A Continued Path
Choosing the path of education, I chose to be a lifelong learner. As an educator, it is crucially important to keep up with the advancements in technology, trends, and ways of learning. Once I chose the path of education, I knew that my learning and teaching would continue to change and adapt with the times. With that said, I cannot say it has changed the way I had previously thought or imagined it would. It has changed in other ways such as staying connected in more ways than one but especially with social media: following other teacher’s blogs, teachers on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, using Teachers Pay Teachers, and Pinterest. I have continued my learning in various ways, always staying in touch, learning from others, but most importantly, I chose to continue my education by pursuing a masters degree at my alma mater, Michigan State University.
Knowing that I wanted to continue my education was the easy part; choosing which program I wanted to pursue was the difficult decision. Having a passion for teaching lower elementary, currently kindergarten, I know that literacy is an especially important skill to teach and teach well at this age. However, seeing the advancements in technology and it being at the fingertips of the majority of students, I wanted to learn how I could best use this to my advantage in the classroom to keep students engaged, motivated, and excited to learn. The idea was that building background knowledge on technology could help me to build more intriguing lessons that would drive my students to want to learn, be excited about learning, and revolve around all subject areas, not just one. At the age of 5, the first time many students step foot into a classroom, has the greatest impact on how they view school and education. I chose to take the path of obtaining a Master of Arts in Educational Technology so that I could help my students discover the possibilities in education while driving them to think at a higher-level, use technology because it’s not going away, and develop a love and passion to learn based on their interests and wondering.
In beginning my journey in the MAET program, I started with a basic course CEP 810: Teaching for Understanding with Technology. This course allowed me to think about my Personal Learning Network (PLN). I was able to discover all the areas, people, and places that I went to for information, help, and learning. Throughout the course, I was able to add to my PLN following more teachers and educators on different blogs, Twitter names, etc. This continuously led me to new findings that I was able to adapt in my classroom. One really useful tool that I was able to discover in this class was to YouTube something in order to “teach” myself how to complete a task. From learning how to set up a Microsoft Word document to exploring new technologies, and even knitting, YouTube was a wonderful answer for learning by doing. Of course I added YouTube to my PLN and since this course, I have used it multiple times to help teach myself something new. It has come in hand a lot for my personal uses and also for those in the classroom. For example, I keep a website for my class and sometimes it is difficult to move and manipulate the webpages, YouTube has helped me to be successful in keeping up the website. The use of YouTube continued to help me in the next course CEP 811: Adapting Innovative Technologies in Education. During this course, I had to purchase a Makey Makey kit. Not having any background knowledge on it myself, I turned to different social media to find out more information on how to use a Makey Makey, gain insight on how to use it, and also use others work to help stem some ideas of my own on how to use it in a kindergarten classroom. My PLN definitely came in to use during this course and continued to grow with finding more question and answer forums about Makey Makey, people to follow on Twitter, Instagram, and much more. In discussing my PLN and digging deeper into it, I got to take a closer look in CEP 800: Psychology of Learning in School and Other Settings at how teachers in my school were using technology in their own classrooms.
It was very interesting to read the anonymous responses of how my colleagues were using technology in their own classroom each day. Many teachers claimed to allow their students to use it each and every day, however, the use of technology tended to revolve around math and literacy games. There was little room for students to use their imagination and creativity to create products that portrayed their learning. This helped me to see and understand that just using technology may not be enough for students. The idea of higher-level thinking has been really pushed into the school systems today. What better way to invite kids to use their curiosity, passions, and interests to drive their learning? I find that giving students the option to show their learning has been quite successful. A lot of teaching needs to go into introducing new technologies, however, once students have a basis and understanding for how to manipulate the new technologies, it then gives them the freedom and choice to use their knowledge to create something really special. With the information that I obtained from the survey and everything I learned in my previous graduate courses, I took the time to send an email to my colleagues listing a few technologies that I have had the chance to explore and also invite them to use YouTube, social media, and their own PLN to gain more knowledge on new technologies, how others use the technologies, and to give it a try in their own classroom. With this idea in mind, in CEP 812: Applying Educational Technology Issues to Issues of Practice, I worked with a group to determine a wicked problem that we see happening in schools today.
