I suppose it is high time to revive this blog. A long time ago, in 2012, I had a moment of insanity and decided to, once again, go back to school. Why do teachers like going to school so much? I guess that's why they became teachers, they just never wanted to leave school.
Why an MA in Instructional Technology? For me, technology has always been a big part of how I teach. Over a decade ago I took a graduate course in technology for educators where we coded a site in HTML. Wheeee! I registered my own domain at that time and posted homework and links (in a very primitive way, but it was something) for my students. When our school bought some Macs about 12 years ago I taught myself i-Movie and started doing video projects with my students. This was when the only way to watch the videos and make copies for the kids was to record it back to VHS tape! I was probably one of the only teachers in the school who used one of our first digital cameras that took disks and about 600 steps to actually get the picture to a color printer. (Yeah, I'm old...you kids reading this don't even know what disks are!)
The point is, technology has always been a means for me to make my teaching more exciting and more innovative. Many teachers might shy away from learning new things or just don't have the willingness to change with the times, but if we don't, we won't keep up with the students coming through our doors. Participating in this MA cohort has been a good experience and has helped me learn even more new and better ways to incorporate technology with meaning and purpose into my curriculum
What will I do with this degree? We were asked to think about where the future might take us. Let's take a look: (Scroll through with your mouse or click the full screen option)
So, ideally I will just be chillaxin' in Paris, retired while still in my 30's. Well, one can dream. Honestly, I don't see myself changing job titles or moving into the role of a tech integration specialist. For me, my true passion is teaching young people and teaching languages. However, what I would like to continue to do is help those that I work with become even better teachers by sharing my knowledge and tech skills with them. I would like to help the tech committee at my school become more focused with goals that will allow technology to increase student learning, not just having technology around for the sake of having technology. If I can help show teachers who have not yet embraced technology how it can indeed jazz up any classroom and get all kids grooving, this will be fulfilling in itself.
Finally, the choice of medium I used for this assignment was a site called Pixton. This site claims to be "The world's best way to make comics." I forced myself to get out of my comfort zone and try something totally new. Making comics always works well in language classes, so I wanted to try a site that would have good potential with my students. At first glance, this concept seemed pretty easy - choose a background, click on some avatars, add speech bubbles, voila! However, once I started clicking around, I got really lost in all of the editing options there were! You can edit down to the tiniest details, for example, clicking on the avatar's eyes and changing the size and shape of them. Whew!
I had fun making this comic, but found it pretty time-consuming. Students would probably catch on more quickly, but the problem I see with sites like this is that, if you take them to the computer lab and give them work time, they'll spend more time on the graphics and the content (in my case, using French) will be lacking. The biggest downfall of this site is that it is subscription-based. I was only using a free trial. I pulled up a price quote, and 50 students for 1 year = $130. On the other hand, I really like that it seems well organized for teachers and students, has good publishing and sharing options, and also allows for students to record voice with their comic strips.
I leave you with these final questions:
-Where do you see yourself in the next few years? Will this degree change your career track?
-Do you have any comic strip making sites you like?
-Do you have any sites you pay for or do you only look for free sites and apps?
