I live in the small coastal town of Port Angeles in the northwest corner of Washington State where Olympic National Park is located. I share our 1894 farm house with four millennials, all at different points in their education and lives.
Lifelong learning is a concept I consider vital to continued growth, happiness, and community engagement. Online learning is a key component of that experience and over the last decade it remains a fundamental part of my life. After completing undergraduate work in environmental studies with emphasis in education at Western Washington University, I became interested in the role technology plays in education.
Through a grant from Washington State STEM and a STEM ambassadorship, my colleague and I developed a project-based science program for secondary students to earn credit in science, English and Career and Technical Education. This hybrid alternative program teaching and mentoring high school students in a project-based science program focusing on inquiry and service learning was my first teaching experience. Additionally, as the STEM instructor for our marine science center, I taught high school students how to build ROVs (remotely operated vehicles) and collect and interpret plankton data.
Currently I am a contract educator at our community college and have taught Oceanography, ROV, Marine Mammals of the Pacific Northwest, STEAM, Robotics and Forensic Science. I joined the staff at the TRIO Upward Bound program at our college in 2017, but recently left that position to study educational technology. After finishing a M.S. Ed in Professional Education last December at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia my plan was to teach science, but instead decided to enroll in the Boise State M.E.T. program.
My long term career goal is to become an online educator in post-secondary education. I am a lifelong learner who loves technology and education, and am highly interested in gaming in education. The potential of gamification and simulations in education to aid students with learning challenges is an area of great interest to me. On this journey I hope to uncover ways to bring this concept to fruition.
Education is not a preparation for life; education is life itself.
John Dewey
Tara Morrow: My EDTECH Learning Log 