I have considered doing a masters for a long time. I did ongoing research and training for the classes I taught, but that eventually became stale. Getting involved in the International Baccalaureate Educator network satisfied my craving for new information and pedagogy development, and then my career path changed – being in administration required a whole new set of readings and research. Although I just retired from full-time work, I plan on continuing with shorter contracts and as a consultant, so the timing is perfect for starting a Masters of Educational Technology.

Through IB training and learning how to run our new Information System, I have been in online classrooms, face-to-face inquiry/lecture workshops, and required to read many documents. Most of the documentation was not to be read critically, though. It was to be memorized and questioned so it could be applied, but there was only a little analysis and evaluation. This is a HUGE jump, because everything needs to be analyzed and evaluated and then you have to blog about it! Yikes! I come from a generation where we were trained to be careful about what we put in writing because it could come back to haunt you. And now I have to put it out in public, online, and not just in a letter or a report card! (Yes, we were given the option to keep it less public, but . . . ) As the saying goes, “faint heart never won fair lady”, and in my case, the fair lady is this wonderful opportunity to take a Masters online, starting with a July of synchronous classes (half of us attend online), and connecting with a wonderful group of like-minded individuals. Time to analyze my readings!

“Bloom’s Taxonomy”by Vandy CFT is licensed under CC BY 2.0