Section 6 IDT Positions

I am currently a 5th grade Science teacher.  I have been in this position for 12 years now.  I love what I teach but I am ready for a change.  That is why I decided to go back to school and get my Master's Degree.  I have been thinking about it for several years now but deciding what field to get my Master's Degree in has been a struggle for me.

 I have been going to Science conventions over the years and noticed the increase in the number of technology related workshops that were being offered.  A couple of years ago I was able to attend the National Science Teachers Association convention in San Antonio and I was able to attend several sessions on using ipads in the classroom and flipped classrooms.  I was hooked. My campus had just been awarded a grant that enabled us to purchase Ipads to check out and use in our classroom, a new tool was available for me to use to teach my students.  My campus had also adopted a BYOD (bring your own device) policy.  This opened up many opportunities to all of us working on this campus to explore the world of technology that is available.  All of these things together made me decide that Educational Technology - Leadership was the path that I wanted to take.

My goal when I finish this degree is to work for a school district (possibly the one I currently work for) as an instructional technologist.  I have also thought about looking into working for a textbook company because textbook are moving towards being completely online. I really would love to stay working in a school district because helping students learn is really important to me but I do not want to limit myself.  I would love to help a school district to develop instruction that incorporates technology that is available to them to enhance their classroom instruction.

I will need to know how to use and implement current apps and websites available to curriculum.  I currently use a few different apps in my own classroom.  My personal experience with these apps and websites will help me to teach someone else how to use them in their classroom.  I know that I want to take a class that covers games and simulations for learning.  This is really interesting to me because I know that this would be a huge help to science teachers who may not always be able to have a hands-on activity for their students to do for a specific topic.  A game or simulation would be an effective alternative to the hands-on activity because it would still involve the students creating their own understanding from what they are doing.

The Association for Education Communications and Technology, American Society for Training and Development, and International Society for Performance Improvement are three organizations that were mentioned in this week's reading assignment.  I will probably join one of these organizations because through my experience as a science teacher I have learned that the more connections you have the more information you have to do your job.  I think that joining one of these organizations will open doors that I may not even realize are available to me.