Throughout the Master of Arts in Educational Technology Program, I was tasked with completing assignments that aim to strengthen my skills as a teacher and understanding of technology in the classroom. Below, you will find a showcase of my work. These examples fit into two basic categories. The first category, "Preparation", includes examples of work that expanded my thinking about an issue to prepare for the ever changing realm of educational technology. The second category, "Practice", shows examples of usable work I have created to potentially use in my classroom or district. Click on the images below to access full work. In the world of education, there is a discrepancy between the ivory tower of higher education and the ethereal standards we set for ourselves and envision in our classrooms. While these standards are often what we should always be striving for, early in a teacher's career they realize that our lofty goals are not always practical or even feasible. What I really enjoyed and appreciated about the MAET program is the combination of the two. We were encouraged to think beyond our current situation, but also given resources and assignments that required us to come up with practical solutions for our classrooms.
Preparation
Early on in the MAET degree program, I focused on reimagining. My classmates and I reimagined media, technology, and learning to better understand each. This video was crafted using Creative Commons video and music. I discuss how maker culture serves as a vehicle for progress. By reimaging, remixing, and remaking we can build a better world (and hopefully a better way of educating our youth!)
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This may come as no surprise, but as an educator, I believe learning is incredibly important. In my theory of learning I write about how learning, and the ways we approach learning, are very adaptable. The focus of learning should be on creating connections between people and their lives. In is important to note, however, that not everyone has equal access to education. Through equitable education (and learning the social studies in particular!) we can build a more empathetic world.
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This website was built out of a collaborative effort between myself and three colleagues in the MAET program. This course asked us to confront the “wicked problem”- a problem with many solutions, and solutions that create more problems- of online learning. As a group we created a survey and collected data about the problems of access and use that all stakeholders faced. While the point was that we couldn’t come to one effective solution, we proposed several ways of improving the current state of online learning.
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The school district where I work lacks accessible, working technology. When I first set goals in this program, I expressed a desire of incorporating more technology into my classroom. This vision statement expresses my ‘coming to terms’ with the state of technology in my room, and learning how to overcome the barriers that exist and still teach meaningful lessons.
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Practice
This lesson has students comparing and contrasting three forms of governments throughout North America. Students use Mindmeister, a concept web mapping technology to accomplish this task. Students complete this lesson by writing a letter to the citizens of one of the nation's under study, evaluating their specific form of government.
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With the current push to include STEM initiatives across the content areas, incorporating the sciences into the social studies seems like a natural progression. This maker-inspired 6th grade lesson plan has students working with dough-based circuitry building to create an interactive map of the United States. Students use ‘Squishy Circuits’ to create this map and judge the significance of locations within the United States.
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One course I took focused entirely on using online learning as a tool for student success. As a part of this course, we designed a course of our own in a Learning Management System (LMS). I chose to use weebly to built a partially-flipped course on Latin American geography.
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An essential part of being a leader in your district is learning how to train others to use technology to enhance their classrooms. One small passion of mine is learning about how to use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in the classroom. This presentation is a sample professional development offering I designed to potentially implement in my district.
To read my full plan for this professional development offering- click here. |