Educational Technology Transcript

Please find below my annotated transcript for courses I have taken at

Michigan State University toward the completion of my Master of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET).

For a sampling of work and projects, please explore my Showcase page.

The purpose of this final course in the MAET program was to bring together everything I have learned up to this point, with the main goal of creating a digital portfolio. This transcript and the surrounding pages are all a part of that digital presence. This portfolio is designed to demonstrate my learning at MSU and beyond. This course brought together concepts of design and aesthetics to prepare students to create a cohesive and coherent expression of ideas for prospective employers, administrators, colleagues, parents, and students.

In this course, we explored the connections between children's literature and film. The focus was on critical analysis of text and film. Throughout the course, I came to a greater understanding of films created from text. I began to see them as independent interpretations and separate media forms unto themselves. Film and literary language were used to further engage with media. In addition, we tackled difficult stereotypes portrayed in text and film, as well as considered the concept of fidelity to the original when recreating classic literature.

This course gave me an entirely new look at technology from the perspective of a leader. I was involved in the creation of technology proposals, initiatives, policy briefs, and memos. The most influential part of this course was the in-depth discussion of instrumental versus missional thinking when it comes to technology implementation. Quite often we think about the tool first, when in reality we need to first consider what our goals for learning are. Thinking instrumentally we find that our technology is aimless and misused. This class stretched me and helped me to grow as an educator.

The course was a deep and practical look at the psychology behind problem behaviors in the classroom. We investigated attention, aggression, academics, and other environmental influences that affect students and their learning. In small groups we discussed case studies and devised strategies to help the students and teachers we read about. I also created a research-based intervention for a targeted student in my class. I was able to implement the intervention right away and saw positive changes immediately.

This was one of my favorites classes in the MAET program because it focused on the psychology of learning. We know that students learn by constructing knowledge socially. Within this framework, we analyzed technology for the purposes of learning. I was able to interview some of my students about their knowledge of technology and then reviewed their responses in search for misconceptions. This gave me the opportunity to see what my students know, what gaps in knowledge they may have, and how best to reteach those concepts. 

CEP 822 introduced me to the world of educational research. I practiced skills to help me with my own research including literature review, data collection, statistical analysis, and report creation. As part of my continued interest in language development and technology, my research proposal was focused on the affordances of technology tools for language learning. My proposal sought to understand the relationship between technology use and language proficiency. Like most other instances of technology use and learning, language development can be enhanced with the use of technology tools.

I tend to think of myself as a pretty technologically savvy educator. However, I have never created my own online course but was always curious and interested in the process. Thankfully this course took us through each step in the creation process from lesson planning, activity design, quiz/test formatting, as well as aesthetic and pedagogical components. I used Schoology to create my online course for English language learners in 4th and 5th grade. The course can be completed by students independently and is focused on Non-Fiction text features. 

The overall theme of this course was using technology to meet the diverse needs of individual students. Another major focus of this course was how to address difficult problems in education. We were stretched to think outside the box and devise unconventional solutions. In this course, I also had my first opportunity to try and experiment with screencasting as an educational tool. I have since used screencasting to create tutorials and other videos for my students. My students have also become creators and are also making their own tutorials to help other students. 

This course introduced me to a lot of new ways to use technology for teaching and learning particularly WebQuests, wikis, TPACK and Universal Design for Learning (UDL). I created my own WebQuest using Weebly which focused on expository writing. I also created my own Stand-alone Instructional Resource (StAIR) focused on vowel sounds. It was a lot of work but very rewarding to create a tool that helped my students. I was also able to submit some of my work to MERLOT, an online collection of teaching and learning materials.

This was my first course in the MAET program. I was introduced to Personal Learning Networks (PLN), Special Interest Groups (SIG), and Creative Commons, as well as various technology education standards. I worked with my teammates to develop a SIG presentation focused on students using Web 2.0 graphic organizers to plan and prepare expository writing. I also created a Personal Growth Plan which was a great way for me to reflect on my learning and think about how to use what I learn in my own classroom.