My group and I came up with various issues that we see happening in schools today. The four main problems we established were amount of professional development for teachers, student-centered learning, flexible spaces and available technology, and teacher evaluations. The main concern we agreed on was the idea that teachers are bombarded with so many state tests, evaluations, professional development (that comes out of our own pockets), and yet we are left with very little room to create a classroom focused on student-centered learning, we have limited supplies and resources to give our students opportunities to learn using technology. I know in my own classroom I currently have 27 students with three computers and three iPads. This means that only six of my students at a time can be on the technology, making it extremely difficult to give each student an opportunity to learn with it. This hinders our students from having the opportunities to be creative and let their passions shine through their work using technology. With that said, as a group we decided upon a possible solution to these wicked problems. The full document can be found here. Mainly the findings showed that an effort needs to be made from inside and outside of the classroom creating a joint effort to best meet the needs of both students and teachers. In focusing on a more student-centered learning environment this helped to transform my thinking for the next course CEP 820: Teaching Students Online and how to keep them engaged, motivated, and excited to learn.
I have always had a passion to teach online. It is one of my goals as an educator to balance both a full time teaching job in a classroom and also teach part time online from the comfort of my home. I have such a great interest in teaching and in technology that I think this is something I could really be successful at and possibly go full time with. In CEP 820: Teaching Students Online, I had the opportunity to be the creator and let my creativity and passions flow during CEP 820. Never having the opportunity before to create an online course, I was a bit hesitant at where to begin. Often times, I think ‘how can I adapt this to kindergarten’; having some samples to look at helped my ideas flow as well as referring back to my PLN. I started with one of the main ideas that kindergartners need to master in order to be successful: letter and sound identification. Starting with this idea and already having had some experiences with different technologies, I continued to explore and create three lessons that helped extend the students learning. With the inclusion of various technologies, videos, voice overs, etc. I was able to meet the needs of my students. Some activities required parent involvement while others the students were able to complete on their own. I enjoyed creating this online course so much that I wanted to adapt it to my own classroom and teaching for the 2016-2017 school year. That is when I decided to create my own classroom website. Now of course, I couldn’t require my students to complete tasks online because not all of the families enrolled at my school have access to technology nor is it a desired requirement since students already have 7 hours of learning in the physical environment of the classroom. With that said, I wanted to allow my students the opportunity to seek additional resources out when they wanted to continue their learning at home. Through my classroom website, I have created a blog to keep parents up to date with the happenings in the classroom. I have created videos with letters and sounds, read aloud, and much more so that my students are still interacting with material at home. One page on my website contains various resources such as YouTube videos, games, and self made videos. This was something that would have been out of my comfort zone before taking the CEP 820 course, however, I have found that my students love that they get to practice their skills at home, watch my videos for practice, and play the different games that are recommended. My website turned out different than the online course, but it was intended to be an additional resource for my students and I believe that I have been successful in that aspect. Overall, my masters program has given me a lot of insight into teaching with technology and has made me a better learner, educator, and explorer.
Taking on the roll as a full time teacher and a full time student proved to be stressful at times. Through my experience, I can say that there were times when I felt like I was drowning in the amount of work that needed to be done for my students and my own classroom and the work that needed to be completed for my master’s classes. Over time, I progressively got better at balancing my work life, student life, and social life. Setting aside specific days and times to complete each of my tasks really helped me to stay focused, engaged, and manage to get everything done. I can say that I have changed throughout this past year and a half as a teacher, student, and individual all in a positive way. Not only have I learned how to balance multiple activities at once, but also have extended my PLN, met some wonderful people along the way, and learned an incredible amount of information that I was able to apply successfully in my classroom. Looking back, I would not change the way I completed things because I feel that it was to my advantage to go back to school and teach simultaneously so that I could implement what I was learning immediately into my own teaching. I am so thankful for the opportunity that I have had and am so excited to continue on my journey of education both as a teacher and learner and make an impact on the lives of young children each and every day. It is my duty to be the best teacher that I can, providing each and every student that enters my room with the best possible education that I can give them. I cannot wait to continue on this journey!
