My personal and professional goals established at the start of the Master in Educational Technology program (MAET) at Michigan State University focused on content exploration, personal growth, and meaningful use of educational technology. I transitioned to different professional roles with varying ways of implementing what I was learning throughout the program. At the beginning of the program, I was an Assistant Teacher in a 3rd-grade classroom at a private school. It was a position that afforded me opportunities to explore and create meaningful educational technology opportunities in line with my coursework. One such unit involved developing a project-based learning experience for my 3rd-grade students, incorporating math and social studies standards. As the MAET program helped hone my skills and experiences, I gained the necessary qualifications to transition to a K-8 computer science teacher in Chicago Public Schools. It was in this experience that I was finally able to build my own classroom and curriculum. Implementing engaging and meaningful educational technology was my mission. To move the school's computer science curriculum into the future brought about many challenges. However, over time I was able to make progress and build curriculum I could be proud of. Using 3D printing, educational games, Scratch, and Google CS First brought new experiences to my students. The valuable skills and experiences that I gained from the MAET program made this possible.  

 

  My goals of content exploration, personal growth, and the meaningful use of educational technology were based on the assumption that I would continue down a classroom teacher path. As I moved to the other side of the country and found myself job hunting in the age of Covid, I began pursuing opportunities in adult education and instructional design. This career transition has made it so that I needed to shift my goals and their context. While I am still very much interested in content exploration, such as programming, microcontrollers, 3D printing, project-based learning, etc. Instead of classroom content exploration, adult education has lent itself more towards designing and structuring educational opportunities. Creating and facilitating curriculum as part of my personal growth throughout the MAET program, while now through a different lens, is still an essential part of my new career path. My final goal of using educational technology is still very applicable as I continue to teach healthcare software remotely. As an example, for my healthcare software training interview, I was tasked with teaching software. My exposure to developing various websites using Google Sites through the MAET program allowed me to present an in-depth tutorial that landed me the job. 

 

  Overall, my MAET program goals have needed to adapt to my changing career. Viewing my goals through the new lens of adult education has been an adjustment but are all still applicable today. I look forward to continuing my work on content exploration, personal growth, and educational technology through the lens of adult education even after completing the MAET program. 

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