My process of Adaptation - a Reflection
When you have been able to really apply everything you have learned about adapt yourself to live fully in that new culture, you have overcome culture shock. The importance of culture and culture shock cannot be overlooked, especially when we think about how we can make learning relevant for students from such diverse cultural backgrounds. Whose history do we teach? This was even explored in my ETEC 532: Technology in the Arts and Humanities Classroom course and I discussed it in my analysis of a vignette. Eventually, life in Colombia became normal to me. I started to get used to all the little things that used to challenge me. I no longer found everything new and exciting, it was just the way things were. The same is with using my skills and knowledge from the MET program. Now these skills have become second nature, and I have immersed myself in this new culture enough now that I feel confident it will be a vital part of my career for as long as I live. I had the opportunity to work as a Technology Integrator in my second year in Colombia, and now I am starting over with culture shock by moving to Brussels, Belgium to work as a High School Technology Integrator at an international school there.
ETEC 590: Graduating Project is my final course for the MET and has allowed me to look back on how the MET program has affected my teaching and even my career path. This ePortfolio is only a small sample of what I have learned from MET. It is also is the end of my culture shock in the program (as now it is just a part of my daily life) and in Colombia. As soon as I adapt to one culture, there is always the opportunity to extend my knowledge and share it with a new one.
ETEC 590: Graduating Project is my final course for the MET and has allowed me to look back on how the MET program has affected my teaching and even my career path. This ePortfolio is only a small sample of what I have learned from MET. It is also is the end of my culture shock in the program (as now it is just a part of my daily life) and in Colombia. As soon as I adapt to one culture, there is always the opportunity to extend my knowledge and share it with a new one.
Met Learning Applied in Colombia
While completing my MET, the school I was working at in Colombia also decided to implement a 1:1 programme using iPads. This decision was made before I started at the school, but I was given the opportunity to work as a school-wide Technology Integrator and in this position I was able to apply my learning during the Master of Educational Technology to an international school setting. This was especially challenging as I was negotiating the challenges of living and working in new societal culture at the same time as trying to cultivate a new school culture of technology use based on the latest research from my MET courses in a well-established private school in the north of Bogotá.
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future challenges and opportunities
I have just started job at the International School of Brussels as High School Technology Integration Specialist. I will have the opportunity to work directly with teachers and help them to improve their teaching and the learning of their students through the use of technology. I already know this will be a great opportunity to expand on MET.
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One of the human commonalities that the school frames its teaching and learning around is the concept that we are contributing members of groups. I hope to use this concept and my background in technology to help us the new digital tools that we are empowered with to ensure that we become closer as a community instead of breaking off into more niches. I look forward to applying my MET learning and understanding of different cultures to a new school culture, and Belgian culture, while working in a very diverse and innovative school.
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