In the beginning...
When I first started working towards my MA in Educational Technology I was unsure whether I wanted to become the Technology Director of a k-12 school district or teach future teachers how to integrate technology into their classes. I am a teacher by trade, and technology enthusiast for fun. I figured that as long as I was doing these two things, preferably simultaneously, I would be happy.
While I reserve the right to change my mind 1-2 hundred more times, right now I think I want to work towards helping teachers integrate technology into their classrooms. Before I entered the program, I felt like I knew a lot about seamlessly integrating technology into everyday aspects in my own classroom. Now that I spend part of my day teaching and part of my day helping teachers integrate technology, I have come to realize that that is where my passion lies.
The one idea that has helped me realize that I want to work with future teachers is that technology use in education should be the means to the solution, not the solution itself. Computers are not the answer to all of modern education's problems any more than TV, radio, chalkboards, or textbooks were. I want to share that idea, along with many practical uses, with future teachers.
While I was taking the 3 certificate courses at the beginning of this degree program, I found out that many of the instructors were graduates of MSU's Educational Technology master's program. They even had assistants that had graduated, and were "training" to become online instructors too. I think I would like to try this out.
Jimmy Dunn
February 2012