The Masters of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET) program at Michigan State University has had an immensely positive impact on me personally and professionally. I had recently started a new job at a private school in Chicago, and as an employee benefit, they offered a tuition stipend. I had always planned on getting a master's degree but was unsure what area of education I would focus on. After talking to a colleague who was doing innovative things in her classroom, she brought up the MAET program. The program's forward-thinking approach to education was what I was looking for and had lacked in my undergrad teacher preparation program. I've always been personally interested in technology, but I didn't see a path to incorporate this interest in my undergrad teacher preparation degree. The MAET program offered experiences to learn relevant content and pedagogical best practices in the field of educational technology. The way that the MAET online program is structured allowed me to ease myself into the world of educational technology. I started the program by declaring the Graduate Certification program, which was a series of 3 classes. As I gained momentum with content, I became more confident in pursuing the Master's program. Thanks to the MAET program and everything I had learned, I accepted a position as a computer science teacher/technology coordinator in Chicago Public Schools. It was in this position that I was able to leverage everything I had learned. I started this new teaching position by creating a K-8 computer science curriculum from the ground up and transitioning an outdated computer lab to a flexible learning space. Life threw me a bit of a curveball, and I found myself moving across the country amid Covid. With most schools in my new area closed and my out-of-state licensure, classroom teaching was put on hold. I have transitioned to a career in Healthcare Software Training with the University of Washington Medicine. I attribute the transferable skills that I gained from the MAET program is what made it possible to transition to adult education. My personal and professional growth would not have happened without my experience from the MAET program. 

 

In Teaching for Understanding through Technology, I explored different technologies that I could use in my classroom. The exploration of these technologies helped expand my knowledge and build my confidence in computer science concepts. The Adafruit Circuit Playground Express is a microcontroller to aid in learning the basics of electronics and programming. Using an Adafruit Circuit Playground Express, I used Adafruit's version of Python to program lights, sensors, buttons, and speakers. The device has the ability to be programmed in several different languages that are at various degrees of difficulty, making it great for a classroom setting. Throughout the course, I documented my learning process in blogposts. I started with the setup and troubleshooting. The troubleshooting process was much more difficult than I had anticipated but taught me a valuable lesson. Whenever approaching a technology, especially a new one, it was important that go into the experience knowing it may not go the way I plan. Whether in the MAET program or a professional setting, it made the learning far less frustrating when I was able to look at failure as a growth opportunity. At the end of the course, I developed a blog post that shared everything I learned throughout the learning experience. In this experience, the approaches I learned followed me when I learned 3d printing, Arduino, new software, Raspberry Pi, and continue to positively impact new experiences. 

 

In Teaching Students Online, I focused on developing content supporting online learning and a flipped-classroom approach to my teaching. For the program and the future of education, students must have online resources to aid in their learning. At the time of this course, I was in a 3rd-grade classroom and wanted to give my school's students the ability to access supporting online resources for a project that spanned over several months. These online resources would also support other colleagues in their 3rd-grade classrooms. The Neighborhood Development Project was a cross-curricular, project-based learning opportunity that had students incorporating math and social studies concepts. Developing content for a project-focused Google Site, Google's proprietary website creator, made the content available to all 3rd graders in the school and was my first experience using a website creator for student use. My first challenge was website structure. I had to ensure that it would be easily navigatable for younger-aged students on an iPad. Prototyping and testing different ways of structuring the content taught valuable lessons on iteration and creating a learner-focused online resource. Then, I needed to decide what content to include. The use of multi-media gave students the ability to see examples, diagrams, check-in, and recorded directions. To make this online resource available to students, I also had my first experiences using QR codes. Creating a QR code for the website gave students an easy way to navigate to the website. Many of these aspects of the project were dramatically enhanced by resources being made available online. Throughout this course, I learned the development, affordances, and impact of teaching students online that carried into the future of my teaching.  

 

In Learning Technology Through Design, I focused on a problem I was having within my professional context at the time. I was a K-8 Computer Science Teacher and was struggling to reach my K-2nd students. Stepping into the position, I was developing my curriculum from the ground up. I worked hard to establish my 3rd-8th grade curriculum but felt that K-2nd could be better. Throughout this course, developing my K-2nd curriculum would be what the course called my Problem of Practice. The Problem of Practice was the focus for the majority of the course. I went through a complete design cycle, addressing areas of empathizing, defining, ideating, prototyping, and testing for my K-2nd curriculum. The design cycle proved to be a powerful way of addressing a problem. It provided an actionable path towards a solution. Understanding my audience, defining my problem, brainstorming ideas, prototyping a solution, and testing the results gave me the information needed to make appropriate changes to the curriculum that benefitted my K-2nd graders. The most significant part of the design cycle for me was looking at the scope of a problem. By jumping from problem to solution, I often would miss essential details that could have been avoided by looking at the bigger picture. The skills that I learned from the design cycle gave me the tools I needed to shift how I address the problems I come across in the future.             

 

In Technology and Leadership, I looked towards the future and developed what kind of educator I wanted to be. I find that taking a step back and ensuring that I am heading in the direction that I want to be as an educator can be difficult in the moment. It's too easy to get distracted with the many different hats I was wearing at the time; teaching, planning curriculum, troubleshooting school technology, auditing equipment, etc. It can be hard to find the time to ensure I am following the path that I set out to as an educator. The Technology and Leadership course helped me assess where I was and where I wanted to go as an educator. At the time of the course, I taught at Chicago Public Schools in a K-8 Computer Science position. In this position, I aspired to have a flexible learning space that could support project-based learning initiatives and have elements of a maker space. Transitioning my classroom from a traditional computer lab to a space conducive to the learning I wanted to do in my classroom would be a challenge. Highlighting work that exemplified this from the course, I created my global vision for education, a maker space infographic, and a professional development learning opportunity. The first actionable step on my path towards my new classroom was to educate colleagues on the importance of a flexible technology-driven learning space. Creating a Maker Space Infographic, showed the value and potential for technology that could be found in a maker space. The infographic was posted in my classroom as a resource for other educators to see the potential. In the course, I also developed an Inquiry-Based Professional Development opportunity to bring staff to an area maker space to plan project-based opportunities. Unfortunately, many factors kept this from coming to fruition, but it would have made for an incredible learning experience. Finally, my global vision for education outlines my educational views and how I want to develop as an educator. The Technology and Leadership course challenged me to set a path for my development as an educator. It was taking the time to slow down and look introspectively that proved to be immensely valuable to my growth.  

 

In retrospect, the Masters of Arts in Educational Technology at Michigan State University was an unbelievable opportunity for my personal and professional growth. The experience helped shape my exploration, technology integration, problem-solving, leadership, and who I want to be as an educator. The MAET degree program has already directly impacted the professional opportunities that I have had throughout the last few years. Without the program, I feel that my career would have gone in a much different direction. The MAET program has introduced me to new interests, people, and learning which I will miss. However, I know that this is not the end of my learning. The learning I have started in the MAET program will propel me to continue my growth both personally and professionally.