Journal 1: Introduction Letter

My name is Ashley Kathleen Parks and I am from Half Moon Bay, California. For those that don't know, Half Moon Bay is located in between San Francisco and Santa Cruz right on the coast. I lived there most of my life, until I moved to San Luis Obispo when I was 17. I spent my K-12 years in Cabirillo Unified School District in Half Moon Bay. My elementary school was Farallone View Elementary. Spending six years with a panoramic ocean view outside my classroom window wasn't too disagreeable. I moved up to Manuel F. Cunha Intermediate School for sixth through eighth grade and eventually made my way to Half Moon Bay High School for my remaining years in my hometown. After high school I moved to San Luis Obispo to attend California Polytechnic State University, less formally known as Cal Poly. After five years I graduated with a B.S. in Child Development and no idea of what I wanted to from there on out. I believe that learning doesn’t stop when you leave the classroom that’s why a few months after graduation I packed my life up and moved across the world with my boyfirend, Patrick, to South Korea. Living in Korea was in itself an education. We taught English to elementary-aged children in a small city called Changwon. It was the stereotypical Asian city with tall buildings and hundreds of thousands of people. After our year contract in Korea we made my way back around the world stopping in many countries along the way. The trip home lasted about four months. If you're interested you can check out some of my travel blog here. It was hard to keep up with and I gave up after a short while, but it shows a little of what our trip was all about. I think I honestly learned more in my time in Korea and traveling than I learned in my entire university career.

I am actually very interested in technology and someday hope to get my Masters degree in Educational Technologies, so I'm actually very excited about this class. My interest stems from a full year course (three quarters) I took in college called Learning Resources and Technology. In that class I learned how to use a variety of tools and programs to make basic educational software for children. We made books that were clickable (words, sounds, pictures, videos, etc), interactive art lessons, did video filming and editing for educational research projects and came out of it with a good digital portfolio. That class lead me to want to learn more. I moved on to take higher-level computer classes. I worked extensively with the adobe package: photoshop, illustrator and in-design. I would have liked to continue my computer classes, but that pesky graduation snuck up on me and they told me I had to leave.I would have to say that I prefer Mac's much more than PC's, but unfortunately I use a PC right now. I'm not one to turn down a free computer, beggars can't be choosers. Anyway, in an ideal world I would be using a MacBook Air. I am ridiculously dependent on technology. From my banking, to communication, to school. I use technology for almost everything. In the year we lived in Korea I would have been lost without my laptop. We used it for calling home from Skype, watching TV and movies streaming on the internet, emailing friends, transferring money between bank accounts... everything. As of now, my laptop doesn't have Office 07 on it, but I would like it.

The part of the mission statement that 'speaks' to me, would probably be the sentence about student-centered learning and reflective teaching. I don't think it's possible to have a successful classroom without using the students to decide what direction the learning goes in. When an educator doesn't focus the learning on the student they are losing sight of what is important. Also, if they don't take into account how much the students know then what they are teaching may be too easy or too difficult and they may not facilitating any learning at all. The other part of the mission statement that I like is about reflective teaching. When a educator doesn't sit back and think about what they are doing and what they did, then they can never get any better and they can never fully realize the problems that they may be having. I think the key is to be a reflective teacher while centering everything around the student.