Neringa Tuyilingire

Now that I am nearing my master's in educational technology degree completion I often question myself what is next for me. I am very glad to reflect on what I’ve accomplished and learned during the road completing my master's and what I want to do with it. When I started the program back in the Fall of 2011, I could not wait but to be finished. Now that I am nearing completing the degree, it does not feel real. I know it is not the end, my master's completion is the door to continuing my education and professional development. 

 

First, I would like to state that I never even dreamed of completing my master's program. I started my studies in Lithuania in a pedagogical college to become an English teacher. I have never dreamed of obtaining my bachelor's and master's in the U.S. because I always thought it was just too hard to study in another country all in English language. So I have to pat myself on the back and be proud of accomplishing my goals.

 

There are a few goals that I wish to accomplish after my degree completion. I hope to continue presenting at various conferences on using digital technologies in international office, assisting my office in applying various technologies in educating international students, further developing my "Learn Lithuanian" language website for small children and definitely spending more time on my hobbies which I did not have any time for the past three years.

 

Professional develoment is very valued at my workplace. We are not only encouraged to participate in various conferences for professional development but we are also encouraged to present ourselves. My solid knowledge in various technologies and our office's use of technologies to educate and communicate to international students gave me and my other two colleagues idea to present on “using technologies effectively to commnicate to international students” in conferences that we usually attend. My colleagues and I presented on the previously mentioned topic at the sate and regional conferences. We recently submitted the poster proposal (using various technologies in international office) to present at the National Association of Foreign Educators conference. The poster proposal was accepted and three of us will be going to San Diego to attend the conference and present on these technologies. I would like to mention that without my colleagues’ encouragement and support I would not have submitted the proposal on my own. Having great support system in your work environment is so important. Thus my future goal is to present to international educators on various tools such as using Jing screencasting tool, StAIR, webinars, poll everywhere, e-tutorials, and social media to communicate to and educate international population. In order to keep presenting, I have to keep myself up-to-date on educational technology.

 

I plan to take a class or two in the upcoming years in educational technology as technology constantly changes. The Ed Tech program offers an Ed Tech Refresher Course, which would be great to take in the future. I am also interested in app development for international students. It would be great if MSU Ed Tech program offered a course, which would teach the basics of app building using web-based templates. It would be helpful if our international students accessed all the information on the app instead of searching info on the website. So I definitely see myself as either attending technology conferences or taking other MAET classes for my professional development.

 

There are a few projects I would like to accomplish in my work encironment. I plan to create H-1B visa training manual and present it to MSU department administrators via a webinar. As the number of international students continues increasing, we have to think of ways communicating to large audiences. We often receive large amounts of traffic from students who wish to travel, usualy right before the spring, winter and summer break asking us about travel requirements, visa renewals and required documents they must take for travel overseas. I plan to present on "Travel Requirements" to international students ina webinar format. I think these webinars will be sucessful and will reduce foot traffic in our office.

 

I also hope to continue advancing my website, which I created for small children to learn basic Lithuanian skills. This website can be used by teachers at Saturday schools, Lithuanian immigrant families who wish their children to learn Lithuanian language. I think the material on the website provides the fun way to learn simple language skills such as alphabet, colors, and numbers. The most important way of learning the language is communicating to native speakers who speak the language however, this website can serve as additional resource for small children. Children these days learn things by using various technologies so this would be a fun way to learn those basic skills.

 

So in summary, the road is not ending with my master's degree completion. I think the completion of my master's degree just opened more doors and goals to accomplish in the future.