How Do I Start This Thing?
Good morning,
My intent with this first post is to find a way to kick off a time in my life where for the first time since moving out of my parents’ house, I won’t have to worry about working at the same time as being a student. With my parents’ gracious help in starting my post-secondary education as a student at Mesa Community College way back in the day, I’ve since been able to pay for my entire college education in cash with money from my own pocket.
My undergraduate work was in the engineering program at ASU, more specifically in computer science. Through a series of challenges and the hoop jumping that we all have to do as students in order to get our education I made a stark discovery: I actually like learning. I may be overstating that fact, but I guess what I’m really trying to say is that through my prescription of how to view life there is a great value to learning all that you possibly can. Subsequently there is an even greater value to sharing what you learn with others (teaching).
I ‘m currently awaiting the start of a sabbatical award from Maricopa Community College District to begin on August 20, 2007. I will be completing the requirements for a masters degree in Educational Technology, and then returning to work in December 2007 in preparation for the spring semester.
At any rate, I’m going to use this website to share my experiences and also begin what I hope is a noble effort to share with other educational software developers what someone with a degree in software engineering and an interest in computing can do with a degree in education and an interest in psychology. I’ll also be disseminating what I will deem to be my ‘soapbox‘; in that there is always a better way or method to teach…specifically the subject of computing and software development. I’ll do this by revealing some of my findings with side projects that I work on of my own accord, and research work that I will be doing under the direction of the Ed Tech faculty at ASU. I’ll leave the tried, true, and tested methods of teaching engineering to professionals with doctoral degrees in engineering, but at the same time, I hope and pray that there are also people in that field who have developed an epistemology of how to share their great and vast knowledge with those that truly want to learn.
I’ll let everyone who reads decide how to best use this information.
Oh, and I’ll also be occasionally cross-posting at my current job website blog, the CTL Blogcast.
Enjoy.
Good luck! I look forward to reading about your experiences!