blog performance. This isn’t fair because I haven’t had the same opportunity that some students have for the blog project. With proper training, though, they are quite the great tool to use. I have the same feelings for social media use like Twitter. They are quite the useful tool if they are taught to be used properly. However, if not taught how to properly use, these social medias can be dangerous for students. I’m very excited to learn more about these different forms of technology in classrooms and how they are beneficial for students.