Saturday, November 15, 2008

My Future Job

I started my journey into Instructional Technology because I wanted to be an Elementary Technology Teacher, which was what I was doing as a teacher assistant. I was really happy then and loved my job. Right now my goal is to return to the elementary setting as a teacher. Working at the county level could also be rewarding, but I think I would miss the students. From taking this and a few other technology courses, I find the field of higher education very interesting. It would be wonderful to work with distance education at the high school, community college or college level.
A question I have is what exactly is the difference between the MS and the MAEd degree?

Monday, November 3, 2008

Instructional Media

Based upon my experience, I have used many forms of instructional media. I ran a computer lab in which I used drill and practice software programs. The SmartBoard is one of my favorite tools. I used it as a demonstration method to get the kids excited about the tool. I also used it with websites to get the kids engaged in instruction. I used a Qx5 microscope allowing the students to prepare slides that we examined and projected using the boxlight. I took the kids on various virtual field trips to support topics they were learning in the regular classroom. I also used the internet to produce various research projects. The school purchased a CPS (classroom performance system) where we created tests. The students loved it. They just had to press a button to submit their response to the questions. The only blog I have personally used has been for this class. I think that it could be a very effective middle school tool. Google Docs is an amazing tool. I participated in an online class in which I had to create a document using this format. It was very interesting and saved us a lot of time emailing the document back and forth. It would be beneficial to the school system when creating documents such as the school improvement plan in which so many hands are involved. I think that it would be interesting to teach distance learning courses. I would love to do this on a high school or community college level.