A Rewarding Digital Journey
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I decided to apply to Michigan State University in the Master of Arts Educational Technology Program (Fall 2010) after researching similar programs at other universities. I was working full time at De La Salle, part time at a Community College and I was starting and mentoring the Robotics Club at De La Salle. I knew I wanted to earn my Master’s in Technology and when I found this program at Michigan State and it was online I knew this was the one for me. I immediately applied. I started off by completing the Certificate Program in the spring of 2011. I enjoyed learning about so many new technologies in my first three classes I decided to register for the summer cohort and completed three more classes. I learned different approaches, methods and how to bring these practices into my classroom. I now use technology to differentiate my instruction to enhance my students' learning by introducing and providing resources, tools and aid them in collaborating and working together in meaningful ways.
My passion is to inspire my students and provide them with an education that is going to promote their lifelong learning skills. One goal is to incorporate fun Friday’s into my classes where the students will learn about a new technology each week.
I knew as soon as I started my first class at MSU that our students and faculty at De La Salle were falling behind in using technology in the classroom. I was excited to share my new technology knowledge with my students, family and co-workers. I wanted to be able to help implement new technology into their everyday lives. I had no idea there was so much to learn and how much I would benefit from this program. I wanted the students to be familiar with more then one online class (all that is offered), understand what cloud computing is and how beneficial it is in school and in the business world, how to use google apps, blogs, podcasts, how to make fun interactive presentations and feel good about learning and using new technology not only improve their skills using Microsoft Word and PowerPoint before they graduate.
My personal growth has grown tremendously in just over a year. I plan to continue to explore technology tools and enroll in professional development to keep me updated with the new vast amount of tools that are becoming available. I now feel like I am a reliable resource to my students and faculty. The MAET program has given me the opportunity to develop and learn new technology skills, grow as a teacher, problem solve, create and integrate technology into my classroom.
My passion is to inspire my students and provide them with an education that is going to promote their lifelong learning skills. One goal is to incorporate fun Friday’s into my classes where the students will learn about a new technology each week.
I knew as soon as I started my first class at MSU that our students and faculty at De La Salle were falling behind in using technology in the classroom. I was excited to share my new technology knowledge with my students, family and co-workers. I wanted to be able to help implement new technology into their everyday lives. I had no idea there was so much to learn and how much I would benefit from this program. I wanted the students to be familiar with more then one online class (all that is offered), understand what cloud computing is and how beneficial it is in school and in the business world, how to use google apps, blogs, podcasts, how to make fun interactive presentations and feel good about learning and using new technology not only improve their skills using Microsoft Word and PowerPoint before they graduate.
My personal growth has grown tremendously in just over a year. I plan to continue to explore technology tools and enroll in professional development to keep me updated with the new vast amount of tools that are becoming available. I now feel like I am a reliable resource to my students and faculty. The MAET program has given me the opportunity to develop and learn new technology skills, grow as a teacher, problem solve, create and integrate technology into my classroom.
This Is Only The Beginning
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When I started this program my social networking skills were limited to email and facebook. Over the past year I have not only learned about other social networking I have also been exposed to a whole new way of sharing and researching and implementing technology into my classroom. I have discovered what the true meaning of a life long learner. As I complete the Master of Arts in Educational Technology Program I realize I never want to stop learning. I have enjoyed my journey through this program and enjoy sharing my knowledge with others and also learning from them, this is the main reason I became a teacher. Technology has definitely encouraged me to continue learning new ways to demonstrate and encourage life long learning to my students, colleagues and friends.
I will continue to educate myself through the web, professional development, online, collaboration, and face to face learning. Completing this program online, makes me feel I have the student and teachers perspective on what it takes to participate in a successful online program. I plan to design a fully functional online class to encourage and deliver the online experience to my students. Recorded lessons will also be added to all of my class sites which will give the students accessibility to view at their convenience.
I have learned about technology ranging from blogs to developing an online class and designing my own websites, I have experienced the technology by completing class projects such as developing interactive powerpoints, tutorials, collaboration tools (e.i. skype, google docs, join.me) and making presentations using prezi, by implemented the technology not only into my classroom for a better understanding of the subject I have also incorporated these tools into my everyday life.
During the MAET program we explored new technologies, learned how to use these tools, experimented with the technologies and learned how to incorporate these tools into a life long learning adventure. My goal is to excite students about their education and be able to not only teach them subject material but to give them opportunities to explore, create, and display their work by demonstrating what they have learned and giving them new tools to provide them with multiple opportunities to present their mastery of the skills they have learned.
As I reflect on my education over the past year I know my journey will not end after graduation, it is only the foundation of what is still to come. I feel this program has opened doors for me as a teacher and as a professional within the technology world. As a teacher I need to share this knowledge with other teachers so they are also equipped to pass their knowledge along to as many students as possible. The collaboration with other teachers will make learning endless with the ever changing technology world.
