Supporting Narrative: Professional Development

As an educator, professional development has played a critical role

in my career. It permits me to acquire and improve knowledge and
skill sets related to my pedagogy, classroom environment, and my
students. I am a continuous learner whose objective is to meet my
professional goal: be the difference in order to make a difference in
as many students lives as possible. Being, and making, a
difference is a difficult task in this day and age of technology and
ever growing lack of real communication, not virtual.
Because of my desire to relate to my students, I have made a
commitment to learn, build my arsenal of knowledge, and reflect
daily. Because of this, I am able to put my focus on my students
and their needs via the data collection process. Since my job is to
make learning relevant and meaningful to all of my students, I am
dedicated to professional development.
The LDT degree program has really helped me to begin my
journey down the Educational Technology road. With my GPS set
for delivery instruction that will help me to meet my professional
goal: accommodate my learners and see exponential growth in
literacy and writing skills.
As I state in my initial statement for the program,
My motivation for wanting to be a part of this
program is pretty simple, I love to learn and apply
what I am learning immediately afterward.
Honestly, this program is allowing me to meet my
professional goals and gets me to try new theories,
technology, and strategies. I am interested in
improving my technology know how and integrate
technology and its tools into the secondary
curriculum. I want to be the change in my district,
or at least part of the change that needs to take
place- more technology driven educational
opportunities within the curriculum.
The artifacts I have chosen as part of competence, demonstrate my
growth and development via the development of professional
development workshops for for my colleagues on the integration of
technology in the classroom, focusing on which web 2.0 tools will
have the greatest impact and be the most realistic to integrate given
the technology situation within our district. This is evident in my
reflection,
After these classes, I hope to have more of a
handle on creating instructional goals and creating a
website that will serve as a resource for teachers
and administrators to utilize to get ideas and receive
training for the incorporation of twenty-first century
technologies as far as strategies, tools, and criteria
(ethics included) within the classroom.
EDCI 660A/B really assisted me in defining a framework for my
own learning and assisted me with my progress. I was able to
identify and discuss my goals, and I was able to define my end
goal.