Running

Head: THE CONNECTED EDUCATOR

Connected Educator

Danielle Carmesin, Author

Gini Wozny, Editor
Azusa Pacific University

History of Coursework
Term

Course
EDTC 511: Foundations in
Educational Technology

Professor
Dr. Kathleen Bacer

Fall I 2014

EDTC 521: Digital

Imagery/Learning
Environments

Doyle Potter

Fall II 2014

EDTC 517: Digital

Communications

Joe Bruzzese

Fall II 2014

EDTC: 527 Special Topics in

Ed Tech: integration of Web
Resources

Barry Bettger

Spring I 2015

EDTC: 518 Global

learning/Cross-Cultural
Classroom

Barbara McMillan

Spring I 2015

EDTC: 524 Instructional

Design and Development

Kathryn Price

Spring II 2015

EDTC: 523 Information

Design and Hypermedia

Laura Silva

Summer 2015

EDTC: 515 Emerging Trends

in Technology

Dr. James Brown

Summer 2015

EDTC: 520 Managing TechSupported Curriculum

Elisabeth Silver

Fall 1 2015

EDTC: 526 Practicum in

Educational Applications of
Technology

Dr. Kathleen Bacer

Fall 1 2015

EDTC: 572 Advanced

Educational Psychology

Dr. James Brown

Fall II 2015

EDTC 521: Digital

Imagery/Learning
Environments

Doyle Potter

Fall I 2014

Key Learning
We learned how to become
transparent in an online
learning environment.
Photoshop the foreign
language. I dropped this
course and Im enrolled for
Fall II, 2015
Website design 101. I loved
the format of this class where
each assignment was linked to
the end of the term project.
Becoming a connected
educator. We learned the
importance of creating a
maintaining a strong
professional learning network.
Dont forget the
telecollaborative notebooks
are coming back.

Global learning
reaction paper

Global learning
project proposal
Its all about the design. How
to structure lessons with
assessments in mind. This
class is a duplicate class to
what is taught in our
credential programs.
Is your information presented
in the best possible format, is
everything aligned?
How do you apply your
learning to your school site?
Taking charge as technology
directors and creating plans
that align to curriculum goals
and technology standards.
I learned honesty and
humility.

Growth Assessment

Global Learning
Project
I learned how our brains
impact our learning and how
we can improve our brain
capacity.
Never give up.

Personal Growth
In the spring of 2014, I applied to the graduate program at Azusa Pacific University
(APU). As a site principal of a school in northern California, the mother of two children
and someone who thought of herself as a life long learner, I certainly had an already full
schedule. Why in the world was I undertaking such a feat? My job was secure and my
position in the community and as a leader was becoming more and more solid. Did I need
to take this on? I was unsure and full of doubt about whether I was ready to advance my
formal education and training, but my faith, family, and my internal learner pushed me. I
trusted in the Lord, and w h e n I was accepted I was overjoyed that I was taking the next
step to fulfill one of my lifelong goals of attaining a Masters degree. Participating in the
Master of Arts in Educational Technology (EDTC) program (Bacer et al., 2015) was a
scary undertaking that has ultimately given me more confidence in my personal,
professional and technical abilities.
The EDTC program has helped me grow on a personal level in three ways. My
spiritual commitment to the Lord, the skill of time management, and my confidence in
myself as a leader. None of these qualities were ever lost to me completely, but I was
feeling less of a hold on all of them and am thankful to have had this experience. Not often
do people talk of their education as a way of improving themselves as people, but in this
program, I feel it has been a priority, and one I was happy to tackle.
I have been a faithful Christian all my life, never giving up on my reliance in the
Lord, but often letting it fall to a lower priority as life and all its challenges came along.
As a wife, mother, daughter, principal and friend, my role is often that of the caretaker and
problem solver.

This doesnt often allow me to focus on myself, and my needs in a way that I know is
important. While in this program, I have been encouraged to make my faith a priority and it
has made all the difference in the world. Setting aside consistent time to renew my mind
spiritually has continued my quest to be a woman of excellence.
Before entering this program, I was already extremely busy and thought of myself
as someone who managed her time quite well. When I added on coursework, I quickly
realized I might need to step it up a bit. Finding new ways to consolidate and prioritize
while continuing the quality of my life will forever stay with me from this experience. In
addition, the content of the program allowed for me to work simultaneously on my
coursework and my job responsibilities. For example, I was able to develop parent
presentations for my school site while completing program assignments. The relevant
program coursework allowed for efficient time management.
Finally, as a student in this program, I increased my confidence in my ability as a
leader. All of the qualities I have perfected and honed while working on this degree have
helped me to feel secure in my ability to manage and lead others. I no longer feel as
though I am an imposter and fooling everyone. This program helped me to identify more
with those I lead. The humbling aspect of being a student has increased my ability to
empathize with students and teachers. This is a key to what I believe makes a great leader,
great relationship
This program was a journey to learn more about a subject I was interested in and
needed in my profession but it was also a journey to a better version of myself. On a
personal level, my spiritual strength, skills managing time, and my confidence, as a leader
has become part of this journey as well. The focus on the whole person is something I

will take away from this program for my future, as both an educator and a person.

