EDU 697 Introduction

 Hi Dr. Pressey and Classmates,

My name is Lisa Carbone.  I am 29 years old and am an elementary school teacher at the Poway Unified School District in San Diego, CA.  I love the school at which I work, and am continuously inspired by my colleagues and administrators.  I was hired in my district four years ago as a second grade teacher, and absolutely love this age range and the curriculum.

One of my professional goals has been to improve upon my ability to integrate meaningful technology into my classroom on a regular basis through my instruction and student activities. The MATLT program I have participated in over the last year has exceeded my expectations in providing me with the support needed to achieve this goal. 

Our school district has been promoting the integration of technology into classrooms over the last several years, however, I feel that not enough support, guidance, and collaboration has been provided in order for all teachers to truly be able to do this. Through the MATLT program, I have been provided with that support, guidance, and collaboration as well as hands-on experience with meaningful technology tools such as blogs, wikis, jing, winzip, and non-linear powerpoints to better achieve meaningful technology integration into my classroom. 

I have been influenced by so much in this program, but one piece of technology I have used regularly because of what I have learned from my courses is jing. This is a tool that I have used frequently this year with my students to demonstrate how to use programs, websites, and how to complete assignments. My next goal would be to eventually have my second graders use jing as a presentation tool. With jing, I originally struggled with navigating, capturing images, and recording, however, with trial and error, and simply "exploring" this tool I was able to overcome my initial challenges. I also found watching youtube videos on jing to be very helpful.  Sometimes keeping my info to five minutes could be a challenge, but it helped me to become more concise and clear with my words. 

This experience sharpened my knowledge with teaching and learning with technology because it helped me to overcome my "fear" of exploring a technology tool that was unknown to me. By familiarizing myself with a tool like jing, I proved that I am very capable of learning how to navigate and integrate new technology into my classroom, and it inspired me to continue learning about new technology tools and familiarizing myself with other programs as well. 

I love Mark Twain's quote, "I have never let my school interfere with my education". To me this quote represents that although school today is rooted in many traditions that came from hundreds of years ago, educators and students need to be proactive when it comes to the educational experience to ensure that all learners' strengths and needs are being met. For educators, this may mean adjusting certain traditions in order to reach the wide variety of learners in their classroom and prepare them as 21st Century students.