There are two significant take-aways for me.
First - the variety of software packages was illuminating. I tend to be a niche surfer and also get into a rut of not exploring software options enough. Several new programs are going to be liberally sprinkled throughout my curriculum (notably Screencast-o-matic, VoiceThread, and EtherPad).
Second - a sense of hope. It really gets discouraging to have to show the same teachers the exact same things (attachments in an e-mail, setting up Finals in the demographic program, using a laptop with a projector, how to use Google for gosh sake) over and over and over. It is just disheartening to hear that "it ain't broke - why fix it" complaint from teachers about technology use in the classroom invariably by teachers who curriculum/content/delivery is indeed broken. this class was a glimmer of hope - that there are many teachers out there willing to experiment - to try new things - to want to continually evolve and improve.
I think we all get stuck in our niches unless we make the effort to expose ourselves to new ideas. That's why I took this class, anyway. I also was in a rut with the types of online activities and resources that I was using, and I was really happy to learn about some of the same tools you mentioned, especially VoiceThread. It really is nice to know that there are other teachers struggling to figure this stuff out. Sometimes it seems like no one wants to try to use anything new, and the rest of the time if feel like I'm the last one to catch on! However, I have been talking about some of the ideas we learned about with my department, and there seems to be a lot of interest, so I would agree that this was time well spent.
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