Running Head: GROWTH ASSESSMENT

Growth Assessment
Mary Kay Altizer
Azusa Pacific University
September 30, 2015

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2
History of Coursework
FALL I

511 Foundations in Educational Technology

Dr. Bacer, learning Sakai, meeting my wonderful

Cadre 25, Adobe Acrobats my friend, APA,
hyperlinking, and Who am I?

571 Curriculum Foundations

Professor Suffern, Learning styles and theorists,

Interactive curriculum project, keeping our eyes on
Christ through our Cornerstone sections.

517 Digital Communications

Professor Bruzesse, I learned to build a website!

Screen casting is fun, Google drive is awesome.

FALL II

527 Special Topics in Educational

Technology

Professor Bettger, building a Personal Learning

Space (PLS), TED videos and the flipped
classroom, learning about BYOD.

SPRING I
518 Global Learning/Cross Cultural
Classroom

524 Instructional Design and Development

Professor McMillan, letting our lights shine,

Telecollaborative eNotebook, learning what a GLP
is as well as the importance of global collaboration.

Professor Price, the best design is done backwards,

ADDIE and ASSURE, beefing up my PLS,
advertising my GLP with a flyer.

SPRING II
521 Digital Imagery for Learning
Environments

Professor Potter, Photoshop made me want to pull

out my hair, learning how to edit video in iMovie,
adding my own personal music compositions to my
video presentations.

523 Educational Application of Information

Design and Hypermedia

Professor Silva, made my first Podcast, learned

what good website design looks like, GLP website
building, digital ethics are important, trust monitor
policy for website.

SUMMER
515 Emerging Trends in Technology

Dr. Brown, Massive Open Online Courses

(MOOCs), becoming a MARP superstar, learned
about the underbelly of the Deep Web.

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520 Managing Tech Supported Curricular

Tools

Professor Silver, discovering that our

school actually has a technology plan, hard
to cram 9 weeks into 6, analyzing data
from an excel spreadsheet.

FALL I (2015)
526 Practicum in Educational Applications
of Technology

Dr. Bacer, were in the final stretch,

looking back on a lot of learning and a lot
of work, cant believe it is almost over,
growth assessment, building yet more
websites, graduation is around the corner!!

572 Advanced Educational Psychology

Dr. Brown, 12 brain rules, encore MARP

presentation, diving into the Ten
Commandments.

Personal Growth
I must admit that I had no idea what I was in for when I embarked on this journey of a
Masters degree just thirteen short months ago. This journey has translated into a newfound
sense of confidence in myself, in my ability to learn new things in the sixth decade of my life,
and a renewed commitment to become a life-long learner. I have discovered new things about
myself and have developed a certainty and determination that I can venture boldly into new
educational opportunities and situations.
When I opened my first lesson in Sakai in September of 2014, I stared at this Learning
Management System, having absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do with it. Within the
span of a week, I felt like my life was spinning out of control and I questioned the sanity of
taking on this advanced degree. It seemed that my mantra soon became breathe in, breathe
out, and repeat and I worked diligently to keep from allowing panic and terror to take over. I

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frequently wondered if I was truly smart enough to pull off this course of study. Then, I had a
defining moment one evening last November as I watched the television and saw a news story
about how the European Space Agency had just landed a camera on a speeding comet. My
head spun at the thought of this seemingly incomprehensible feat and at all of the intricacies
and planning that it took, not to mention the extreme intelligence of hundreds of scientists who
most likely worked for years on this project. It made me think that if these rocket scientists
could persevere and execute such an amazing stunt as this, that I could surely learn about
educational technology. Although I would need to continually play this mental game of
compare and contrast throughout the coming months, it was a turning point for me, and I felt
like I did indeed have what it would take to soldier on in this educational process. Little did I
know that the way I thought about education, what I knew about technology, as well as my
ability to organize and express my thoughts in writing was about to drastically change!
Not only have I achieved knowledge and experience in my subject matter, but I also
have gained confidence that has translated into assurance, boldness, and poise in my job
situation. I have become more courageous in my abilities and intellect and feel that this
educational process has made me a much more effective employee, colleague, artist, and
interesting person. Even though I am in my mid-fifties, it has become clear to me that still I
have a lot of living and learning to do, and I look forward to the next twenty years of using my
newfound knowledge and skills. Im definitely not landing the plane, but rather I am ramping
up for another season in my life.

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Professional Growth
The increase in my professional growth has been a welcome and surprising change as a
result of my studies in educational technology. New doors have already opened and fresh
opportunities have presented themselves. I have benefitted from this degree in two major areas.
The first area that has been enlightening for me is the investigation of learning styles, as
well as learning about various educational philosophies. In our text Teachers Discovering
Computers: Integrating Technology in a Connected World (Shelley, Gunter, & Gunter, 2012)
we learned about behaviorism, cognitive theory, and constructivism and we considered their
various theorists. Studying these men helped me comprehend the different cognitive stages,
characteristics of learning, and levels of social developmental that all greatly influence student
learning. One eye opening revelation for me was learning about the six levels of Blooms
Taxonomy (Shelley et al, 2012, p. 266) and how his levels of learning competencies grew from
basic knowledge to evaluation. In my previous years of teaching, I would often encounter
frustration when my instructional strategies and pedagogical techniques would resonate with
some students, while others did not seem to grasp concepts as readily. After studying these
theories, I began to incorporate these concepts of competencies and learning styles into my
teaching. As I analyzed my own personal learning styles, it became very clear to me that in
order to reach all of my students, I needed to adjust how I delivered my material, and I needed
to keep in mind the various ways that students receive and comprehend the content of my
lessons. One line that stayed with me from our text was regarding Blooms levels of learning