I will continue to educate myself through the web, professional development, online, collaboration, and face to face learning. Completing this program online, makes me feel I have the student and teachers perspective on what it takes to participate in a successful online program. I plan to design a fully functional online class to encourage and deliver the online experience to my students. Recorded lessons will also be added to all of my class sites which will give the students accessibility to view at their convenience.
I have learned about technology ranging from blogs to developing an online class and designing my own websites, I have experienced the technology by completing class projects such as developing interactive powerpoints, tutorials, collaboration tools (e.i. skype, google docs, join.me) and making presentations using prezi, by implemented the technology not only into my classroom for a better understanding of the subject I have also incorporated these tools into my everyday life.
During the MAET program we explored new technologies, learned how to use these tools, experimented with the technologies and learned how to incorporate these tools into a life long learning adventure. My goal is to excite students about their education and be able to not only teach them subject material but to give them opportunities to explore, create, and display their work by demonstrating what they have learned and giving them new tools to provide them with multiple opportunities to present their mastery of the skills they have learned.
As I reflect on my education over the past year I know my journey will not end after graduation, it is only the foundation of what is still to come. I feel this program has opened doors for me as a teacher and as a professional within the technology world. As a teacher I need to share this knowledge with other teachers so they are also equipped to pass their knowledge along to as many students as possible. The collaboration with other teachers will make learning endless with the ever changing technology world.
Challenge Me
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The fall of 2010 I decided to enroll in the Educational Technology Certificate Program at Michigan State University. I knew very little about technology but knew I had to keep up with the ever changing world. I had been teaching Engineering and Programming classes at De La Salle Collegiate High School (DLS) for five years but felt as if something was missing. My husband was sent to Japan to work and my kids were nearly grown. I had plenty of time to dedicate towards my education. I researched a few universities before I decided on the online program at MSU. First, I started with the Certificate Program that consisted of three courses. I was able to earn my Certificate in two semesters. Then it was time to make a decision if I wanted to apply for the Master of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET) program. My three Certificate classes were part of the Master’s program, it was perfect I could earn my degree from a great university and it was totally online, including my books! My goal was to learn about new technologies and to introduce to my students and encourage them to want to learn. The more I learned during the certificate program the more I knew this was the program I wanted to pursue. Not only did it teach me about new technologies but it also provided me with the knowledge on how I could utilize these technologies into my classroom. It was the way I liked to learn, to be creative, and the flexibility of when I wanted to learn and the options on how I wanted to present what I learned.
I did not always know I wanted to be a teacher. My career started as a Design Engineer in the Detroit area. My father, sisters (3) and my husband are all in the Automotive Industry it was not a tuff decision to follow in their footsteps. It was a very lucrative business and I loved designing. After a few years I realized what I liked most about being a designer was learning about design and helping others learn. This is when I decided to return to school to earn my Teaching degree in Industrial Technology. I quit my contract job at General Motors (GM) with determination to return to school and strive to become an Engineering Teacher. One month after I quit GM, Macomb Community College (MCC) (where I had earned my Associate Degree in Design) had contacted me to teach the very same classes that I enjoyed while attending there. I was overjoyed I was teaching the classes I had already taken and attending classes online at Western Michigan University (WMU) towards my Teaching Certificate. As I taught part-time at MCC and continued taking classes at WMU I continued looking for teaching positions at a high school level. I accepted the teaching position at DLS for the 2005-2006 school year. Being a kinesthetic learner myself has influenced my decision on what type of teacher and subjects I wanted to teach. I feel this is why I have enjoyed my experiences throughout the program, all of my classes were hands on type of learning.
The MAET program has given me the opportunity to choose the classes that best fit my interests and that will help improve my skills and incorporate these tools into the type of classes I already teach. After earning my Educational Technology Certificate I decided to attend the summer cohort that incorporated three elective classes. I was able to transfer one graduate level class that I had already taken at Wayne State University and I finished my program with two electives and my capstone course in the spring of 2012. I have to admit the program kept me motivated and wanting to learn more I never got bored and the classes where set up the same so there was not a learning curve at the beginning of each course. I was able to finish the whole program in less then two years.
The certificate program (CEP-810, CEP-811 and CEP_812) was an introduction to technology tools. There were many tools to explore and experiment with through out the program. The courses introduced the tools but then you had assignments that you had to incorporate your technologies into, showing that you have mastered the tools and displayed your skill level. The more I learned in the certificate portion of this program the more I felt I needed to share with my peers. Whether it was during a department meeting or more informal meetings I would share what I was learning. One day I was sharing a presentation that I had made using prezi to one of my classes and one of my students enjoyed it so much he used it to do a presentation in his English class. The English teacher was so impressed with this presentation tool she came to me to inquire more information on this tool, she now has this tool as an option as a presentation tool in her class. I showed a history teacher how cool blabbersize was to have his students use to present historian figures to his class. One of my favorite tools is Jing, I use it to make short video screen casts for my students to review if they are absent or just need a refresher on the exercise we worked on previously. By posting these video’s online to our school’s learning community management system makes this easy for the students to view from any computer at their convenience.
