Katie Reddington

Internship Final Reflection

Fall 2015, EDET 650
December 14, 2015
Lessons learned
Technology integration is becoming more and more prevalent in the
elementary classroom in our society today. In developing an idea for
my internship and throughout the planning, I hoped to gain insight
about successful ways technology is utilized in the classroom and ways
it can improve students academic performance. In researching for my
annotated bibliography, I found many ways schools are using
technology to address students engagement and achievement. For
example, in the article, The effects of technology-mediated immediate
feedback on kindergarten students attitudes, emotions, engagement,
and learning outcomes during literacy skills development it is stated
that the applications presented which provided immediate feedback
actually supported the learning of literacy skills (Muis, Ranellucci,
Trevors, & Duffy, 2015). This information taught me that research has
actually suggested programs similar to the ones I used during my
internship are shown to have a positive effect. My goals for this
internship were to develop and refine my skills, knowledge and ability
to define the key components of each online program. In addition I
wanted to create a flyer to encourage parents to attend a training for
online resources and design and develop an informative presentation
for students parents about the resources used at Myrtle Beach
Elementary School. Finally, my goals were to develop five technology
based tutorials that were user friendly, create a YouTube Channel for
parents to access the materials, and create a QR to quickly bring
parents to this YouTube Channel.
In completing this internship, I truly learned about the effect
technology can have on student engagement and if the programs I am
currently using for my students are the best for their needs. I learned
from my mentor, Terra Bodkins the Digital Integration Specialist at my
school, various tools I could use during my internship which assisted
me with completing my goals and in the future with my profession. I
was able to apply the ADDIE model of instructional design to a different
setting, which I have never done before. I experienced having to
analyze the needs of parents and learned the best way to present the
instructional material. I gained a lot of confidence in completing this
internship because the only way to complete it was dive right in and
get my feet wet with holding a parent-training workshop. These
experiences made me feel that I am capable of holding another
workshop on online resources in the future for parents or other

colleagues. Overall, I firmly believe I have expanded my knowledge

and skills with numerous programs and topics in technology.
Difficulties I encountered and the conclusions I reached as a
result
Along my journey towards achieving my goals, there were times when I
was faced with difficulties I had to persevere through. One of the
challenges I came across was when I was searching for an application
to use for my instructional tutorials. Initially, I was planning to use the
application of Screencast-O-Matic to record the videos, however this
application was not working properly with my computer. The
microphone was not properly picking up sound and my Mac laptop was
too out of date for the software which was the newest version needed.
My mentor suggested I use this application, however I had to turn to a
second option. I began exploring QuickTIme which is available on my
Mac laptop. I have never used this program before but found it to be
very user friendly and easily saved the videos after each recording.
Another difficulty I encountered was when I recorded each tutorial and
needed to add on additional information. I planned to upload the
videos after they were recorded on QuickTIme directly into Youtube,
however I realized it was challenging for me to have a perfect ten
minute recording without any errors as well as the computer not
loading properly. I decided to create smaller clips then merge them
using iMovie. In deciding to use iMovie, I was actually very pleased
with the result because it allowed me to add a title slide and transitions
from clip to clip. The use of iMovie created tutorials that flowed very
well and were appealing to the parents viewing.
Successes achieved and the new insights I gained from
achieving them
Although the timeframe of my internship was only eight weeks, I was
able to accomplish many of my goals and was happy to see the end
results. One success I had throughout this internship was the ability to
gather the needs of parents and hold a parent-training workshop. This
is something I have never done before and it was definitely out of my
comfort zone. I often feel very anxious when presenting and find
public speaking challenging at times. I reviewed the material many
times prior to presenting to ensure I felt confident before the training
began. During the parent workshop, I informed the parents of the
importance of using each program at home and that they can strongly
impact student performance. I gained this information from the article,
Teacher ratings of student engagement with educational software
which stated that teachers found a high correlation between students
who were engaged in the technology programs in class with their
performance on standardized tests (Bangert-Drowns & Pyke, 2002).
This was a vital point to mention during my workshop because there is

an extreme focus on student test scores at my school and parents are

often interested in ways their children can improve their scores. In
reading this article and through my own experience, I was able to
successfully relay this information. I also worked a great deal with
creating instructional tutorials using two different programs. I have
never made a YouTube channel with tutorials for parents and was
happy to see the way it turned out. I feel more proficient with using
iMovie and uploading the projects I create onto YouTube. I felt
successful when viewing the videos and hearing that I was able to
articulate myself clearly. This is something I can occasionally struggle
with, and with many hours of practice and planning, I was able to
produce five parent friendly tutorials, which can be viewed at any time.
Things I would have done differently next time and why
If I could redo this internship and the projects I created along the way I
would have done a few things differently. To begin with, I would have
planned to conduct two parent-training workshops. I would have done
this so I could have gone more in-depth into each program. My
principal assigned the date of the workshop I held and with the way
our schedule was set up I was not able to hold a second one. In the
future, I would have liked to conduct an additional one to gain more
feedback with parents using the programs at home and hopefully
attract additional parents who were unable to attend the first training.
Another element I would have done differently was selecting a different
program to record the instructional tutorials on. I would have liked to
use a program that allowed me to include arrows to show where
parents had to click on the website. In addition, next time I would set
up my contract differently and space out the due dates I set for myself.
I realized that I overworked myself the week of the parent-training
workshop and did not account for how many hours of work went into
hosting this. On my contract I set the due dates for two of my tutorial
videos as the same week of the parent-training workshop. The first ten
entries for my annotated bibliography were due at the beginning of
this week as well, which really overwhelmed me. In the future, I need
to look more closely at my calendar to be sure I did not put too much
into one week.
Interesting ways my experience relates to previous course
work
This internship required me to pull my knowledge from previous course
work. First of all, when completing my annotated bibliography I
thought back to all that I learned in EDRM700 with the introduction to
research. I did not expect to have difficulty finding a variety of articles
on my topic but I unexpectedly encountered some trouble finding
articles once it came to the second set of ten entries that were due.
Having the knowledge from EDRM700 assisted me with reading the

