Opening a Door With Open Education

This week begins my journey into MOOCs, and this post serves to introduce myself to other participants as well as to explain my interest in Open Education. During my career, I served several suburban Chicago high schools as an administrator, library media secialist, and teacher. I was always interested in technology, and incorporated a variety of Web Tools in my work with young adults. At the end of June 2012,  I retired. Simply, I was ready for a change.

Along with retirement came relocation from big city to small town, leaving me with a sense of isolation.  I knew I needed to take the “next steps” and develop a focus for the future.  Exploring MOOCs and OE is my way to:

• Reconnect with the greater community of educators
• Retool by upgrading my knowledge and use of social media and other technologies and their educational applications.
• Reinvent myself for a new phase of life and, hopefully, a new career building on prior experience and new learning.  Ultimtely, I would like to gain knowledge of the tools and pedagogy to be able to teach or create quality online courses.

Looking forward to making many connections and learning from everyone “out there”.