Educators aim to deliver education to the students in most appropriate manner and also to participate as life-long learner. They constantly need to improve to strive for the best teaching strategies and to share with others to modify or change their weaknesses. As part of my professional development and to become more successful teacher, I focus on educational technologies that allow me to learn and develop tools for the students. Any contents that I learn from the program can be trialed and implemented into my classroom to observe how it can enhance students’ learning. I would like to become an education advisor in the future to guide both students and teachers to be successful. With the aid from this course, I would like to read many books and research articles related to educational technology to enhance my knowledge to broaden the spectrum of shared information with others. Since I can work while studying in this course, I am planning to share my teaching strategies with other educators in the course. Through past MET courses, I was able to share my strategies with others and it was great experience to have other educators listening to my perspective in education. Also, I was able to think broader by listening to other perspectives on education. As new knowledge is acquired through this course, I would be able to get direct feedbacks from my students when new technological strategies are applied. These experiences will help me to develop better strategies that can be used regularly in the classroom. As I am in the shoe of the teacher and the student, I was able to understand that the interest of the learner impacts the quality of learning. My greatest interest lies in educating students. Seeing students’ improvement and enjoyment in learning makes me happy.

The primary role of an educator is to discipline the students to participate in both intellect and character development. Also, the educator functions as an on-going learner who constantly search for balance between flexibility and disciplinary to guide students to their full potential. As an educator, guiding students to be ready for the real life after school should be placed in the top priority. Those students who are not ready to adapt to the real work force, they will be less able to find comfort after school.

Students’ learning should be based on individual student’s academic and career goal. In order for students to feel comfortable in learning, teachers need to be able to guide them properly. I found educators who strive to improve and learn for students’ learning can make big differences in students’ learning outcome. I always aim to become a teacher who creates better learning environment for the students. I am confident that this program will help me to step forward to achieve both my professional and scholarly goals.

My research interest lies to seek the effective ways to train teachers on adapting the technology in their own classroom. “Teachers who have had computer training are more likely to show positive attitudes toward computer use in the classroom” (Ying-chen, 2000 ). If teachers are not well trained with the technology to be used in their own classroom, both students and teachers will lose the benefit of having the technology. Technology in learning environment works best when the educators or the facilitators are well trained and able to troubleshoot in necessary circumstances. If teachers are adequately trained, they will feel comfortable adapting those tools in their lesson. From various journal articles that I was previously exposed to, it was clear that many teachers understand the importance of receiving proper training to bring technology into their own classroom. With the consensus of importance of training, the focus of the studies now should aim to evaluate the effectiveness of different types of training. My goal after this masters program is to become an academic advisor for both students and the teachers. I hope I can share my strategies and ideas with colleagues in this course to enhance my knowledge and broaden my perspective on implementing technology in the classroom.

Ying-chen, L. M., & Kinzie, M. B. (2000). Computer technology training for prospective teachers: Computer attitudes and perceived self-efficacy. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 8(4), 373-396.

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Implementing technology into the lesson can enhance students’ engagement and interest in learning. In 21st century, there are various means of delivering the lesson to the students. With technological advancement in past decade, the population has learned to live extremely close with it. With the familiarity of the technologies in our life, the integration of technology into our daily lesson will have positive impact on students’ learning. The secondary schools in UK have incorporated technologies in attempt to enhance the students’ literacy achievement and the result of the study demonstrated promising outcome. Furthermore, Erban et al. showed that technology use was effective in helping ELL learners’ language skill development (Erban, 2008). The literacy level problem that secondary school in UK faced was statistically significant. The data showed that 25% of the students were ELL and 40% of the students had learning disabilities. With given demographic, learning with technology tool provided comfortable and easy learning environment for the students. For the students to effectively participate in learning, they need to understand and be competent with the technology tool. Appropriate organization of training sessions will be essential for the student to be responsibly use the technology tools. Once proper incorporation has been initiated, learning with technology motivates students in learning. (Genlott, 2013) The technology allows student to be stimulated both visually and auditorily rather than being limited by words on the paper. Especially for the students who struggle in class, use of technology can enhance their understanding of the lesson.

For effective incorporation of technologies into the lessons, the educators need to be comfortable and competent with the given tools. The advantages of using technologies in the lesson diminishes when the teachers struggle to bring out the positivity. When the teachers struggle to effectively use the tools, the students will have hard time enjoying the education through technology. Without stimulating the interest and engagement in the activities, students will not be able to learn via self-education. This would be more true for the student who lack experiences working on their own.  

There is high rate of publication in researches on effectiveness of technologies in education and the articles state that students’ literacy achievement improves with technological involvement in the education. Furthermore, it dives into the methodology of using technology to maximize the enhancement of literacy skills in students. There is fine balance between the amount of technologies and its benefits in the classroom. There are still issues with inaccurate use of words and grammar on Internet. Therefore, the teachers need to be aware of the disadvantages of technology and should aim to use the technologies to bring most benefit to students’ learning.

Erben, T., Ban, R., & Castaneda, M. (2008). Teaching English language learners through technology. Routledge.

Genlott, A. A., & Grönlund, Å. (2013). Improving literacy skills through learning reading by writing: The iWTR method presented and tested. Computers & Education, 67, 98-104.

Sternberg, B. J., Kaplan, K. A., & Borck, J. E. (2007). Enhancing adolescent literacy achievement through integration of technology in the classroom. Reading Research Quarterly, 42(3), 416-420.