The Kenan Fellows professional development experience has had a significant impact on me. First, I started working on my Master’s degree at NC State in instructional technology as a result of this experience. I am always striving to better myself, and I think improving upon my instructional technology skills is the best way to do that. I also believe a degree in this area will also enable me to better help others. However, I feel the most resounding impact has been on the way that I view my contribution to education.

Before this Kenan Fellowship, my mindset was to focus only on what happened in my classroom. What other teachers did in their classrooms was not my concern. If people asked me for help, I would always do as much as I could, but I did not seek opportunities to offer assistance. I often kept my technical abilities quiet because I was afraid that I would be overwhelmed with requests for help. That is what always happened to me in the past when people found out about my computer science background.  However, after thinking about it further, I think my reluctance was due to other responsibilities that I had, and the stress I felt because of those responsibilities.

Now, as a result of this experience, I feel that I have a responsibility to try to improve the education experience throughout my school, and eventually, outside of it. This year, I joined the instructional leadership team at Athens, and started a program called “Tech Tuesday.” The purpose of this program is to help other teachers in my building use instructional technology tools to help them teach more effectively. I have had one meeting thus far and it went really well. I have already had other teachers, and even administrators, do some pretty interesting activities with their students after developing confidence with the technology tools we discussed at Tech Tuesday.  I hope that this will be a stepping stone to leading similar activities at the county level.

Through the Kenan Fellows PD, I have gained confidence in myself and my leadership abilities.  I continue to learn and get better every day with a goal of gaining a more significant teacher leadership role in the future.  I am not sure what I want to do yet, but I know that my participation in these activities will only open up more opportunities for me.