Reimagining the Possibilities As soon as I was given a Chromebook cart for my students in 2015, educational technology became my passion. I received minimal training to prepare for using these devices, so I read articles, watched videos and listened to podcasts centered around effective educational technology integration practices. However, I wanted to learn more. I contemplated if I should pursue a second master’s degree in educational technology. I earned my first post-graduate degree approximately 12 years prior and was at a place in my career where I did not have to further my education. As time passed, the feeling of returning to school grew more substantial. After mulling over this for years, I reached a decision and applied to the Master of Arts in Technology Program (MAET) at Michigan State University in January 2020. Two short months later, in March 2020, I started the program. At that time, my goals were to learn new methods of effective technology integration, explore innovative educational technologies that benefit student learning, and acquire the 21st-century skills and knowledge needed to coach other educators on implementing digital tools in the classroom. My introductory MAET course, CEP 811, focused on adapting innovative technologies to education. The first time I logged in to this online class was the last day I saw my students face-to-face. I had no idea how much the world was about to be transformed. Seven weeks later, at the end of CEP 811, it was evident that not only our society had changed, but so had the field of education. I could feel we were on the verge of a significant shift that would impact schools and educators all over the world.
Reimagining the Possibilities was a title I used for my last blog post in CEP 811. The title and the actual blog epitomize the revolution of my MAET thinking. In the blog, I wrote about Ken Robinson’s Changing Education Paradigms. This video taught me that educators must think divergently and utilize innovative thinking to envision possible solutions (Naglik, 2020). There are many solutions to challenges, and to transform the paradigm, we cannot think in a linear way (RSA, 2010). This idea was especially true during the Covid-19 pandemic. Educators worldwide had to reimagine education and discover new methods to be effective teachers. By the end of the course, I started to look at my goals and objectives using a different lens and reevaluated my mindset. My original goals are still essential and have not been replaced. Instead, they were strengthened. Purposeful implementation of digital tools is even more crucial today than pre-pandemic. More schools, students, and teachers have been given digital devices than ever before, and still, many have not received the proper training, creating a digital divide. To close the gap and prepare our students for their 21st-century future, we need to think in nonlinear ways by reimagining all the possibilities.
References Naglik. M. (2020). Reimagining the Possibilities. Megan Maxwell Naglik.https://sites.google.com/msu.edu/meganmaxwellnaglik/cep-811/reimagining-the-possibilities