With the exception of Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Illustrator, and Autodesk Inventor, my technology skills have been very limited.  Prior to working on these graduate classes I had never created a blog, and definitely had never created or  published a web page. In fact, I had never used Google products prior to the pandemic hitting. To me Google was simply a search engine for the internet, but now I have experienced that it is so much more.

For 10 years I taught engineering courses.  Our school district required that we use a canned curriculum produced by Project Lead the Way (PLTW).  This curriculum has its good and bad points, but it does dictate the types of technology that is required for students use, above the typical Microsoft Office suite.  Teaching Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) was one of the things I loved about engineering.  We were required to use Autodesk Inventor, and only received a two week crash course in the curriculum and software use.  Due to this I signed up for a semester class in Inventor at the local community college so that I would feel confident in instructing my students.  My CAD abilities started very low, but I have spent a multitude of hours discovering how to enhance my classes by learning new functions within the software.

In addition to Inventor, I have discovered several browser based CAD programs to help my students continue successful learning while participating in the distance learning process.  My decisions are done within a small window, because the school district and administration mandate most technology uses.  The use of Google Classrooms and the options afforded through linking to You Tube tutorials has been a big help in providing students with 24 hours access to some sort of assistance.  

I strive to make instructional decisions within the parameters I mentioned above, and introduce new types of technology as I can.  Luckily the district has embraced Google Classrooms and also have started allowing Bitmoji Classrooms as an enhancement to learning.  Below you will find an example of a basic Bitmoji classroom and learn about the programs I experimented with during our tech play research for for ETEC568 Makerspaces class.  

Adjacent to the paper you will discover the Google Slides presentation I created about Maker Spaces. As one of our Makerspace challenges we were to design our "Dream Makerspace".  As a former coach for a competition robotics team there was a great deal I wanted to include.  Within the Makerspace presentation is the vision of what I believe is needed for an optimal Makerspace with a few "wants" added in to create the ideal space for students to exhibit their creativity. 

My next artifacts are the result of assignments done in ETEC579 Implementation of Ed Tech Programs. In this course we learned how to create a Proposal Brief and make a Multimedia presentation where I plead my case of why the project should be supported while the presentation played. 

The artifacts in this next section were developed in my ETEC593 Strategic Planning course. In this class I learned the process for development and implementation of a "strategic plan" for the integration of technology in an educational setting. I developed several artifacts that would support this implementation in my current campus. Below you will find a portion of the artifacts I created.

The last artifact I would like to include in the Informed Decision Making section is an artifact I just created in a group project for ETEC527. Since my e-portfolio must be turned in during week 5 of this semester I will not have all the artifacts from ETEC527 completed or added as examples of my work.

Web 2.0 Technology Evaluation Rubric developed in ETEC527

Reflection

It is hard to verbalize how I feel about all the artifacts I have included in this area of my e-portfolio. I have learned so much about the strategies behind making decisions that are supported. I continue to find out daily just how much I still have to learn.