articles and the graphs presented in each source. In completing this

internship, I also used the ADDIE model, which I learned previously in
several courses. This was especially true during EDET 746 when we
had to create a staff development program with the ADDIE model as
our foundation. In relating this model back to my internship, I
unexpectedly was often stuck on the development phase. I spent a
great amount of time outlining each video for the design phase, yet I
experienced some conflicts when recording my videos. My internet
sometimes would take longer to load and the page that I noted for
parents to click on would not appear. This caused me to have to redo
the segment I was currently working on. Generally, I felt using the
ADDIE model was a strong framework for this internship to be sure all
of the needs were met for the participants involved. It reminded me to
pay careful attention to each phase and forces me to really dig deep.
Finally, the work I completed in EDET603 really assisted me with my
projects. This course required me to create screen recordings, which
was a big part of my internship. If I had not known how to use various
programs or had experience with creating videos, I would have had a
lot more difficulty completing my videos. I was thankful I had this
background knowledge before beginning my projects.
Strong emotions I experienced and why
One of the strongest emotions I experienced was the feeling of
excitement. When I was reading for the annotated bibliography, I
became very excited as a teacher to find that people are actually
stating technology can positively impact students academic
performance and engagement at the elementary level. In the article,
Using VoiceThread to Promote Learning Engagement the authors
stated how VoiceThread allows students to collaborate and record their
thoughts in addition to commenting on other students work (Brunvand
& Byrd, 2011). This excited me to read because I have used
applications similar to this and many have stated they are unsure
whether they are beneficial or not. I also found many other successes
with technology in the classroom throughout my research. As well as
feeling excitement about my findings, I was excited to see I was able to
create a parent YouTube channel and a QR code which brought the
parents right to this website. The parents at my workshop were
amazed to see what a QR code did and I had never created one prior to
this internship.
Another emotion I felt was anxiety, during various parts of my
internship. As I mentioned previously, I did not plan as well as I should
have with my due dates for each tutorial video. I often felt I was
becoming unorganized and behind on creating my tutorials. I ended
up becoming a few days behind with uploading my last video because
the workload during the week of my parent-training workshop became

immense. Even though I experienced the feeling of anxiety, it was all

worth it in the end. When I was able to view the feedback from the
parents who attended my workshop and see the finished YouTube
channel, I realized anything that is worthwhile is going to take a lot of
hard work and with hard work some anxiety is bound to occur!
Overall Self Reflection
In looking back at the past eight weeks, I feel that I made significant
progress throughout my internship. I was able to meet with my mentor
and learn from her and see the work she does in her field. She
provided me with ideas and suggestions I would not have thought of to
have a successful course. I was able to complete all of the learning
goals I set for myself in addition to gaining confidence in various ways
with technology. In reflecting on this experience, there are elements
that I had mentioned previously, that I would have done differently the
next time and ways I could improve for the future. I was able to reflect
on each experience and at times went back and made corrections
along the way. In writing this reflection, it made me think about how
much I truly did learn throughout this internship. I can say I have
worked with programs I have never worked with before, conducted a
parent-training workshop, gained insight from various sources about
technology and student engagement, and was able to work with the
digital integration specialist of my district. In the future, I aspire to
obtain a position such as my mentors, which was one of the main
reasons I enjoyed learning from her the past eight weeks. In working
with the programs I used for this internship, researching each one, and
the information I learned from my annotated bibliography, I can
conclude technology does indeed have a positive impact on students,
when implemented effectively in the classroom.

References
Bangert-Drowns, R. L., & Pyke, C. (2002). Teacher ratings of student engagement with
educational software: An exploratory study. Educational Technology Research
and Development, 50(2), 23-37. Retrieved from
[Link]
q=Teacher+ratings+of+student+engagement+with+educational+software
%3A+An+exploratory+study&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C41
Brunvand, S., & Byrd, S. (2011). Using VoiceThread to Promote Learning Engagement
and Success for All Students. Teaching Exceptional Children, 43(4), 28-37.
Retrieved from
[Link]
sid=581fc375-8b74-4d10-a4ec4a83274b16a0%40sessionmgr4005&vid=18&hid=4108
Muis, K. R., Ranellucci, J., Trevors, G., & Duffy, M. C. (2015). The effects of
technology-mediated immediate feedback on kindergarten students' attitudes,
emotions, engagement and learning outcomes during literacy skills development.
Learning & Instruction, 381-13. doi:10.1016/[Link].2015.02.001.
Retrieved from
[Link]
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