By Daniel G. Winther



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I began the Master’s program as a teacher who just finished his second year in a science classroom, curious about what the future held and desperately seeking new resources for a worn-out curriculum. I’ll be leaving the program in a few short months and still cannot believe all that has changed in the two years. My teaching and curriculum have changed, but more importantly, my view on future endeavors has shifted. When I reflect on the past two years and consider why these changes occurred, my thinking always finds its way back to two important concepts covered in multiple classes. These two areas are effective use of technology in the classroom and leadership in educational technology.



What does it mean to be effective?​

When I considered going back to school, I decided to take a few classes that could either be applied towards a certificate or go towards a Master’s degree. These classes provided the opportunity to explore what this program offered. But what was I looking for at that point? Honestly, I just wanted a huge “tool belt” of technologies to use in my classroom. I wanted as many technologies as possible, with the hopes that most or all of them would work to raise engagement and achievement in my science classroom. “You may say that I’m a dreamer…”

And...back to reality. My thoughts quickly changed when I enrolled in my first class, "Teaching Understanding with Technology" (CEP 810). The course serves as an introduction to using technology in the classroom, focusing on effective technology use in the classroom. I was asked to try out new innovative technologies for the class, but the course showed me how to rearrange my thinking while trying these new technologies in the classroom. The most valuable take away was the idea of TPACK; a tool used when creating lessons revolving around technology.

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The most important aspect of TPACK is understanding how each component (technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge) is going to work together, which creates a more meaningful lesson plan. It was a smart idea to bring this topic up at the beginning of the program and it was a reoccurring theme throughout. Most importantly, it changed the way I thought about and developed my own lessons, and brought a deeper sense of understanding to the new activities that I implemented in my classroom.

The cohesion between each of the courses was evident during my first semester in 2011. While learning about TPACK in CEP 810, I was asked to complete a major project in my next course, "Adapting Innovative Technology" (CEP 811). In order to complete this project with any real meaning, it was imperative that you consider pedagogy, content knowledge and technology. Since I was completing both courses during the summer semester, it would have been less meaningful to focus on something taught during the regular school year. Luckily, a unique opportunity presented itself during my summer enrichment class focused on Lego Robotics. I ended up building my entire project around introducing Lego Robotics to my summer enrichment students, in a stand-alone activity called the STAIR project. Not only did the project offer future students a way to learn the basics of the course, but also I actually got to use the project with my students in the course. Since all aspects of teaching were addressed, the students were engaged with the activity and the technology walked the students through the process that they would be repeating over the next four weeks. It was the first true sign that teaching with technology can have huge benefits in my classroom, especially when done correctly.

My next course, "Teaching K-12 Students Online" (CEP 820), served as the next step in my educational technology journey. I went into this course with a deeper understanding of TPACK, but my mindset was still focused on activities that I could do within in the classroom. This mindset was much more broad than what I entered the program with, but the concepts covered in CEP 820 expanded my thinking exponentially. The course focused on teaching students in an online setting, introducing me to the course management system, and causing me to realize how I could build my own version for my class. I had always been fond of using ANGEL at Michigan State University, but had never thought about how my own classroom could benefit from using something similar. I decided to explore multiple options, and ended up using Weebly as my course management system. At the time, Weebly was the best option because it was free and it was extremely easy to use. This provided me with the opportunity to bring all these new technology strategies online. Within a few months, I had built a fully functioning course management system that allowed communication between me and my students, as well as me and parents who would normally inquire about assignments via phone or email. Pretty soon I was posting assignments for them to download when needed, creating web quest assignments for them to complete in and out of class, and an integrated calendar that allowed students and parents to easily track what the daily activities were. It was at this point that I began to see how my coursework and my work at school were slowly working together to create a more cohesive course where technology became part of the core components to delivering information.

It was about this time when I had several colleagues that I worked with enroll in similar programs, one at MSU and one through Grand Valley State University. Since we all communicated on a daily basis, we started to share ideas and experiences that we were having while completing our coursework. What started off as an individual adventure of my own grew into a small group of teachers that were bouncing ideas off of each other, working to implement similar technologies across classrooms, and bringing ideas to colleagues that were not in the program, but very interested in what they could do with their content. Sharing ideas and helping other teachers with technology lead me to start thinking about options for the future, including perhaps a future career as an educational technology specialist.

