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July 22, 2013

Dear Educational Technology Faculty,

I graduated from the University of Texas at Pan American with a Bachelor's in Social Work.  I pursued a career at Tropical Texas Center for Mental Health and Mental Retardation.  I worked in both the Children and Adult MH units.  I worked as a service coordinator and worked out of the Edinburg, Weslaco, and Harlingen Outpatient Clinics.  My role was to coordinate services with my clients and monitor their progress with the counseling and/or medication services.  I collaborated with the doctors, counselors, and school districts and conducted home/school visits to monitor my clients.

Next, I decided to obtain my certification in teaching from the Alternative Certification Program (ACP) from the University of Texas at Pan American.  At this time I was still working full time and taking evening classes. Then I found out there was an opening at Progreso Elementary where I started working with a probationary waiver, but nevertheless passed all of my Excets and become a certified Texas teacher.  I worked as a 2nd grade teacher and then challenged the Early Childhood Excet so that I could teach Pre-kindergarten 4.  I have been teaching for 11 years now at Progreso I.S.D and have the opportunity to teach many grade levels because we have such a high turnover rate for teachers at this district.  I have taught Pre K-4, 1st grade (Summer School), 2nd grade, 5th grade Science/Social Studies, Gifted & Talented (K-4th), Dyslexia Lab (2nd-4th), and the Science Laboratory (2nd-5th).  These experiences have made me professional grow as an educator by learning about the different grade levels, their abilities, learning styles, and teaching styles such as utilizing centers, guided and direct instruction.

I was in another teacher grant (TQ) with Dr. Laura Villareal from UTB when I heard about the MSTTPA teacher grant that was being offered to teachers who work at low, economically disadvantaged schools.  I applied that same day, which was also the last day to submit the application.  After our training, I drove straight to UTPA in Edinburg to fax over my college transcript to UTB.  A few days later, I receive an email or letter from Dr. Janice Butler stating that I qualified for the teacher grant and that we would begin our technology classes in the Fall of 2011.

As a teacher, I have been implementing more technology in the classroom especially because we now have the (AR) Accelerated Reader program and we recently purchased a Science program called Class Act, which is a great hands-on, independent, and interactive computer program to meet our science needs.  In the classroom I have used United Streaming Videos for Science & Social Studies and BRAIN Pop to engage or elaborate on the lessons taught. I am so glad I got the opportunity to go back to school.  I never thought I would go for technology, but then again I never thought I would be doing so much Science.  When I was younger, I never understand Science nor was it emphasized as much.  Well, here I am as life takes me in another direction.  I am eager to learn and take the next step in furthering my education.

I have learned many lessons along the way during the course of completing my Master's in Educational Technology.  As an online learner, I have learned to be independent and discipline myself by taking the time to review the syllabus and course calendars thoroughly so that I could become familiar with the course objectives and assignments.  This was tough for me because I was not technology savvy at all, I did not even know how to attach a file to an email.  I only knew how to open, send, and receive emails. I have accomplished so much and have taken all of this knowledge of utilizing technology into my classroom to enhance student learning.  I am now one of the teachers they seek for advice on the use of technology.  I have also been a presenter for our campus (Progreso West Elementary) on Blackboard to train teachers how to use this program that our district recently purchased.

Looking back at all the courses we have taken, we have learned to use a variety of educational technology tools that can be incorporated into our lessons as a classroom teacher. Learning about web 2.0 technologies was great because I was able to use my creativity and bring it back into the classroom for my students to see. I learned about Problem based learning by developing lessons that students could further research and find solutions to a problem.  These lessons provided 21st century learner with skills such as researching, problem solving, collaborating, creating, analyzing, communicating, presenting, critical thinking, and developing a final product. We also did a lot of cooperative projects that allowed us to collaborate with other classmates.  I enjoyed these projects because you had the opportunity to learn from others and grow professionally.  Some of them came from other fields or occupations that brought in their personal experiences and different perspectives to the table.  We learned about our strengths and weaknesses.  Designing instructional units were challenging, but interesting to see the final product.  My favorite thing about designing them were using the variety of multimedia tools into the lessons or objectives such as Voki avatars, Jing screenshots, Screenr-web-based screen recorder.  Overall, I have grown so much in my knowledge of technology in just 2 years.  I am so proud of myself of being a successful online learner and passing the state exam to become a certified MTT.

In the future, I would like to pursue a career as an online professor.  I had a really good experience being an online learner and wish to pass these experiences to other learners by helping and guiding them along the way to obtain a degree in higher learning.  I want to thank all of the UTB professors from the MSTTPA program for being patient with beginners like me who helped me to learn about technology so that I can pay it forward.

Sincerely,

Isabel Cabrera