Knowing that I wanted to continue my education was the easy part; choosing which program I wanted to pursue was the difficult decision. Having a passion for teaching lower elementary, currently kindergarten, I know that literacy is an especially important skill to teach and teach well at this age. However, seeing the advancements in technology and it being at the fingertips of the majority of students, I wanted to learn how I could best use this to my advantage in the classroom to keep students engaged, motivated, and excited to learn. The idea was that building background knowledge on technology could help me to build more intriguing lessons that would drive my students to want to learn, be excited about learning, and revolve around all subject areas, not just one. At the age of 5, the first time many students step foot into a classroom, has the greatest impact on how they view school and education. I chose to take the path of obtaining a Master of Arts in Educational Technology so that I could help my students discover the possibilities in education while driving them to think at a higher-level, use technology because it’s not going away, and develop a love and passion to learn based on their interests and wondering.
In beginning my journey in the MAET program, I started with a basic course CEP 810: Teaching for Understanding with Technology. This course allowed me to think about my Personal Learning Network (PLN). I was able to discover all the areas, people, and places that I went to for information, help, and learning. Throughout the course, I was able to add to my PLN following more teachers and educators on different blogs, Twitter names, etc. This continuously led me to new findings that I was able to adapt in my classroom. One really useful tool that I was able to discover in this class was to YouTube something in order to “teach” myself how to complete a task. From learning how to set up a Microsoft Word document to exploring new technologies, and even knitting, YouTube was a wonderful answer for learning by doing. Of course I added YouTube to my PLN and since this course, I have used it multiple times to help teach myself something new. It has come in hand a lot for my personal uses and also for those in the classroom. For example, I keep a website for my class and sometimes it is difficult to move and manipulate the webpages, YouTube has helped me to be successful in keeping up the website. The use of YouTube continued to help me in the next course CEP 811: Adapting Innovative Technologies in Education. During this course, I had to purchase a Makey Makey kit. Not having any background knowledge on it myself, I turned to different social media to find out more information on how to use a Makey Makey, gain insight on how to use it, and also use others work to help stem some ideas of my own on how to use it in a kindergarten classroom. My PLN definitely came in to use during this course and continued to grow with finding more question and answer forums about Makey Makey, people to follow on Twitter, Instagram, and much more. In discussing my PLN and digging deeper into it, I got to take a closer look in CEP 800: Psychology of Learning in School and Other Settings at how teachers in my school were using technology in their own classrooms.
It was very interesting to read the anonymous responses of how my colleagues were using technology in their own classroom each day. Many teachers claimed to allow their students to use it each and every day, however, the use of technology tended to revolve around math and literacy games. There was little room for students to use their imagination and creativity to create products that portrayed their learning. This helped me to see and understand that just using technology may not be enough for students. The idea of higher-level thinking has been really pushed into the school systems today. What better way to invite kids to use their curiosity, passions, and interests to drive their learning? I find that giving students the option to show their learning has been quite successful. A lot of teaching needs to go into introducing new technologies, however, once students have a basis and understanding for how to manipulate the new technologies, it then gives them the freedom and choice to use their knowledge to create something really special. With the information that I obtained from the survey and everything I learned in my previous graduate courses, I took the time to send an email to my colleagues listing a few technologies that I have had the chance to explore and also invite them to use YouTube, social media, and their own PLN to gain more knowledge on new technologies, how others use the technologies, and to give it a try in their own classroom. With this idea in mind, in CEP 812: Applying Educational Technology Issues to Issues of Practice, I worked with a group to determine a wicked problem that we see happening in schools today.
