FUTURE LEARNING GOALS

The main reason why I wanted to pursue a master’s in educational technology is because I recognized the current faults which existed in credential programs. There was a lack of a class that taught future teachers about the uses of technology in the classroom and explaining what it even meant to incorporate technology in the classroom. Eventually, I would like to be able to design a course that would be taught at a credential program in California about the integration of technology. In order to pursue this bigger picture, I need to pursue my PhD in Educational Technology. Before I do that I want to be able to make changes at the school site level with the integration of technology, and to demonstrate to other Social Studies teachers that technology can be integrated into their classrooms in an effective and beneficial way. I need to be able to do both of those things before I pursue my PhD and be able to lead future teachers into learning about how they can integrate technology within their classrooms.

In order to start the process of pursuing my PhD in Educational Technology, I want to be able to lead my school site in the direction of being able to go to a one-to-one integration. Over the past four year at my school site, I have gone from the first year teacher to a technology coach for two years. As the technology coach on my campus, I was able to help other teachers start their own journey on integrating technology within their classrooms. As a Technology Coach, I decided to become Level 1 and Level 2 Google Certified Educator, since my school site uses Google Applications for Education. From my experience as a Google Certified Educator, I would like to further my training by becoming a Google Certified Trainer, as this would allow me to truly lead well designed Professional Development around Google Applications for Education. I was able to do this by hosting Tech Thursdays, where teachers were able to attend and learn about a different tool each week. In addition, I was able to host Professional Development where the whole staff could learn about a different technology tool. Then for teachers who wanted one on one help, that was also offered during my prep period or during a time that would work for them. I even posted on a Wordpress Blog website about these different resources that exist to incorporate technology in the classroom. Click here to see that website. Having a teacher on campus who was considered the technology coach, really provided the opportunity for teachers who needed that additional support to incorporate technology into their classrooms to actually be able to do it. From this experience of being a technology coach for those two years, I realized that there is a flaw within credential programs and continuing professional development and it is the fact that there needs to be more about how to effectively incorporate technology in the classroom across curriculums.

The next step I want to take is to be able to assist the Social Studies department to lead by example and show how the integration of technology can be successful when done in the correct manner. The Social Studies department has already demonstrated how we can do this through a variety of projects that use the computer labs and Chromebook labs that are available to teachers on campus. An example of using technology as a medium for learning is through the Amazing Race: World Religions, which I designed for my Social Studies classes. Click here to see the first map for my Amazing Race: World Religions activity. In order to make even more progress, the Social Studies department should apply for a grant in order to receive their own Chromebook cart. At the school site I am currently at, there are many opportunities to apply for local grants that would make this possible. This would make it so it is even easier to have access to the technology that we want to incorporate into our classrooms, as this is usually part of the reason as to why teachers do not want to use technology in their classrooms. The school site I will be at next year is one-to-one with Chromebooks, so I am going to have even more opportunities to use technology on a daily basis as will the Social Science department as a whole. Since I have not been at a school site where one-to-one technology was available, I am going to have to do my own research on how to successfully integrate technology when I know that all students have a Chromebook and are able to use these at home as well. At the bottom of this page I have included sources that I am going to use in order to further my own education on successfully implementing one-to-one technology in the classroom. In addition to learning about how to effectively use the one-to-one technology that is now going to be available to me at my school site, I also need to learn their learning management system which is PowerSchool.

After I have completed the two steps above, I am going to apply to a PhD program in Educational Technology. The two programs I have been looking into so far are Michigan State's and Stanford University's because they are both considered top in the Educational Technology field. At Stanford University, their PhD program is called Learning Science and Technology Design. In this PhD program, students are able to actually design their own educational technology tools and can end up becoming professors in this field or work for technology companies, which is also something I want to pursue at some point in my future but I want to help credential programs first. Click here to learn more about Stanford University's PhD program. I want to pursue my PhD so I can do further research about the integration of technology in the classroom and eventually design my own educational technology tools. Eventually I would want to design and a teach a course about the integration of technology in a credential program so that future teachers are prepared to integrate technology (of all forms) in their future classrooms. I believe it is important for future teachers to understand the impact of technology within the classroom and how their students can benefit from it. The way I am going to be able to do this is by designing a course about TPACK and have the students create actual lessons and unit plans where they have incorporated technology in different ways and explain how it connects back to TPACK. Students in this course would learn about a variety of technology that can be used in the classroom, even if specific technology such as laptops or tablets are not readily available to them in the classroom setting. By the end of the semester, students would have an understanding of what technology actually is and what it truly means to implement technology in their classroom.

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Future Learning Goals: About