In November of 2015 I typed away at my computer preparing my application essay for graduate school. When I finished I walked into the kitchen where my then boyfriend, now husband, was making dinner and I asked “Are you ready for this? Because if I get in, I need you to make sure I don’t starve for the next two years.” It was my way of letting him know that I was going throw myself full force into the Educational Technology (MAET) master’s program at Michigan State University. He looked at me like I was crazy, but I was serious. I had completed a master’s program before and knew how hard it was to complete by myself. I knew I needed his support.

Fast forward to this past summer at our wedding when during our vows he noted that I had not moved to Wyoming to be a ski bum (like most), but instead to better myself. “Something you are still working on today” he said. Hearing this I remember noting, he loves me because I love to learn and challenge myself. The past two years have challenged me in different ways than I had expected, and increased my love of learning ten-fold.

The program has helped me not only learn new strategies to teach with or new technology to integrate, but it has also made me fearless to do so. Regularly on a Monday night I would sign into our learning management system, D2L, read the upcoming week’s plans and then promptly change my weekly lesson plans for my classes. This program has excited and invigorated me in ways that I didn’t see coming. Sometimes the mass of new technologies that are readily available can be overwhelming. The MAET program has helped focus in on areas of instruction and introduced meaningful technologies for each, with examples of their use in just the right time and manner for me not to feel overwhelmed.

When I began I thought that the support I would need to complete the program would come from my husband, but looking back I realize that the support that was most helpful in my learning came from my peers and professors. Never did I think that I would connect with peers thousands of miles away. I assumed I would learn from how content was portrayed to me (ie: online readings, presentations), but additionally I learned from my peers and their work. The share tracker allowed me to see a variety of examples of how my peers were using technologies in their classrooms and gave me new ideas that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. No longer were we hiding our work for fear of “cheating”, but instead embracing the wealth of knowledge and creativity around us. The mentality of trying new things right away keeps me in a constant mindframe of “action research”. I feel as if not only am I giving my students more regular feedback on how they’re doing now, but also giving myself feedback on what worked best with the new tool, what didn’t and what I should change for the next class. Research is not something I only read, it’s an active part of my teaching.

At the start of this school year I heard one of my peers in the school say “not my job” when asked to do something that they did not feel was part of their job requirements. Through this program I have felt that mentality in myself change. No longer do I see myself or my job in isolation from the rest of the school. I see that if I support administrators with technology, then they are more inclined to use it in their own interactions with teachers and then teachers become more comfortable trying it. I see that if I provide professional development to other teachers then they are more likely to see the advantages of using technology and are more inclined to use it in their lessons with their class. I see that if students are using technology in their main classroom then they are more proficient with its use when they come to my class. “Not my job” never crosses my mind anymore, sometimes I think“I need more help”. Now, just as I asked my then boyfriend for support, and sought support from my peers and professors, I look to online sources and other leaders in my own school community for help where I need it.

The very first I class I took was Teaching for Understanding with Technology. I feel like I walked into this class with my arms out and thinking “challenge me”. The Network Learning project did just that. The main project was to learn something new using only YouTube and online help forums. I had done this a million times before: changed my tail light-check, replace a bathroom sink u-pipe-check. However, after brainstorming ideas I went with carving fruit, like it is done in Thailand, into beautiful, ornate flora and fauna. I was blown away that there were even videos online of how to do this. I did not expect that vast of an amount of knowledge to exist on YouTube, in every single sector that you can or cannot imagine. Another wonderful challenge that I didn’t even see coming was editing the video together. At this point I only casually watched YouTube videos when I wanted to learn something, I had no idea that there were people with channels focused on specific interests who were creating thousands upon thousands of videos. After subscribing and following a few I started to observe people using similar songs and then discovered the bank of free music that youtube has for free use. Learning to edit the recorded video with audio that set a tone for my video was fun and challenged my own creativity so that my learning wasn’t just about showing the carving, but also about showing how much fun I had carving.  This class also set a tone, that held true for entire program, of being in a safe zone where risks were not only ok, but encouraged. Everyone came with good intentions to give feedback and to encourage the new ideas and learning that were taking place, no matter how different they may have been from what everyone else was doing. Reflecting back on this I see how it has helped me bring the same mentality and respect into my own classroom.

In Learning Technology by Design I was challenged to look at problems more deeply. This has been a struggle in my past as I see students once a week and only for 50 minutes. In the past this has held me in a state of fear that caused me to feel overwhelmed, as if there were too many problems to choose just one, and what could I do to be a force of change when I see them for such a short time. This course helped me to focus, choose one problem and look at it much more deeply than I had before. I specifically focused on one student’s engagement in my classroom. One of the best strategies in solving this problem was to immediately throw away the first thoughts I had to solve the problem. Recognizing that in order to find real meaningful solutions to problem, that you must get rid of the easy ideas that pop into your head first. Real problems are not easy to solve and deserve real time and effort to find solutions that work. Within this work I also found myself finding more time to spend with the student, it was always there I just needed to make a bigger effort. In the end I found that making the student who seemed least engaged the leader to be a viable solution. I have also found that what works for one may work for all. I have found this to be a solution that has transferred well to many student issues in the classroom.

Teaching Students Online was not the course that I anticipated to make the most immediate impact on me. Once again I took this class with the chance to learn something new and not the easy road. I had already taught using the learning management system Google Classroom, but instead I looked forward and saw that I would be teaching older students in the future and that I would need to learn Canvas. Not only did this course allow me to create a unit that I could use before the end of the class to test and see if it was effective, but it also challenged me to use what I saw as a plain white face of a program and learn a bit of HTML coding to make it more colorful and elementary friendly. Learning how to use Canvas taught me that using Google Classroom was fine, but when comparing of the two platforms I saw that there were benefits I hadn’t even thought of prior. It also taught me that you can use two systems and recognize that each has its own benefits. My principal’s observations of me happened to fall in the middle of me teaching this unit. He was impressed and helped me see that when designing a course online it naturally scaffolds itself. Students can work at their own pace, audio recordings can be embedded for students who struggle to read the directions, group work can be designed based on ability levels or not, etc, etc. This course helped tremendously to prepare for the changes that my position encountered this year when I added 3rd-5th grade to my teaching rotation.

I have so many take home messages from the program. I think it is clear that I have found how not to fear new things and to constantly test new strategies in my classroom. Most importantly I think that this program has taught me how the traditional school mindframe of not sharing one another's work for fear of cheating, must be let go. Some of the most important learning has come from sharing with my peers. Learning is no longer based on memorization of facts, but on how to use what we’ve learned in new and meaningful ways. We do it as teachers all the time, we share lessons and ideas with our neighbors down the hall and across the earth. I also want to take that message to my classroom and show that compassion for each other and the sharing of ideas is where the magic of learning is. No one learns in isolation just as no one grows without help and support from others.