So... Tell Me About Yourself

The dreaded interview question... "Tell me about yourself." I'm never sure what to say. