Assignment IX – Future Career Plans (50 points)

Chad Branum

EDT646 – Globalization

Assignment IX – Future Career Plans

04/05/2006

Summary

I would like to start off saying that I have really enjoyed this particular class and reading Thomas Friedman’s book titled The World Is Flat. It was interesting to read about the various world events and technologies that have led to the starting of the “flattening” process in our global society. I agree 100% with Thomas Friedman when he states that “Americans will have to work harder, run faster, and become smarter to make sure we get our share. But let us not underestimate our strengths or the innovation that could explode from the flat world when we really do connect all of the knowledge centers together.” (pg. 469). I feel that we live in a country that has all of the resources and tools necessary to be global leaders. However, there is a lot of change that needs to take place, both at the government, local and individual levels, to be able to take advantage of the wealth of opportunities that are out there. While one individual cannot move mountains, collectively we have the ability to make change and take our future into our own hands. I hope for our sake that our society finds a way to work collectively together so that America can be a visionary global leader across all disciplines and prepare our students of today for tomorrow.

Future Plans

Over the next phase of my career in technology, I see myself continuing to work in the K-12 environment as a technology leader. As a technology leader, I have defined several goals that I feel are critical to the long-term effectiveness of technology within my school district. The first goal that I have for myself is to continue to work collaboratively with all stakeholders within my community in order to try and make the biggest impact on student learning. We should be all about student learning and finding a way to effectively prepare them for what they are going to face in the future. I am hopeful that through these collaborative efforts, it will open many eyes and help people to understand the strengths and weaknesses within our current K-12 educational system and provide a forum to vision for a better future. The second goal that I have is to continue working with all staff members within Coppell ISD on their technology proficiencies so that they understand how to effectively integrate the use of technology within their daily instruction. It is critical that our instructional leaders (district and campus) understand how to seamlessly and dynamically embed technology into their everyday use. This is going to require a lot of time, effort, mentoring and plenty of staff development, but it is a necessity. We have to put our students in a position to gain the technological skills and knowledge at an early age so that they can ultimately compete and keep up as our society becomes more technological driven and without our instructional leaders having the skills and knowledge necessary to properly integrate, we will not be able to keep up long-term. The third goal that I have is to become more creative and bold with funding to reach beyond what my school district can financially do in purchasing software and hardware. Obviously, I mentioned before the fact that the state of Texas has not treated my school district very well since we are considered a “Robin Hood” school district and sending a lot of money away each year. If we have any hopes of being able to really leverage and keep up with the technology of today as well as futuristic technologies, I have to be ahead of the curve and really challenge myself to seek alternative funding solutions. I feel that this is a large undertaking, but I am hoping that I can take advantage of community resources as well as grant opportunities to help lessen the financial impact to Coppell ISD. The final goal that I have for myself is to do my very best to keep up with futuristic technologies and how they might impact student learning. There are so many technologies that are being constantly developed so it is going to be a huge challenge for any K-12 educational institution to keep up. Overall, I hope that I can successfully accomplish each of these goals and have the opportunity to play a key role in helping to shape where we head with technology into the future.