Future Learning Goals Essay
When I was completing my teaching internship, my mentor teacher was nothing short of amazing. She consistently went above and beyond for her students. Although she was nearing the end of her career, she made it a point to never stop learning. She continually filled her teacher toolbox with new strategies and set new goals for herself. As I look forward to my career in education as a teacher, I will strive to have that same mindset as my mentor teacher, to never stop learning and growing as an educator. After completing the Master of Arts in Educational Technology program at Michigan State University, integrating technology into my teaching has become extremely important to me. As a result, my future goals are all related to technology: to write more grants for technology in my classroom, to become more knowledgeable about the tools available through Microsoft Education and to explore and grow my professional learning network in the area of technology.
As a fourth grade teacher, I see the value of having technology available to use daily in the classroom. Unfortunately, my district does not have enough computers for each student to have their own device. We have near 300 students and only thirty-two laptops, which are in high demand. We have two computer labs available, however, the set-up of these rooms is not conducive to collaborative learning, which complicates lesson planning. With all of that said, I would love to have devices solely for use in my own classroom. In order for that to happen, I need to become more knowledgeable about the technology grants that I could write for my classroom. While I have practiced writing one technology grant in the past, I need to continue searching, writing and applying for grants in the future. I plan to explore many different resources for grants, including the ASCD Teacher Leadership Opportunities and Grants and NEA Learning and Leadership Grants, as well as take advantage of the grants available in my school district, such as the Warren Woods Foundation for Educational Advancement grant opportunities.
In addition, I want to gain more knowledge about Microsoft Education and the tools available for both educators and students. I know there are endless resources available for education through Google, and while I would love to become a Google Certified Educator, that is not the direction my district is moving towards. We recently adopted Microsoft 365, so I would like to explore Microsoft’s materials to see what tools they have available for educators and students. Additionally, there are many websites and apps that I would like to use in my classroom, however, my students do not have their own email addresses to sign up for these sites and not all of them allow individual student accounts to be created. I hope that by becoming more knowledgeable about Microsoft 365, I can utilize more resources and websites available online. I would also specifically like to explore the resources available through Microsoft Education, such as OneNote, Learning Tools, and Sway, in addition to exploring whether student email accounts can be created as well.
A final goal of mine is to continue to grow and expand my professional learning network, both online and face to face. While I have created a professional Twitter account, I have not utilized it as much as I would like to for resources and to connect with like-minded educators. I would like to connect with others and seek out more online professional development for myself so that I can continue to grow as an educator, especially in the area of educational technology. In addition, I would like to attend conferences related to both technology and education, such as the Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning (MACUL). While my school district does send teachers to this conference, I have not had the opportunity to attend yet. In the future, I need to advocate for myself so I can attend conferences like these more often.
While my master’s degree may be coming to an end, I know that my learning is not. Like my mentor teacher, I will always continue to grow as an educator, no matter what point I am at in my career. The goals I have outlined above will not be the same forever. As I master the goals of writing technology grants, utilizing Microsoft Education and expanding my professional learning network, I will continue to create new goals for myself as a I progress through my career as an educator.