Dear Educational Technology Faculty,

For as long as I can remember, technology has always been a passion of mine. I guess you could say I was born at a time when Nintendo was getting started and from then on, my love for all things tech was born.  I was able to acquire a free Apple 2e computer that was in a school fire and then fixing it and thinking to myself, I should already go work for NASA.  I was probably only 9 at the time.  Fast forward a few years and computer games really began to take off, and I just had to have the latest and greatest computer. It was then I pulled the biggest lie ever to a person I loved my grandmother.  I told her that I needed to have this computer, or I wouldn’t be able to attend high school.  She believed me and soon a new DELL computer showed up at our door and my parents questioning each other on who ordered a computer.  I hid in my room for about an hour as they noticed the name of my grandmother on the order and in about 10 minutes found out the truth.  Oh, I got in trouble, but it was worth it.  I had a new computer and that’s all that mattered.  It was a gateway for me to learn software applications, computer hardware and pretty much opened my eyes to what my future was going to be.  I knew then some sort of computer job was going to be in my future. 

High School came and went, and I enrolled at UTPA as a Computer Science major and as usual changed my mind around a few times but ended up right back to my passion, Computer Science.  It was in my computer science class where I was approached by a classmate if I wanted a job on campus at what was then called the Center for Distance Learning as a computer techie.  I said “sure” and went to meet a Mr. Edgar Gonzalez and Kumar Raman and was quickly hired on the spot.  I grew very close to Mr. Gonzalez and Mr. Raman, and we did some amazing things regarding distance education at UTPA.  It was my experiences at the department as a student employee that made me realize here is where I wanted to be.  When the chance came up to work at the Center for Distance Learning full time I quickly applied and was hired.  

I have held 3 different titles at the Center for Distance Learning which by the way went on to change to the Center for Online Learning & Teaching Technology.  I have been a Helpdesk Manager, Learning Management System Specialist and now the LMS Development Manager.  I am now in charge of the Instructional Technology side of our department and manage 5 employees and we take care of all UTRGV’s instructional technology needs.  Taking that job as a student employee was the best professional decision of my life.  It led me to the path I’m now and I couldn’t be happier. As I grow in my career and become more of a manager, The skills that I learned in the Ed-Tech program has greatly improved me as both a manager and person. All the projects that I developed in each of my classes were directly related to my job as an LMS Development Manager. I have already begun to apply so much of what I learned in this program to my every day work life.

In EDTC-6320, it started me on the path to learning about all aspects of Instructional Technology and how to properly apply them to different learning styles. It showed me how to do a proposal, create goals, identifying target audiences, etc. In EDTC-6321, we learned about the Instructional Design Process and how to follow the ADDIE approach. This course taught me something I had never really experienced professionally. In my current job, I’m more of technologist. This course opened my eyes to the actual design process of a course. I now have a whole new respect for instructional designers and the thorough processes they follow to ensure courses are designed with the highest of standards. I learned how to develop an instructional solution and follow through all the way to the evaluation and revision phase to ensure all outcomes and learning objectives were met. In EDTC-6323 we learned how to develop a reusable learning object. The lessons learned in this course were very useful in my current job as we work with a lot of technologies where creating a reusable learning object proves to be a good way to train learners on small parts of a given application or technology. I also thoroughly enjoyed the researched based courses EDFR-6300 and EDFR-6302 where we learned the different types of research in 6300 and how learners learn in EDFR-6302. Both of these classes opened my eyes on how to properly conduct research. In EDFR-6302 I even learned a little bit about my own children and how they may learn. In EDTC-6341 Student-Centered Learning, I learned a lot about how to focus instruction from the student’s point of view. I really got a lot out of this course, and I was able to obtain a few certificates on my own as a result of this course and apply them to my current work. Then there is also the EDTC-6332 course which sort of put everything I learned in the Ed-Tech program into perspective. All the skills learned throughout the duration of the Ed-Tech program were applied to the projects in this class.

I’d like to give thanks to all the instructors in the Ed-Tech program who did a wonderful job. The flow of every course was in sync with each other and flowed the same way. I could instantly go to each class and be very familiar with the layout of the course. All the instructors were very good with their feedback and communicated greatly with all the students. All in all, I am happy to have had the opportunity to go through tis program and collaborate with like-minded individuals. I am proud to be able to apply everything I learned to my professional career and hope to build upon what was learned.