Next Steps

The Beginning of the End

This is my last semester of graduate school!! My first assignment of the semester is  to share where I will be going after successfully completing the Masters of Educational Technology program at UNI.  I have to say, my first reaction was to respond by saying  I would be reading books for fun, playing with my kids and joining my husband at night on the couch watching a little T.V.! Of course, I will enjoy that too, but really where will this program lead me?

I have been thinking this over, and ultimately I want to use this program as a springboard to improve my practice.  As I was just reading one of our books for class,  1-to-1 Learning: Laptop Programs That Work  the author said, "When we see our students immersed in a sea of technology- as they so clearly are in our 21st century world- it's our duty as educators to help them navigate it smoothly, effectively, and purposefully." This is the real goal of my masters program is be an effective change agent for my students. 

Telling My Story

The second part of the assignment was to use a storytelling tool and share our thoughts. I meandered around various tools on the internet and played with several, but ultimately landed on Storybird. 

 I wanted to find a tool that third graders could get excited about, and I chose this tool because it has a engaging, simple navigation page, it has beautiful images, and simple features. I have seen this before and knew about this program, but I haven't used it too much. I tried several others and I spent so much time looking through their features and losing sight of my message. I was trying to fit my message into their program, and that is the wrong fit for a tool!

Check out my story

The Stories of Others

I would also like to share some blogs of my amazing fellow cohort members and the great tools that they discovered. 

Howard Winn Tech Blog-  using iMovie, Tellagami, POW strip, and Splice

Fifty Nine Minutes - using Thinklink

Techie Frenchie- using Pixton