ETEC 5213 – Blog #1: About Me

Welcome!  If you’re reading this, you’ve found the Educational Technology portion of my blog wherein I discuss all things related to my experience with Educational Technology and Instructional Design.  But…first a little background.

In the Fall of 2017 I noticed an ad on Facebook for the University of Arkansas’s online master’s program.  As a person with a Theater degree working in Corporate America for a Technology company, I’ve always sought a way to further my education.  The only conditions were that it 1) had to be accessible remotely in the form of an online degree, and 2) it had to be something that I enjoyed.  I had found several online programs that had online degrees for Master of Business Administration or a Master of Information Systems, but none of the course content sounded interesting.  You see, one of the tasks that falls within my responsibility as a Senior User Consultant at a data company is to support internal systems by training new users.  And, truth be told, that’s the one part of my job that I enjoy.

With that in mind, I clicked on on the Facebook ad for U of A and scrolled through the programs they offered.  The usual suspects were there:  MBA, MIS, etc.  But then I saw the Master of Education in Educational Technology program.  HOLD THE PHONE!  This looked like something that appealed to me and it was 100% online.  And that makes sense.  If you can’t have a fully online Educational Technology degree, then you’re doing something wrong.  I read through all of the content and thought this would be great for my position in the company (a company which also provides tuition reimbursement for approved degree programs).  I presented the information to my leader, she was excited about my interest and pursuit of the degree, and promptly approved the degree for the reimbursement program.

The rest is history.  I enrolled in the U of A the following spring and am currently in my second semester of classes.  All in all, it’s been quite an experience going back to the classroom after almost 20 years.

Back to the reason for this blog.  As part of an assignment for my ETEC 5213 – Educational Media class, we have to start working with blogging platforms.  So, over the course of this semester, I’ll be posting about topics as they relate to Educational Technology.  Topics ranging from Accessibility to Photo Editing to App Development.  And if you’ve read this far, and have an interest or experience with ETEC, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.