New Beginnings... What to Expect from the JHU-ISTE program

1. What are your expectations for this program? What do you hope to accomplish?
2. Now that you have a good sense of the types of online activities and the rhythms of an active participant, what steps will you take to be successful in this program?
3. Where do you still need additional support to be successful?

It wasn’t that long ago that I was a new student at Full Sail University ready to embark on a yearlong program that would change my life. I believe that all along, through my life as a designer and event producer, what I have excelled at is educating others and often seeing things in ways others did not, in part because I brought a unique combination of life experiences to the table.

As an educator, I have spent significant amounts of time keeping abreast of leadership and technology issues while bringing innovative ideas to the classroom. From this and from a personal sense of what I want, I would expect that I leave this program with the capacity to enter a leadership position in a school district in the area of technology. To accomplish this, I need to spend time learning about the formal management of school systems, go in-depth on the issues, and discover my position on these issues. I also need to push my knowledge base further and use all of the creativity I have to find ways to share this to improve the technology education for all teachers in a district.

Since I was enrolled in a very rigorous online academic program at Full Sail Online (FSO) until last July, I feel that I well prepared to enter the JHU program and be successful. FSO had a fantastic user interface with a dashboard of “what to do” that is similar to JHU. For me, this “checklist” is the key piece to managing my time well as this gives me an overview of what I need to do. Beginning each week reviewing this and noting what projects need to get done in which order is one step to being successful for me. Of course, trying to get it done early is always the goal, but it isn’t always possible. Just expect that so it doesn’t cause stress.

Another important component for me will be to start the reading assignments early. I have trouble remembering what is in a book unless I take copious notes while reading. But this takes a lot more time so I will need to pay attention to the way reading assignments are structured, especially with texts that harder for me to read (small type). I can only do this in small chunks.

My additional support for being successful will come from my children, just as it did the last time. They got used to mom staying up late and leaving me alone when I had to get a project done. They got frustrated at times and just wanted me around, but I think they see how happy I am. They are just older now and I think they will be my support and of course, my inspiration.