Category Archives: A. Introductions

Hi,

My name is Elske. I am senior lecturer at UMIT, a university located in Tyrol in the Western part of Austria. I am from Germany, but moved to Austria in 2001.

My field of expertise is health informatics. I am teaching health information systems, evidence-based medical informatics and project management, among others.

This is my 5th MET course. Until now, I have taken ETEC 510, 511, 512 and 515b.

I got interested in Education Technology several years ago. As a university teacher, I felt that our ways of teaching are often ineffective and not student-centred. I wanted to explore how to use technology to activate students and to improve teaching and thus started the MET programme. At the moment, I chair the UMIT Committee on Teaching and Learning that is responsible for coordinating activities regarding improving the quality of teaching at UMIT. Also, I am responsible to implement a new online master programme in health informatics. This is really a challenge, and the MET courses helped me quite a lot here …

In this course, I hope to deepen my understanding on how to use technology in fields related to my teaching area (computer science).

Besides my professional life, I have two kids (9 and 11 years). In my free time, I to Taekwondo (red belt) (see photo).

Elske

Hi everyone, my name is Sarah, and I am currently living in Hong Kong (although presently in eastern Canada waiting for the blizzard to pass and will hopefully make it back for our first day back to work on Monday). I moved to Hong Kong in August from Beijing, China where I had been for seven years teaching at a Canadian International School. I currently teach Year 4 and love using technology to excite students and redefine their learning.

This is my 5th course in the MET program, and I am looking forward to learning alongside you all and learning about new ways to implement and use technology and multiliteracies in Math and Science.

When I am not teaching, I can usually be found outside at the beach or hiking. I am also passionate about traveling and eating all over the globe!

Cheers,

Sarah

Hello everyone! Happy to be getting started on course 8 for me! The end of my MET is in sight! It has been such an incredible journey so far and I feel like I really have transformed my classroom practice through the three and a half years I have been in this program. I live in Calgary, AB. I teach Grade 3 French Immersion with a small amount of release time to work as a Learning Leader, as a part of which I get to work with other teachers on how to integrate technology in their teaching practice. I’m excited to be undertaking this course right now because our school’s school development plan is related to math this year, so I’m excited to see how I can better leverage technology in math teaching and learning.

I am a mom to two littles who I love to explore the mountains with! We can often be found hiking and camping. I was incredibly proud of my six-year-old this summer for managing to summit Sulphur Mountain (he had a blast waving at the people riding the gondola up) and to climb to the Lake Agnes tea house. I find the trail and sitting around a bonfire to be the best places for conversations with them.

I love riding my bike and commute to work by bike as often as I can. I run when I can and usually “race” a couple of half marathons each year… if you can can call a turtle’s pace racing… lol… I’m just getting my money’s worth out of the course.

Looking forward to getting to know all of you!

Tracy

Hey everyone! Sorry if I’m a little late to the ETEC533 party (well, by one day). I saw I was supposed to post by Wednesday (yesterday) but it wasn’t possible for me with the time difference. The course opened just before I went to bed in my current home of Doha, Qatar, and I’ve been working since I woke up. I’m actually at work as we speak but… I’ve carved out a few minutes to get to meet you all!

I’m originally from Newfoundland, now working/studying in Doha, and this is my 7th course in the MET program.  Each course has been quite unique in terms of feel, expectations, sense of community, work load, relevance, frequency of face-palming, and so on. Looking forward to experiencing how this course will unfold!

As for courses taken, I’ve completed:

500, 510, 511, 512, 531, and 565A (not in that order)

I honestly have not even had time to fully peruse the course so I am not sure what to expect, nor do I have a long list of hopes for what I might learn based on those expectations. I can say that the course itself seems well-organized – and full of things to do – so I expect to be busy and, if past courses are any indication, being busy means I’ll learn a lot. This is my first MET course dedicated to math and science, which is exciting to me because my B.Sc. is in Applied mathematics and Physics. This is my 6th year teaching so I’ve learned a lot through experience, and have a reasonable base of knowledge in terms of how to implement tech-based STEM ideas in my classes. Even so, I’ve always felt I could do more, and do it more efficiency, with a greater impact on student success. An added struggle is that I teach at a technical college in Doha where the students are not necessarily well-prepared in secondary school to handle a greater degree of independence in classes. Fingers crossed this is a course that help me learn how to better serve these students, bolstering my skill set in the process. To top it off with a specific hope or two, I do hope that this course will help me build confidence with current best practices in STEM, as well as introduce me to successful tech-related methods of integrating a stronger STEM presence into classes.

This is already getting long, so you may stop reading here if you’re bored (or even still with me). Looking forward to meeting you!

Scott

P.S. Still with me? I suppose I’ll add a few things about myself.

• I’m married to my wonderful wife (just celebrated our 2nd anniversary Dec. 30th) and we are expecting our first child in April.

• I’ve got two cats.

• I love math and physics and I love teaching it, but music is my strongest passion. I would probably try a career in it if the profession didn’t carry so many uncertainties. I write/compose it, record it, perform it, transcribe it, analyze it, read about it, etc, etc. I’m an experienced guitarist and an acceptably-competent singer, and I lead a 4-man band here in Doha.

• I love travel.

• I’m lead instructor (i.e. head) of the Math department at my workplace, and hope that this course will help me improve some of my department’s shortcomings.
• I’m an avid (video) gamer and play D&D roughly once a month.
• In 2012 I lived and worked as a math/physics teacher in Northampton, UK. It was a horrible job but I learned so much.

OK that’s enough. “See” you around!