Professional Growth
In terms of professional growth EDTC has offered me what I hoped to achieve in
a Masters level program, and has also helped me to solidify my position as an innovator
in my field, taught me that collaboration and communication are keys to leadership and
reinforced my credibility as a leader. More than just a degree, this experience has helped
me to grow and evolve as a leader, educator, and student.
Previous to EDTC, I known as an educator who is willing to assist others in
educational technology integration and to pilot new technologies. Through this series, I
gained the personal and professional confidence to go above and beyond assisting others
to integrate technology into their sites. My experience in the program helped give me the
skill and confidence needed to create an online professional development series for fifty
educators in our district. I created a Google Classroom where educators can collaborate
on their development while reading Dave Burgess book How to teach like a pirate
(Burgess, 2012.) In an area that is rural and immune to change, piloting this program has
helped to increase my confidence that innovation can happen, even here!
Another key to my professional growth was the education I received in the power
of communication and collaboration. Since this program was online, my cadre and I were
forced to learn to communicate and collaborate in a way that we werent used to doing.
Our frequent communication proved that you can build strong relationships in the virtual
world if youre willing to respond frequently and offer insight. This will translate outside
of the program to all aspects of my professional life, for I feel that face- to-face

communication and collaboration are keys to having a functioning team.

Often we attain the status, or position, of a leader, without truly believing that it is
deserved. As my confidence grew throughout the program, the following statement from
Don Hall came to embody my personal and professional outlook towards educational
leadership. As the leader I am responsible for my teams results regardless of whether the
team gets it together or not. They are not in charge; I am. (Hall, 2008, p. 127) Taking
personal responsibility for the success and failures of my team held me accountable and
inspired me to learn new strategies to share. This in turn helped to affirm my own worth as
a leader, which has since radiated outward. My credibility is directly related to this growth
of confidence in my leadership, both by my team and myself.
All in all, along with the hard earned credentials I have earned at APU, I have also
grown in leaps and bounds as a professional. My status as an innovator, my credibility as
an educational leader and the skills I have reinforced about communication and
collaboration have all added to my growth as a professional.
Technical
Growth
As a program focused on technology, EDTC has not only added value to my level
of expertise as a technology educator, it has helped me learn to communicate what I have
learned to others. Key areas of learning I have achieved, directly related to technology, are
innovation, communication, and organization. Without the ability to push innovation, and
then communicate the content to others in an organized manner, I would not be the leader I
am today.
My technical growth allowed for me to become a fearless educational innovator. I
used my technical growth to become a leader who reflected on how to best communicate

ideas using technical applications. I knew that times had changed. Access to
technology and other resources has inspired innovation in the classroom. (Solarz, 2015,
p. 2) I want to inspire a team

of educators to use state of the art technology to engage students to connect their learning with
21st Century skills.
I knew that in order to inspire change, I had to model how I was improving my
technical skills and communicate that effectively. Don Hall states that Communication
is the exchange of information from one party to another party in such a manner that is
relevant and understandablethe medium used for the exchange of information must be
appropriate. (Hall, 2008, p. 175) In a world where there is no one way to access or
distribute information, I have become comfortable working with and manipulating
documents in many different formats. This allows me to communicate across any platform
that comes up.
By organizing my achievements and effectively communicating to my team I was
able to inspire innovation among them. By giving one of my teachers additional release
time to work on California Common Core State Standards (CCSS) mathematics
implementation I further encouraged her to document her learning through reflection on a
blog. Soon this previously reluctant teacher had created her own Professional learning
Network (PLN) with Twitter and has connected with educators nationally.
As I continue to innovate and learn, I have also continued to communicate these
ideas and reflect upon them. EDTC has increased my skill level tremendously in the area
of technical expertise, but it has also had a profound impact on my ability to access and
distribute these ideas and skills to my team. My technical growth is measurable, in that I
can now access and create with podcasts and other mediums, but the value of how this
growth has helped to increase the innovation, communication and organization of my
skills, is immeasurable.

Lifelong Learning Plan

APU has shown me that life long learning can coexist with my quest to be an educator of
excellence. I will continue my learning by committing to the following: spending daily quality
time praying and reading my Bible, sharing my faith, and my story of hope that Jesus Christ
gives me with other educators when appropriate, making decisions out of faith and not fear,
continuing to build a strong professional learning network on Twitter, and through local
networking opportunities with other administrators, enrolling in an English course through APU
or Humboldt State University to improve my writing skills, and creating opportunities to mentor
other educational leaders specifically woman.
Conclusion
When I began the program I had a full schedule, but I knew that my current position as a
site principal who was implementing a 1:1 program at our school placed me in a unique position
to move beyond an educational implementer, into a educational innovator, a leader who has a
long-term vision that is focused on providing a world-class education for all students. This
program was a journey to a better version of myself.

References
Bacer, K., Bettger, B., Brown, J., Bruzzese, J., Potter, D., Price, K., Silva, L., Silver, E.,
(2015).
Online Master of Arts in Educational Technology. School of Education and
Behavioral Studies, Azusa Pacific University. Azusa, CA. Retrieved from
http://sakai.apu.ed
Burgess, D. (2012). Teach like a pirate: Increase student engagement, boost your
creativity, and transform your life as an educator. San Diego, CA: Dave Burgess
Consulting Inc.
Hall, D., & International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). The technology
director's