Andrea Perry

Summer Cohort 2011 Reflection Paper

July 29, 2011

Looking Back

As an administrative professional in the education industry, it was one of my goals in studying educational technology to better understand the place in which I work. Primarily, I wanted to know about the issues that educators, students, and administrative professionals and how to solve these issues using technology. Throughout the MAET program, and specifically this summer cohort, I have had an opportunity to learn about an array of technologies and what role those technologies play in and outside of the classroom. Furthermore, I

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have learned how I can help improve the student experience in my current position, and to take control of my own professional development through leadership and continued education. As an undergraduate student, I never really thought much about how my professors integrated or did not integrate technologies into the classroom, or how they could so that it would improve the overall experience. Reflecting back on my own experience, though, I do remember being more engaged in the courses where technology was an integral part of learning. As opposed to daydreaming in the back of a huge lecture hall, I remember being engaged through group work at computer stations, or when we were able to create a project during class. Furthermore, when I look at the profile of my professors who utilized technology as opposed to those who did not, I see more active, and engaged faculty members who made a lasting impression and drove their content. Those faculties were more involved in student life, professional organizations, community events, and they published more articles on the research they had been doing. Interestingly, the faculty members I still keep in contact with are those who incorporated the use of technology into their sessions. I want to be that type of educatorsomeone that students remember as being technical, engaged, and active in the community.

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Technology is something I use daily in my life, personally, academically, and professionally. Many of the technologies I use personally, I also use professionally and vice versa. Yet, as we read in Cubans writings, the connection between personal and professional technologies often stays there, and does not make it to the classroom. One of those technologies for me has been Facebook. Before this summer cohort, I never used Facebook for academic or professional purposes, but only for personal and social. Using the Facebook class page to post links, assignments, and pose questions really encouraged me to evaluate how I use social media in all aspects of my life. Too often, I find that there are technologies designed only for and used only in education. Instead of making students learn new technologies for the purpose of learning content, I think educators should be repurposing technologies that students use in their personal and professional lives to better fit education, and not the other way around. This takes innovation and creativity (or remixing), but it also displays leadership qualities on the part of the educator, and hopefully students would see that and take it as an example of how to repurpose technologies in their own lives to improve areas other than their education. Everyone teaches, at some point in their lives, whether it is in a classroom, a home, or the workplace and we all have something valuable to say in our approach and how we tackle this job of educating, even if it is just
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whether we approach it passively or actively. Through the MAET program, I am able to understanding how knowledge relates to understanding, and how understanding relates to memory and cognitive development. It is interesting to me that in fables, history, and even the present heroes seek out wise mentors to help them achieve understanding. Smart students, who want to understand, will seek out educators to show them the way, so it is very important that we take our roles seriously and increase our own level of understanding so as to better serve those who come to us seeking it. The MAET summer cohort 2011 helped increase my understanding of technology, leadership, and educational psychology. Having worked through the content and collaborated in the groups and practiced through activities, I better understand the role of each of these topics in education, and value them more than when I started at the beginning of the summer. I now have an increased desire to bring new, innovative technologies into my workplace to improve the student experience and create a better learning environment. On the flip side, after spending two weeks in cohort and then returning to work, I was met with harsh realities. Educational institutions, and the faculty that lead academic programs are not always open to integrating new technologies, or even addressing problems of practice with new technologies. There is a great deal of politics in any educational setting, and as an educator, innovator, and leader I have to be very sensitive to that; however, I must also keep it from smothering my passion for educational
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technology issues. In fact, I believe that great educators are those people who are able to channel the politics in their favor, always keeping the needs of students at the forefront. I do not consider myself a great educator, yet. As I sit here, reflecting on the past semester, both the time spent in class and here in the workplace (and the time spent studying online), I am considering all that educators have to go through, and also how I, in my current administrative position, can best support educators and work with them to address problems that come our way. I understand that my own development and growth is an essential part of helping others.

Looking Forward I can see using what I have learned in this program to better design training sessions for student employment on campus. Right now, this is something that I work with human resources on, but has been ineffective in the past. There are many students who come from all over the state with very different backgrounds, and there are students who come from other countries, too, whose orientation to working on a college campus has been incomplete. I am planning to hold a meeting with my human resources contact to address some of the bigger problems with our online training system, and to present solutions using many of the innovative technologies I learned during the summer cohort. Through this, I hope to better educate students on campus policies, expectations, and procedures.
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Besides student employment training, I would also like to develop a course (could be a weekend seminar or a one-credit course) that is devoted to helping students develop their professional and academic portfolios. With knowledge gained through this cohort, I now know several technological options for students to use in creating and designing their own portfolio web site and these technologies can accommodate various levels of technological proficiency. Along with these more immediate goals I have stated, I look forward to much more in the next five years. Broadly, I look forward to pursuing and earning my MAET degree, and then going on to design and develop courses at the collegiate level. In addition, I will continue to develop my personal learning network and to continue reading and following leaders in educational technology. As I said earlier, all heroes seek out wise mentors to show them the way to knowledge. I intend to take my own advice and seek out a mentor in the field of educational technology that I admire on a personal and professional level, who will help me think critically about key topics in my field. I started a blog once. In fact, I started several blogs, and have since given it up. I realized that my irregularity and wide variety of topics was not fair to my (very few) readers, and so instead I am a reader and converser. I love reading, and look forward to reading more regular in the future. I
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already have five or six books recommended to me on topics like leadership, professional development, flipped classrooms, and career advising. There is so much to read, that I know I need to carefully prioritize and choose books that are going to help me do better in my job as a manager, an educator, and a lifelong student. The reading I have done so far has me convinced that this is a critical time for research and collaboration in the field of educational technology. Through reading blogs, the news, and talking to people in my social networks, I am utilizing the resources around me. These sources are a wealth of information that will help me contribute to my field, if I let them. That is why I am determined to expand my network, taking every opportunity to develop a professional web of resources, so that I can provide innovative solutions for educators, colleagues, students, and the community. I know that leadership is an integral component of the MAET program, and a large component of leadership is sharing information and collaboration, and I am glad I had the opportunity to work in a small group as a part of a large group. This translates perfectly to life outside the classroom. As a leader in educational technology, it is imperative that I not only learn and achieve understanding, but that I also know how and when to interpret and channel it to better my community and the field. I enjoy sharing knowledge for the overall good, and I hope to be able to use my

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background in writing to effectively write proposals to improve schools, colleges, and universities. I look forward to continue to learn, long after I am done taking classes at Michigan State University. The resources available on the Web, through MSUs library, and in-person will help me collaborate with colleagues and experts in my field. As an educational professional, I know I made a good decision when I applied for MSUs MAET program and enrolled in the summer cohort program. It helped me to rethink what technologies I should be using, and how I should be using them. I also received valuable feedback from members in my group who are educators, which was very helpful since I do not usually have the opportunity to network with educators in my current position. Even more exciting, was being able to talk about key topics in educational technology with my group, and hearing about ways that they are integrating technologies into the classroom to solve problems.

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