Position+&+Leadership+Goals

=** Comprehensive Exam of ** = =** Educational Technology Leadership ** =

**Lamar University**
In my quest to become an educational technology leader, I hope to be able to share my abilities and knowledge with those in the educational field, whether in the profession of teaching or leading others. While my resume is quite diversified in the abilities that I have acquired over the years, my strengths lie within the technology field and the knowledge that I have gained from the computer-based positions that I have held.

**Position Goal**
My job position at Weatherford College is that of Web Designer. I have been employed with WC for a year and have found the information I have learned in the classes for this program beneficial in that particular role. Although I am not playing the role as professor for a class of high school graduates, I do find opportunities to instruct administrators, secretaries, and teachers about the college website. At this time, I’m not quite sure how my role will change after the completion of my M.Ed. degree, but I am looking forward to the possibilities. I have learned, after working for another community college as Graphics Manager for 16 years, not to be so focused in on a single career choice that you overlook what opportunities may appear on the horizon.

**Leadership Goal**
In my twenty-plus-year career, I have seen how technology has shifted and changed. Mimicking the ebb and flow of an ocean, some technology developments have taken a strong hold on our society and others have not. With the surging of the waves onto the educational arena, it not only has taken a strong hold, but flooded the gates like a tidal wave.

As our young 21st century students have begun their educational journey, our teachers have found they are immersed in a digital world and challenged to present new lesson materials revised and edited for the “Digital Natives” as Marc Prensky had predicted (2001). Today’s generation of instructors are now labeled as “Digital Immigrants” and now struggle in the student chair to learn the technology that is so eagerly accepted by their students. Many times, students are instructing the teachers on the classroom technology that surrounds them.

This challenge not only affects that K-12 grade levels, but also the higher education level with those similar “Digital Immigrants” struggling to comprehend this new educational technology. If students are taught the new technology in grade school levels, they sometimes find themselves facing a community college also struggling to upgrade to the new standards required of them by the state educational agencies. In essence, technology is affecting all levels of education and no matter what role you play, there will always be a need for technologist trained in the educational technology.