Bonjour from Squamish!

Hello fellow classmates,

I’ve been reading your posts and appreciate all of the energy, passion, and research you’ve put into your contributions to the ETEC site. I didn’t have access to the site until the staff at the Learning Technology Hub UBC helped me become recognized as a UBC student, so I’ve had a very techy start indeed to my first year as a MET student! For this reason, I will be trying my best to catch up with all of you and provide thoughtful, albeit late, feedback.

I’ve always considered BC to be my home even though I grew up in the U.S. during the school year. The National Geographic headquarters, located in Washington, D.C., sparked my father’s career in writing, photography, film, etc. I planned my first teaching resource as a National Geographic intern and became interested in travel and languages. Despite all of the international travel, our family always returned to B.C. in the summers where my parents built a remote fishing lodge.

I attended Colorado College (CC) in the States where I studied political science and environmental policy. The rigorous, creative non-traditional block plan of the university attracted many keen students who wanted to learn as much about the world as possible in order to “disrupt”, or change it, for the better. As I read David’s post about entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, and innovators, I couldn’t help but think of all of the friends I made at Colorado College (CC) who are now change-makers. It was at CC that I discovered a love of reading, writing, and ideas. I realized how practice yields to passion, and I somehow graduated with an intrinsic motivation to work hard to achieve a life worth living. What more could you ask of a university experience! 
Instilled in me is the belief that people can learn new things at any age. I learned Spanish in order to develop an adventure tourism company in Colombia while I taught at a BC offshore school in Medellin. I branded the business around an idea I believe in: travel and  give back in an authentic way to the conservation of the environment you explored. You can see the website here: https://expeditioncolombia.com/
I learned French when I heard there was a need for French Immersion teachers in Squamish, a community I am happy to call home.

I want to continue to adapt and take on new challenges throughout my career in education. As a graduate student at U.B.C, I will contribute to the program as an active teacher engaged in the process of harnessing educational technology as an effective tool for learning. Moreover, I hope to one day be part of a team to create a new learning app, and I have one product idea that  I am excited to grow and develop. I love brainstorming ideas and working in teams, so feel free to reach out anytime. My teacher’s website needs some TLC, but there are a lot of online learning resources in the ELL and Special Ed. sections:

https://supportlearners.weebly.com/

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