While completing this assignment, I grew more and more in love with this topic. The idea of enhancing literacy skills in students through technology is phenomenal and creating this website gave me an opportunity to explore this topic and share my findings with others. At first this project seemed very difficult considering you had to create your own website, pick out templates, what styles you liked and what frame you wanted, but after a while and after getting the hang of it, I fell in love with this project and creating something personal that I feel so strongly about and sharing it with others.

During the process of this project, I learned how to search and discover scholarly articles regarding my topic of interest through the resources the University of North Texas has provided. With search engines such as the UNT library and Google Scholars, I discovered published articles that have been done by amazing professors and doctors and their intensive research and findings. The process of this discovery was amazing and opened my knowledge into different fields that I was not familiar with in the past. After having read through the articles and annotated them, my interest levels of this specific topic of implementing technology to enhance literacy in schools has widened tremendously. I also found that in that research, there are key details that need to be read to fully translate the research that has been done and really understand the purpose and discoveries that were uncovered. I learned that it takes a lot of dedication and determination to create a study like the ones I read about in the articles and its brilliant considering it can significantly help others in their field of work.

Discovering the videos needed for this project was loads of fun! I really enjoyed this part of the portfolio considering I connect more with images when learning new information so to see the technology being implemented into the classrooms and seeing real life examples helped me piece together my information. I was however, difficult to find multiple videos that were specifically about my topic and elementary schools in general. I found more videos on implementing technology in education in a broader perspective. I was focusing more in the elementary field so I ran into some trouble finding credible resources in that regard. Upon this, I learned a lot about myself in how persistent I can be when I am determined to find something. I kept searching and even though it took longer than anticipated, I finally came across a couple in depth videos in the perfect bracket that I was hoping for.

The technology aspect of this portfolio was the part I loved the most. I was able to discover fun and entertaining apps and websites that teachers can use in the classroom daily. Finding these cool technological aspects that are easy to include in literacy lessons inspired me to create my own online library for my future classroom. I love the idea of using eBooks that allow students to read aloud, record their voices, and even be offered an audio version of the text, I feel that is very beneficial to the student in multiple aspects to help enhance literacy skills. Having alternative methods of reading peeks the interests of younger readers and can inspire them to continue reading. Having this portion of the portfolio as a requirement was very beneficial and I learned a tremendous about and will continue to research more technology tools for my own classroom!

Lastly, the teacher tips were also a very fun aspect of this lesson! I found so many interesting tips and tricks on how and where to implement the technology tools into lessons. Having these tips will assist others in modifying their lessons to make their students a lot more eager to read! I know as being a future elementary teacher myself, that having a place where I can always refer to and have examples of fun and engaging lessons to incorporate is always beneficial so I hope that this site will be just as beneficial to others as it was for me to create!