"Two semesters left in my Master's of Teaching program!"
"Oh yeah? Why don't you blog about it?"
Okay, then. I will.
This is the first post in the student blog I'll be keeping for my course on Integrating Technology in the Curriculum. How about some Q&A to get things started? Don't worry, Internet - I'll do both the questioning and the answering. You just relax.
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| My webmaster hard at work. |
Q. Who are you?
A. Ian Watts, male human, graduate student of secondary education at Dominican University.
Q. Are you currently teaching?
A. Sadly, not yet (at least not in a traditional classroom setting). This is one of my final three classes in the MaT program. After this, it's student teaching, certification, and the real world.
Q. Why did you decide to be a teacher?
A. The glamorous lifestyle and enormous paychecks!
Q. This is for a class assignment, be serious.
A. You're no fun at all. Growing up, I never had a clear idea of what career I wanted to pursue. I've loved to read and write for as long as I can remember, and my eighth grade teacher instilled in me a passion for the social sciences that led me to study history and political science as an undergraduate. I considered a career in law, mostly because I thought I'd be good at it (and the aforementioned enormous paychecks). As graduation loomed, however, I wasn't very excited. I didn't want a job to fund my real life - I wanted a job that was a valuable part of my real life. And since I love discussing, debating, learning, and teaching the human drama that is history and politics, here I am.
Q. What do you do apart from teaching?
A. I'm a voracious reader (fiction and non-), and I write (mostly fiction, some historical/political work) whenever the Writer's Block Monster isn't growling at me. Also enjoy singing/playing guitar, volunteering, sports, and spending what precious little free time I have with my favorite people.
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| Moonlighting as a singer-songwriter, after hours. |
Q. What are you looking to gain from this class?
A. As much as I can! I'm amazed at how much social technology and media have changed even since my own childhood. It truly is a digital world now, and I'd love to learn as many ways to integrate that into effective teaching as I can.
