Creating a blended course with the intent to engage students and allow them to learn more about the contents of what i means to dig deeper into their education excited me. As we began I enjoyed researching and figuring out the different ways that I could incorporate research and technology into their assignments and fun ways fro them to represent their ideas. This was a bit challenging to me seeing as I am a first grade teacher. My first graders are mostly seven years old with little to no experience with a computer or a chrome book. This obstacle was something that I had to take into account in order to create lesson plans that were based around a technology factor in the lesson. after much research, I found different websites that they could access off of sites that I could directly link to a google classroom. 

From my first lesson in module three, to my last lesson review in module eight, I found that my focus shifted more on the things students were doing to find the information rather than the inferences they were making after having the information. Let me explain. I was under the impression that my students would need to be able to read and comprehend every single thing they saw on a computer during their research. After much searching, I realized that they did not need to do that, but they did need to find their own sources and create an understanding for themselves on what that information meant. Utilizing tools such as restricted YouTube sights, Google Classroom, TikTok, and Canva allowed me to control what they were seeing as well as what needed to be added each day in order for them to understand the content. 

I created my assessments based on the things that my students do in my class now rather than shifting it to a blended course assessment that relies on creative content learning to drive their understanding. If I were to do it over again, I would have completely shifted the assessment to make it something that they can create and brainstorm on during class in order to practice their creative freedom. This would also give me an opportunity to see how much they were absorbing from the different technological tools that I allowed them to use. 

I think if I were to give this blended course to an older more mature audience, I would have been able to explore more technological advances that the students could use to help their understanding. Since my class is so young, I had to be cautious of the things we were doing and how I could restrict their searches to age appropriate content.