Dr. Elodie Jones

Hello! My name is Dr. Elodie Jones, and I will be your instructor for section VA of this course, MIT813: Instructional Message Design.

I have been at FHSU since August 2013. Before coming to FHSU, I was an instructor for the undergraduate (elementary and secondary) technology integration course at the University of Kansas, where I completed my Master's in Instructional Technology and my Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction. My dissertation primarily concentrated on understanding the barriers to technology use and integration with novice teachers. In my former life, I was a high school business and computer educator. As a side note, I received two undergraduate degrees from FHSU and am a native of Kansas. I love to spend lots of time with family and friends, including my two amazing daughters and two canines. My spare time is gym time, cooking, and travel.

After teaching for three years in an undergraduate setting in the Department of Teacher Education at FHSU, I moved to Advanced Education Programs (AEP). I started teaching within my field of expertise, which is instructional technology. While in Teacher Education, I taught Foundations of Education, Curriculum & Assessment, and Educational Psychology as a capstone course. I now teach at least one undergraduate course to get my "face-to-face fix" and connect with undergraduate, pre-service teachers. Regardless of what I've taught over the last 22 years, I've always been an advocate for the use and integration of technology across the curriculum. However, technology has a time and a place, and it is our job to know when and where it best fits for a rich, innovative, creative, and productive learning experience. Contextually, this integration includes both aspects of the teacher and student(s) framework for general knowledge, utilization, and overall mindset concerning technology use and integration for instruction and administration. I fully align with the ISTE Standards and ISTE #digcit competencies. 

As an educator, my philosophy is to fail, share our failures and trials, and keep exploring, playing, creating, and modeling this growth mindset with students, peers, administrators, parents, and stakeholders (anyone who will watch or listen!). Through this mindset, we can display our full "human-ness" to others and reduce barriers of perfection and "all-knowing" to truly begin building respectful and trustworthy relationships. Through our humility, vulnerability, spirit for exploration, and growth mindset, I believe we also can model for others that we are not afraid to try, fail, go back to the drawing board, assess, put ourselves out there, to experiment, to explore, to be the learner, and to create new paths ways to become better educators, but also better people. As an educator and facilitator, I certainly do not expect perfection. Still, I expect effort, exploration, open-mindedness, failure, reflection, peer interaction & sharing, and making each other better in the form of constructive criticism. Together, we are better!

My email (ejjones@fhsu.edu) is the best way to contact me day or night, including on weekends. I am also available in the evenings when you will most likely need me.  Feel free to use my cell when needed (913.961.7002), but Google Chat and Hangouts also work. It's all preference.

Have a wonderful semester, 

-ej

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"Be willing to make mistakes (and learn from them), for they are the best teacher (I know)..."

 - e. jones 

"Be willing to be a beginner every single morning." 

    - m. eckhart

Video link to my favorite passage written by Mariann Williamson 

entitled, Our Deepest Fear, as featured in Akeelah and the Bee.