My Personal History
Life began on February 22, 1978, in Pottsboro, Texas. Pottsboro is a little town just north of the Sherman, Denison area. I spent most of my early childhood attending my sister's sporting events, running around the backyard and playing basketball.

I graduated from Pottsboro High School in May 1996 where I then went on to play college basketball at C.C.C.C (Collin County Community College in Plano). It was there where my life really started. This was my first experience from home and I learned a lot from going away to college. When I was in high school I couldn't wait to get out and be on my own, away from my parents and the town that I had been in for 18 years. Little did I know when I actually got there I would miss my parents greatly. Lot's of great things happened during this time as well. I met my to-be husband and I received another scholarship to continue playing basketball at Texas Woman's University in Denton. Oh yeah, and I also received a great education while doing all of this.

I then moved to Denton, TX where I attended Texas Woman's University. I was the point guard and shooting guard for TWU's basketball team for two years. My first year there I tore my ACL during a game and had to have reconstructive knee surgery to replace it. I received a medical red shirt which granted me two more years of eligibility. I graduated with honors from TWU in 2001 with a bachelor's degree in Business Administration and Kinesiology.

I got married that July 14, 2001 to my wonderful husband Randy. We do not have any kids right now unless you consider our dog, cat and horse children. We live in Ponder, Texas on our farm which is about 20 miles west of Denton.

This is my second year to teach and both of them have been at Sanger High School. I teach Business Law, Accounting, Recordkeeping, Introduction to Business, Keyboarding and BCIS. You name it, I teach it!! I am a BPA (Business Professionals of America) sponsor and I also coach Cross Country, Basketball and Softball.

Significant Personal and Technology Events in My Life
I can remember my first year of student teaching in August of 2000. I was student teaching part-time in Computer classes and part-time in Physical Education classes. In my computer class I had been assisting throughout the year with the different Microsoft Office Applications: Word, Excel and PowerPoint. I was very confident with those applications. My mentor teacher asked me if I would teach the lessons on Access. I barely knew Access! I spent hours and hours going over the book trying to learn Access so that I would know it front to back. The big day finally came to start Access and I was so nervous. I had four classes to teach for an entire six weeks, how was I ever going to survive. The first of the six weeks was a little rocky but it went on I got better at presenting and problem solving Access. Now Access is one of my favorite applications to teach.

My other significant technology event is taking place right now in my classroom. We are in a new school, with new computers, new programs, and new security measures with XP! I really don't think it gets any better than that, or at least I hope not. Our school's technology department is going crazy. We have done away with using floppy disks and CD's for the students to save their work on. We have gone strictly to saving on the school server and oh what a mess! Printers are re-routing themselves to different ports and one student has hacked into our Novell server. So needless to say I have learned a great deal of information while straightening all of this mess out, and we still haven't gotten it all back up and running. I'll keep you informed!!

Reasons for Wanting to be a Technology Applications Teacher
I wanted to become a teacher so that I could continue what I loved the most and that was basketball. I wanted to teach athletes all about the game of basketball. To be quite honest, I really wasn't too excited about teaching, I just wanted to coach. When I actually got in the classroom I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. As a matter of fact, I loved it. My first year I had a great group of students in every class. They enjoyed learning so much and it was fun teaching them new things. The computer classes were my favorite to teach. That is why I really am interested in being a TA teacher. I was introduced to digital graphics by one of my co-workers who currently teaches Digital Graphics at my school. I was so fascinated with it that I wanted to learn more about it. She heard about the TATC program and that is how I got started!!

When I attended Vision IT this summer my interest in the TA subjects increased more. I had so much fun learning about all the different TA subjects. These are the classes of the "future" at our school and I want to help establish the programs now so that we can get more kids interested in the computer world that is out there. Some of the students could have a real future in these subject areas and I want to be a part of making that happen. But it can't happen if the TA subjects aren't offered at our school.

Preparing to Teach
This is only my second year to teach and I have already learned a great deal of information. I love to learn new things as well as learn different ways of doing old things. I want to learn as much as I can about everything, so that I can pass my knowledge on to my students. I am a life-long learner and I want to pass those qualities and values on to my students. If we as teachers do not continue to learn, how can we expect our children to?

Resume
You can link to my resume here.