Personal
Background 
I was born Kayla Jean Dinwiddie on August 25, 1964, to Emit and
Lucille Dinwiddie in Lamar, Missouri, the youngest of 4 children
- Rick of Poway, CA; David of Albuquerque; and Linda Reed of Crowley,
TX. Missourian by birth, yes, but Texan through and through. We
moved to Denton, Texas in December 1965 and I still live there today.
I was educated entirely in Denton, Texas - University Baptist preschool,
First Baptist Kindergarten, Stonewall Jackson and Newton
Rayzor Elementaries, Congress Junior High (now Calhoun MS),
Denton
High School, and North
Texas State University - preschool through Master's degree and
beyond.
It was while I was at NTSU that I met my husband, Scott Steiner
and shortly after graduation we were engaged, and then married on
June 11, 1988. I have 3 children - Michael (13), Kaitlyn (11), and
Ryan (8). My husband, Scott, spent the first 16 years of his teaching
career as a band director in Carrollton, Fort Worth, McKinney, and
Denton. However, he found 16 years to be enough in the "band
scene" and became certified in Secondary Social Studies and
4-8 Language Arts. Scott is now teaching Texas History at Strickland
Middle School in Denton and absolutely loving it.
I love to cook, to read, to shop, to decorate, and to travel. Most
of all, I love spending time with my kids! As a mother of 3 children
who are very active in school, band, choir, dance, church, sports,
scouts, theater, and more, my life is never dull. Last year, I took
a year off to be a full-time mom and part-time trainer but returned
to work full-time again this year. I just began a new job at ESC
Region XI in October as the Digital Media Consultant. It's already
an amazing experience - very busy and with lots to learn, but very
rewarding and always great fun!
Significant
Personal and Technology Events in My Life
The year was 1981. Our school had just received it's first student
computer, a TRS-80, that sat at the back of Mrs. Dameron's classroom
and it was a special treat to earn time to play on it. We also had
several "dumb" terminals in our classroom connected that
we used for programming. The terminals used modems (remember the
kind that you actually took the phone receiver and turned them upside
down into the modem cradle?). We connected to the mainframe computer
at NTSU to submit our programs. Often, we would go over to the computer
labs at North Texas because it was so much faster than trying to
connect with the modem. Boy how times have changed...
In 1986, I graduated from North Texas State University (UNT) in
1986 with a BS and an MS in Accounting with a specialization in
Business Computer Info Systems & Auditing. My original career
plans were to be an EDP Auditor but as happens so often, life has
taken me places I had never dreamed - and so much for the better
too!
Moving forward to 1987. I was a new college graduate, fresh out
of accounting school when I went to work as a Petroleum Accountant
for Mobil Oil in
Dallas. I was working in a department of approximately 200 accountants
and we shared 10 IBM PC's (the original "PC" with the
dual 5 1/4" floppy drives that you booted with a DOS boot disk)
and we were on the leading edge. Computers and I just seemed to
click and before long, I was asked to be a trainer for the department,
teaching workshops in Lotus 123 and MS-DOS. Immediately I was hooked!
I fell in love with technology training in a way I had never done
with accounting (go figure). Soon, I became a Computer Specialist
for the accounting department where I developed and taught a variety
of computer application courses. However, family ties are stronger
than career ones in my life and in 1993, I left Mobil to be a full-time
mom to my 2 very young children (then 3 and 1) and to return to
college for a teaching certificate.
In 1995, just after the birth of my third child,
I returned to North Texas, now UNT, to earn my teaching certificate
in Secondary Business. In just 3 short semesters I was on my way
to becoming a teacher.
Reasons
for Wanting to be a Technology Applications Teacher
There are two common threads that have run through nearly everything
I have done professionally in my life - technology and teaching.
I have always found myself gravitating toward any task that involved
either one - and spent many hours dreaming of that perfect job that
would let me do both full time. Becoming a Technology Applications
teacher fulfilled that dream. I believe that technology is paving
the way to the future and that preparing students for that future
is very important.
Preparing
to Teach
My teaching career began in 1996 at Lake Highlands Jr Hi in Richardson
ISD where I taught Computer Literacy and Keyboarding. However, after
one year I received an offer from Lewisville
ISD to come to Marcus
High School to teach Multimedia. I went to MHS in 1997 and in
the first 2 years there, developed and taught their Multimedia classes
(along with a few BCIS classes too). Then, in 1999, I was asked
to develop and teach the new Web Mastering classes there and have
been teaching Web since. I also served as the webmaster for MHS
from 1998-2001. The years that I spent at Marcus gave me countless
opportunities to learn, grow and expand my skills, both as a teacher
and as a web designer.
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