Reflection Letter
February 1, 2010
Dear Educational Technology Faculty,
I present for your review my portfolio outlining my educational philosophy, some of the projects completed while in the Educational Technology program, and lessons learned from the process.
I am not what many may view as a traditional teacher. I have spent most of my career teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) to students abroad and continue to do so for the US military. I have a background in computer technology as well, so obviously educational technology suits me well. I see earning a Master’s degree in Ed Tech as a natural progression for me and a marriage of my loves for teaching and technology.
Where do I see Ed Tech fitting into the scheme of things in the near future? These days technology has become commonplace. Our students come to class with cell phones in their pockets that make the mainframe computers I worked on in the 1980s look like toys. The game machines most of the younger generations have at home render realistic first person shooter scenes that seem far more realistic than even our own imaginations. Technology allows us to track the whereabouts of our friends, keep up on what they are doing, and coordinate impromptu meetings and share timely information with a few flicks of a finger. Who knows what we will be capable of next year.
I see so much potential, and yet the primary methods of teaching among my colleagues still seems to be something on the order of “sit down, turn off your cells phones, ipods, and laptops and follow along with me in this fifty year old book on English grammar. . . only thirty more pages to go before the end of the semester.”
Realizing, of course, that I can’t change the whole world, I do hope to bring a more modern view of education to the table in my organization. We have already found that some of our online learning systems help us shave weeks, if not months, off of a lengthy process of turning non-native English speakers into bonafide military partners. We are quickly modernizing our process and I’m happy to be right in the middle of it.
Sincerely,
Charles Rich
I present for your review my portfolio outlining my educational philosophy, some of the projects completed while in the Educational Technology program, and lessons learned from the process.
As you may know, I am not what many may view as a traditional teacher. I have spent most of my career teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) to students abroad and continue to do so for the US military. I have a background in computer technology as well, so obviously educational technology suits me well. I see earning a Master’s degree in Ed Tech as a natural progression for me and a marriage of my loves for teaching and technology.
Where do I see Ed Tech fitting into the scheme of things in the near future? These days technology has become commonplace. Our students come to class with cell phones in their pockets that make the mainframe computers I worked on in the 1980s look like toys. The game machines most of the younger generations have at home render realistic first person shooter scenes that seem far more realistic than even our own imaginations. Technology allows us to track the whereabouts of our friends, keep up on what they are doing, and coordinate impromptu meetings and share timely information with a few flicks of a finger. Who knows what we will be capable of next year.
I see so much potential, and yet the primary methods of teaching among my colleagues still seems to be something on the order of “sit down, turn off your cells phones, ipods, and laptops and follow along with me in this fifty year old book on English grammar. . . only thirty more pages to go before the end of the semester.”
Realizing, of course, that I can’t change the whole world, I do hope to bring a more modern view of education to the table in my organization. We have already found that some of our online learning systems help us shave weeks, if not months, off of a lengthy process of turning non-native English speakers into bonafide military partners. We are quickly modernizing our process and I’m happy to be right in the middle of it.