Background and Goals
Background:
I received my Bachelor’s degree in Educational Technology from Ain Shams University in 1994. Mine was the first graduating class in this subject in the Middle Eastern. From this education, I learned how to integrate technology into classrooms in order to facilitate instructors’ tasks, illustrate complicated experiments, and attract students to learn.
Several years of employment in the Egyptian Ministry of Education and of voluntary work in society development inspired me to pursue a higher degree. I have worked approximately ten years in several positions with Egyptian Ministry of Education, nonprofit organizations and self employment to develop and implement educational materials and training for both instructors and students. As an educational technology specialist, I found technology was not used in classrooms although it was available. For example, The Internet was available, but instructors never asked students to use it for research. Consequently, education was very boring for both students and instructors.
Further more, working with children with special needs in several of nonprofit organizations made recognize the great gab between opportunities available for regular students than those are very limited available for students with special needs to receive good education. I realized my limitation to use technology and apply what I have learned to special education because limitation of technology for this population and because my lack of understanding each disability needs.
Academic and professional goals:
From this point above, I have planned new academic goals in my life. I decided to lean how I design curricula which based on research, inquiring information, and collaboration. I intended to learn more about technology, interactivity and build creativity. I also decided to study about learners’ psychology, recent educational theories, and characteristics of different kind of disabilities and the technology available to compensate or remediate these disabilities.
My way to achieve my goals was my decision of pursuing a dual degree in specialization of Instructional Design and Development throughout my master’s degree and a degree in special education which is a graduate certificate in Assistive Technology.
I began both programs in spring 2006. The objective of my academic plan was to
- Learn pedagogical models to integrate educational theories with technology in order to create an interactive learning environment.
- Study educational theories of the learning process.
- Learn computer programs to help me design e-learning and web-based training.
Meanwhile, special education was a great interest which occupied a large piece of my mind. Therefore, my second academic goal was to
- Study how technology can be used as remediation or compensation for students with disabilities.
Lifelong learning goals:
My long term goal in the area of Instructional Technology is to
- Studying more about designing virtual world and stimulation learning environments.
Since assistive technology is still a new field, and since it needs to develop intelligent programs and tools to compensate for a variety of disabilities, my long term goal in that area is
- Working in a research targeting literacy and learning disabilities. That could be my PhD focused.
Career goals:
My carrier goals are to advance myself from an educational technology specialist in the school system to be a training and curriculum designer who is able to construct interactive learning environments based on technology foundations and educational theories.
Short-term goals:
Work with a government contractor or nonprofit organization in societal development , E-learning or Web-based training.
- Experience how instructional design woks in areas other than school systems.
Long-term goals:
Working with international companies or organizations which cooperate with Middle Eastern governments developing curricula and new ways of teaching.
Establishing my own business providing assistive technology services, consultation, and development of accessible websites.
Applying instructional design strategies to develop curricula and interactive learning environments to teach Arabic language.