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Okay, now you lead the way!​

What began as an adventure with using technology in my classroom started to change into an entire new thought on what I was interested in doing with my career. After months of spending hours with colleagues talking about technology in the classroom, I found myself interested in pursuing more with my degree. Thankfully, it was just about this time that I enrolled in "Technology and Leadership" (CEP 815), a course focused on how to lead others in using technology in the classroom. This course increased my interest and I gained a further understanding of what a technology specialist position would involve.

The material in CEP 815 seemed to come at the exact right time. The readings talked about the educational setting, as well as corporate settings, where good leadership was essential for a thriving business. I enjoyed how even when the readings were not directly related to my classroom, I could pull the meaning and envision what it would look like in the educational setting. One of the most influential concepts that was covered involved the battle to get schools to move from an instrumental way of thinking to a missional way of thinking. Instrumental thinking is basically my thinking when I started the program, where I was mainly focused on using as much technology as possible, without really thinking about how the technology was pushing my students further and enhancing my teaching. Missional thinking, on the other hand, is more centered on not using technology for the sake of technology, but instead linking the use of technology to a much larger vision of the school, where evidence from technology use can be linked directly to the mission of the school.

In addition, I enjoyed learning all about the different types of leaders, as well as how you can move from one type of leadership into another. While reading about different corporations and their internal structure, I found myself thinking about what type of leader I wanted to be, and what it would look like to lead educators in their own journeys through technology.

The end result of CEP 815 was creating a sustainable technology project, where I researched and considered how to implement a technology that cost little to no money, but could be used for a great number of years and provide a deeper understanding in the classroom. For this activity, I chose to work to create a blogging activity, which allowed students to complete activities in class and then create a reflection piece on what they did, including pictures and videos to support their findings. It was a key part of the project to find an option that was low-cost to the school and luckily most blogging software is free, including the one I chose, KidBlog.org. The end result was a great project that provided evidence that technology could be sustainable at no cost, a great insight for future problems as a leader who wants to implement technology on a school-wide basis.

Part of the discussion during CEP 815 focused on how leaders could address the needs of the staff they support, including support for technological concerns and juggling all the different things that are going to be thrown your way. While CEP 815 started to make me think about all these concerns, "Approaches in Educational Research" (CEP 822) showed me one way to take steps to address the needs of individuals at the school. CEP 822 focused on research in education, and was a grueling course that required constant reflection and editing of a research topic of our choosing. I chose to focus on how science laboratory activities impacted student achievement. I spent countless hours researching what had been done in the past, as well as many more trying to synthesize all of the information into a cohesive argument that could be presented. All the work paid off. In the end, not only did I have a well-written and thought out argument for using science laboratory activities to strengthen student achievement, but I understood another aspect of my future career. This new position would most certainly require me to write proposals and conduct research to strengthen arguments and justify what I wanted to implement in class. 

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Putting it all together…

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My whole journey in educational technology seemed to work in steps. The final step in the journey occurred outside of the program. In January of 2013, a few administrators at my school realized that they had teachers who were enrolled in educational technology programs and decided to form a committee to address concerns at our building. The team consists of our schools IT specialist, two administrators, three teachers that are currently in the educational technology program and other teachers who are interested in using technology in their classrooms. It seems like a perfect mix for beginning our journey. What it made me realize is just how much I have grown over the past two years. In the first meeting, many ideas were thrown out for considering, including iPads in the classroom and how awesome it would be for each classroom to have a set. Right away, I started talking about all the things I had learned in the program. I addressed the need to create a mission for the team, to keep our minds focused on the mission and not lean towards instrumental thinking. I addressed the need for TPACK to be considered, which lead to a 30 minute conversation on what that looked like. We talked about funding, and our School Board members that were not easily persuaded to spend money on technology. We discussed research that could be done to collect data and form conclusions that could be brought to the board. Everything seemed to click and it was the first time that I felt a transition between a teacher who used technology to an educator that wanted to lead others to use it the right way. Those conversations could not have happened without the program, and it was the point where I realized I am ready for the next step!​