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where the author states, Bloom believed and demonstrated through his research that all
children can learn (Shelley et al, 2012, p. 266).
The second area that was quite surprising to me has been the global aspect of
educational technology and learning in general. When I began this program, global education
was not even a thing to me, and definitely not on my radar. When I began my Global Learning
class, I was puzzled by what it was really all about. As the course unfolded, I realized that the
course content was stretching me to a new, yet uncomfortable place. As I began learning about
the incredible opportunity that global learning could afford my students, I discovered that this
type of contact could change my students worldview and be a significant touch-point to global
connectivity. I was hooked! Remarkably, I simultaneously began a relationship with a school
in Sweden, The Academy of Music and Business (AMB) that was interested in developing a
relationship with our school, Oaks Christian School (OCS). During the time that I was taking
the course, I arranged to go to Sweden and visit AMB to see what opportunities for global
collaboration were possible. My husband Jim and I spent four days this past June at AMB and
developed an amazing relationship there with the administrators. As a result of our visit, OCS
and AMB are now in partnership and we are launching a student portal for students of both
schools to digitally collaborate, share, and connect. I feel like I have become a
Teacherpreneur as a result this process with AMB. As stated in Flattening Classrooms,
Engaging Minds, a Teacherpreneur is a teacher who sees an opportunity to make a profitable
learning experience for students through the forging of partnerships with other classrooms with
common curricular goals and expectations (Lindsay & Davis, 2013, p. 44). For me, this
developing partnership has been one of the most rewarding outcomes of this degree, and is
something that I dont think would have transpired had I not been exposed to global education

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and global learning projects.

Because of this professional growth, I feel that I have so many more tools in my belt
than I have previously. The scope of my potential in the educational job market has increased,
and because of this I have more options from which to choose in my career path. My
colleagues are now viewing me as a trailblazer in educational technology and global learning,
and are counting on me to lead the way into the future of music education at Oaks Christian
School.

Technical Growth
As I proceeded into this course of study, I soon realized that I knew very little about
educational technology, and knew that I needed to neutralize my liabilities in this area. This
would mean stretching myself, and venturing outside of my comfort zone to explore new
avenues of technology and digital learning.
For the past five years, I have been teaching a technology-heavy curriculum which
revolves around digital music production. I felt very accomplished (and rather proud of
myself) when I considered how much technology I was using in this class as I employed the
Digital Audio Workstations (DAW) Logic Pro X and Pro Tools. However, upon launching into
this degree, it made me realize how much I actually did not know about things like Web 2.0
and what a Learning Management System (LMS) was, as well as the importance and use of
educational portals, applications, and synchronous communication platforms. This was a bit of
a steep learning curve for me, but I knew that these new technology resources could truly

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revitalize my teaching beyond what I was already using in digital recording. I soon was
making tutorial videos with screen casting applications such as Camtasia and Screencast-OMatic and posting them on our LMS, Canvas, at school. My weekly lesson plans now include
web quests, PowerPoint presentations, Adobe documents, and Prezis. Still, I felt like I needed
to push myself beyond my comfort zone to dig deeper into the realm of educational technology.
So, I requested that my school send me to the Computer-Using Educators (CUE) Conference in
Palm Springs this past March, and that turned out to be quite a fruitful experience. I was able
to rub elbows with educators from all over the country and from all educational disciplines.
This conference further opened my eyes to the endless possibilities in educational technology
and motivated me towards new ideas.
Learning to use technology to create a thirst for knowledge in my students was an
exciting concept to me. Shelly et al (2012) emphasizes that effective learning techniques seek
to capture student attention, to eliminate boredom, and to arouse natural curiosity (p. 23). As
I incorporated this technology, I saw my students become more captivated by the learning
process, and I became more engaged as a teacher as it lifted me out of my same patterns and
gave new life to my teaching.

Life Long Learning Plan

Continue to attend one yearly technology conference such as CUE or ISTE
Utilize Edmodo to connect, collaborate, and converse with other educators
Continue advertising my Global Learning Project and help connect students globally

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Help my school move forward in their BYOD by volunteering to be on the faculty advisory
committee
Further investigate ways that I can harness the power of Canvas at my school to make my
classes more organized and interactive
Commit to taking one music technology class every two years from Berklee College of
Music online school to keep my technology proficiencies up to date
Keep up my professional music organization memberships
Commit to promote the partnership with the Academy of Music and Business (AMB) in
Sweden and help connect AMB to Oaks Christian School or other local high school

Conclusion
This has been an amazing journey for me and it has opened my eyes to the massive
world of educational technology. I hope to at least try to remember everything I have learned,
and apply my newfound skills in my current job situation. I have no idea what the future will
hold for me, but I have a feeling it is going to be a scary, exciting, exhilarating, and
unpredictable ride. At least I am equipped for the journey!

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10
References

Bacer, K., Bettger, B., Brown, J., Bruzzese, J., McMillan, B., Potter, D., Price, K., Silva, L.,
Silver, E., Suffern,V. (2015). Online Master of Arts in Educational Technology. School
of Education and Behavioral Studies, Azusa Pacific University. Azusa, CA. Retrieved
from http://sakai.apu.edu
Lindsay, J., & Davis, V. A. (2013). Flattening classrooms, engaging minds: Move to global
collaboration one step at a time. Boston: Pearson.
Shelly, G. B., Gunter, G. A., & Gunter, R. E. (2012). Teachers discovering computers:
Integrating technology in a connected world (7th ed.). Course Technology.
Spiritual Growth | Unity Global Heart. (n.d.). [Image]. Retrieved from
http://www.unityglobalheart.org