Some of my other favorite technologies I explored were blogs, twitter, google docs, interactive powerpoints, podcast and glogster, not only did I have fun learning about these tools the assignments had me incorporate some of my previous knowledge and my curriculum that I was using in class to build upon. I used my new skills to make my lessons even better and more exciting for my students. The interactive powerpoint assignment included questions that the students had retrieved from previous experiences, they had more then one answer to choose from and depending if they answered correctly or not was if they moved on or had the option to go back and review the material. The project included fun pictures, movies, sounds, and buttons to push this made the lesson so much more fun for my students. Another tool I like to use in my class is glogster, it is an electronic poster. I have my freshmen make a poster about themselves they can include pictures, podcasts, video’s, text and clip art. Glogster is also a great tool to use in any subject where traditional poster board posters may have previously been used. This works out great because the students are able to pull youtube.com videos and search the web for research and pictures for instance if they were doing a poster about frogs there are so many video’s to choose from and pictures they can include rather then drawing them if the student does not enjoy drawing. It gives them options on what and how they would like to present their work.
The summer cohort consisted of Learning in School and Other Settings (CEP-800) Technology and Leadership (CEP-815) and Approaches and Educational Research (CEP-822) was not about learning new tools it was project based and working in teams. We divided up into teams ranging from high technology skill levels to low technology skill levels. It wasn’t until I was in the summer cohort that I realized how important and good for the students it was to work in groups. My previous educational experience was not team oriented. I learned so much from my peers over the summer. The three most influential words used during the summer were explore, create, and share.
During the summer cohort we researched and discussed the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK). I realized how much my classes already target UDL and the key types of flexibility. Presenting the material in several formats and media, allows multiple formats for students to express themselves and allow many ways to facilitate student interests and motivation. This program has helped me to recognize how other students learn, I feel I am on the right track. When I present my material I try to target all types of learners with written material, demonstrations, drawings, videos etc. When I look back at my previous education I now feel it was not me that “just didn’t get it” it was the way I was being taught. Teachers just lectured or we read from the book there was no hands, group or interesting assignments that made us think in different ways. No one ever made us look at things “outside” the box. This has convinced me to add some of these types of assignments to my classroom. Teachers that understand UDL and the TPACK methods and practice these methods will prove to be more valuable. By implementing the whole package, technology integration, the subject content and pedagogy they will improve the learning of our students.
Here are a few ideas that I will incorporate into my classroom. First, the ice breaker assignment “Just Shoot Me”, we divided into pairs and were told to go out and shoot a picture of our partners doing something or near something that explains us or our interests, our technology used was a camera or cell phone and we uploaded the pictures to picasa (a photo sharing website). Another assignment is the “Nature Pictures” where we were divided into larger groups and sent out to explore nature or the campus and take a picture of a specific letter, not a traditional letter but a natural element that looks like a letter. We could not alter the letter in anyway (e.i. we could take a picture of a tree if our letter was a “Y” and the tree took the shape of the letter “Y”). When we returned to class the letters were combined to make a specific word.
Teaching K-12 Students Online (CEP-820) has prepared me to implement an online class at DLS. Not only was this course designed to set up an online course, you tested and compared Learning Management systems, I designed my class with “Weebly”. I focused on meeting UDL standards, ease of navigation, course objectives, communication, and assessment. With the growing number of colleges offering online classes and full degrees I feel it is necessary to give high school students the tools and experiences they need to become a vital competitive student. My ultimate goal for the near future is to develop a fully functional online course. This will give my student a great opportunity to experience online learning before they continue their education at a university. This class will be offered as an elective which in turn will free up their school day so they could ultimately take more classes. Michigan requires students to experience an online class this before they graduate, DLS currently only offers one course. When I polled my students last year all my students I polled were not happy with the experience they had. With the current online course I can improve their experience with the knowledge and experience’s I have received from this course and from what I have learned through out this program. Last year I tested out a lesson on my students, I had raving reviews, they were asking for more assignments to be added online and I noticed a peek in the discussions on the subject’s that I posted.
CEP-807 Capstone in Educational Technology is the final course of the Master’s Program. I created a website using “Weebly”. The objective of the course was to reflect on what I learned over the past two years and where I am going. I enjoyed every class and truly had fun adding projects and papers to the class pages on my site. Reflecting on what I have learned and applied to my classroom and my everyday life has been a rewarding experience. Although it was not easy and sometimes quick paced I enjoyed the challenge. I am proud to say I earned my Master’s in Educational Technology at Michigan State University. I look forward to using my skills to help others learn and integrate technology into their lives.