How it all started...

After teaching for 12 years, I was pretty proud of my accomplishments. I had found a home in a challenging school with a high at risk population teaching first science and, most recently, algebra. I had completed a master's degree in Educational Leadership and was content working towards the school's vision on the school improvement and curriculum teams as the math teacher leader. I was taking online classes and continuously learning new ways to integrate graphing calculator and smartboard technology into my lessons. In short, I felt that I was "ahead of the game" in terms of expanding my discipline. Then I went to the MACUL conference last February......

MACUL is short for Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning. I was captivated by the end of the opening keynote address by Alan November. He handed out clickers and had 1800 teachers text the most common word students use to describe school. BORING was the overwhelming choice.....by TEACHERS...who have opted to attend a technology conference!!! I can only conclude, being the logical person that I am, that while most teachers are very excited by new technology, the student experience has remained relatively unchanged.

At that moment my ultimate educational goal became:

To use technology to change the STUDENT experience (and as long as you are doing that, you might as well make the new experience meaningful by incorporating it into the global perspective).

www.macul.org