Reflection

Each of us began our TATC odyssey coming from widely diverse backgrounds, but we all came equipped with the basic knowledge identified in the first five standards of the Technology Application TEKS. I have eight years of experience teaching computer science, but I had no significant experience in any of the other five TA subjects.

It is hard to describe how inadequate for the program I felt in the early weeks of TATC. I have said over and over this year that I am artistically deficit. So where did our odyssey begin in TATC? Art! I knew then I was headed for trouble. Learn the elements of design. Analyze a picture in terms of art principles. Ugh! But TATC began to show me its usefulness, and the awakening began – slowly at first, because my own resistance had to dissipate. As the year progressed, I could sincerely appreciate the foundation that was laid. The elements of design were found everywhere our odyssey took us. They became a natural part of everything we studied and everything we created. TATC did not help my inability to draw, but that was not its objective. It has equipped me to teach the elements of design and to incorporate them into products created in every TA course. I feel confident that I can do both of these effectively.

My TATC odyssey has been a tool building course in the truest sense of the word. With each course we have added tools, never leaving any behind. The final project in each course was designed to demonstrate growth and proficiency. As the year progressed, we had more and more tools available, and we were able to incorporate multiple techniques and skills from previous courses. The increasing complexity of our projects was challenging, but in spite of the tough pace, my confidence was growing. I was no longer debating if I could complete the projects. I was wondering if I could produce the quality I wanted in the time that I had.

The first of the five TA subjects taught was Web Mastering. I had a reasonable proficiency in HTML, but I had not used Dreamweaver MX. I was looking forward to this course. I had never worked with nested tables before, and the images that I used in my winter and summer pages of my imaginary travel agency left me completely comfortable with tables. Even though I was feeling apprehension about my time schedules, I enjoyed my weeks in Web Mastering, and my skills improved significantly. I was convinced that elements of design were an essential foundation tool for web design and that the web mastering skills themselves offered a second layer of tools.

The second TA discipline taught was Digital Graphics and Animation. At this point in the year I had done limited work with Photoshop Elements, but I was totally unfamiliar with Macromedia Flash, which would be used in my classroom. I was getting the picture that TATC was teaching concepts and principles, not software, and I was beginning to ask if I needed to be in this program at all. My poorest level of achievement was probably in this course, but I gained a fair measure of confidence in my third layer of tools by the end of the four weeks. A vision for what could be done with DGA was developing, and WOW, what they could do to add interest to a web page.

Extended Web helped me develop skills in using templates, style sheets, and layers for web pages – all real time savers. With my computer science background, using Javascript and Java were easy for me, and I was able to help others diagnose problems. As much as I agonized over what to do for projects most of the year, I knew exactly what I wanted to do for my final project in Extended Web Mastering. I had wanted for a long time to develop a site to help teachers put course and curriculum information on line. This gave me the perfect opportunity. One of my goals this next year is to offer the use of this tool to teachers at Lamar who can’t build their own web sites.

In January Desktop Publishing taught me principles of page design for printed documents. Some of my classmates showed me that a document could absolutely come alive when principles of design were combined with vision. I learned a lot from the work I saw in this course. I am beginning to have real opinions about the appearance I want in a document, and having good software to work with makes producing a good page layout much easier. Combining principles of page layout for documents with techniques learned in Digital Graphics and Animation could transfer some of the magic I saw in Desktop Publishing to a web page. Another layer of tools has been built.

In February I began getting the impact of using multiple kinds of media in a presentation. Combining techniques from the previous courses made me realize how much I had learned. My introduction to sound was a mixture of good and bad experiences. It was fascinating, but the software I was assigned to evaluate was not a good choice to work with. After changing to a sound package that was friendlier, I had lots of success. I was getting some great experience with file compression software. The Multimedia layer was added.

Then came Video Technology. It was like saving the best until last! I gained valuable experience with both still and video cameras, and I learned techniques to improve the quality of camera shots. Video editing was fun, and combining sound and video was magic. Learning to work with storyboards and scripts gave powerful productivity tools. My schedules have been tough all year, but they were worse than ever during this course. The emphasis on planning techniques helped me survive the schedules, and I was thrilled with my work.

The top layer of my tower of tools must be credited to the in depth study of the TEKS as I have related them to artifacts for my portfolio. Knowing the TEKS is different from understanding how to satisfy the bulk of them with well planned classroom projects and assignments. While relating standard to project in the matrix has been tedious, the knowledge gained has left me much better equipped to plan curriculum in my TA classroom.

The projects done with group collaboration and the continual contact with my peers during TATC have been a rich source of insights. My instructors and my mentor have provided excellent direction and encouragement. Teaching observations provided examples, both good and bad, that helped me develop personal goals about materials, presentation style, and management in a TA classroom. Posting our work for our classmates to critique has shown how diverse the approaches to the same set of problem specifications can be. While I may not know many of my TATC colleagues by sight, I know them well through their on line participation in this course. They have taught me by example. My sincere thanks go to Kayla, Rachel, Courtney, and Connie, but especially to each of my classmates.

Am I relieved that TATC is about finished? Yes, partly because of the constancy of the tough schedules, partly because of the never ending parade of software applications that were unfamiliar to me, and partly because I am ready to be more in control of my own time schedules. Will I quit learning? Not on your life! Every four week course in TATC has been a great introduction. Each has been an appetizer in its field, not the main entrée. The feasts are to follow.

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