My group and I came up with various issues that we see happening in schools today. The four main problems we established were amount of professional development for teachers, student-centered learning, flexible spaces and available technology, and teacher evaluations. The main concern we agreed on was the idea that teachers are bombarded with so many state tests, evaluations, professional development (that comes out of our own pockets), and yet we are left with very little room to create a classroom focused on student-centered learning, we have limited supplies and resources to give our students opportunities to learn using technology. I know in my own classroom I currently have 27 students with three computers and three iPads. This means that only six of my students at a time can be on the technology, making it extremely difficult to give each student an opportunity to learn with it. This hinders our students from having the opportunities to be creative and let their passions shine through their work using technology. With that said, as a group we decided upon a possible solution to these wicked problems. The full document can be found here. Mainly the findings showed that an effort needs to be made from inside and outside of the classroom creating a joint effort to best meet the needs of both students and teachers. In focusing on a more student-centered learning environment this helped to transform my thinking for the next course CEP 820: Teaching Students Online and how to keep them engaged, motivated, and excited to learn.
I have always had a passion to teach online. It is one of my goals as an educator to balance both a full time teaching job in a classroom and also teach part time online from the comfort of my home. I have such a great interest in teaching and in technology that I think this is something I could really be successful at and possibly go full time with. In CEP 820: Teaching Students Online, I had the opportunity to be the creator and let my creativity and passions flow during CEP 820. Never having the opportunity before to create an online course, I was a bit hesitant at where to begin. Often times, I think ‘how can I adapt this to kindergarten’; having some samples to look at helped my ideas flow as well as referring back to my PLN. I started with one of the main ideas that kindergartners need to master in order to be successful: letter and sound identification. Starting with this idea and already having had some experiences with different technologies, I continued to explore and create three lessons that helped extend the students learning. With the inclusion of various technologies, videos, voice overs, etc. I was able to meet the needs of my students. Some activities required parent involvement while others the students were able to complete on their own. I enjoyed creating this online course so much that I wanted to adapt it to my own classroom and teaching for the 2016-2017 school year. That is when I decided to create my own classroom website. Now of course, I couldn’t require my students to complete tasks online because not all of the families enrolled at my school have access to technology nor is it a desired requirement since students already have 7 hours of learning in the physical environment of the classroom. With that said, I wanted to allow my students the opportunity to seek additional resources out when they wanted to continue their learning at home. Through my classroom website, I have created a blog to keep parents up to date with the happenings in the classroom. I have created videos with letters and sounds, read aloud, and much more so that my students are still interacting with material at home. One page on my website contains various resources such as YouTube videos, games, and self made videos. This was something that would have been out of my comfort zone before taking the CEP 820 course, however, I have found that my students love that they get to practice their skills at home, watch my videos for practice, and play the different games that are recommended. My website turned out different than the online course, but it was intended to be an additional resource for my students and I believe that I have been successful in that aspect. Overall, my masters program has given me a lot of insight into teaching with technology and has made me a better learner, educator, and explorer.
Taking on the roll as a full time teacher and a full time student proved to be stressful at times. Through my experience, I can say that there were times when I felt like I was drowning in the amount of work that needed to be done for my students and my own classroom and the work that needed to be completed for my master’s classes. Over time, I progressively got better at balancing my work life, student life, and social life. Setting aside specific days and times to complete each of my tasks really helped me to stay focused, engaged, and manage to get everything done. I can say that I have changed throughout this past year and a half as a teacher, student, and individual all in a positive way. Not only have I learned how to balance multiple activities at once, but also have extended my PLN, met some wonderful people along the way, and learned an incredible amount of information that I was able to apply successfully in my classroom. Looking back, I would not change the way I completed things because I feel that it was to my advantage to go back to school and teach simultaneously so that I could implement what I was learning immediately into my own teaching. I am so thankful for the opportunity that I have had and am so excited to continue on my journey of education both as a teacher and learner and make an impact on the lives of young children each and every day. It is my duty to be the best teacher that I can, providing each and every student that enters my room with the best possible education that I can give them. I cannot wait to continue on this journey!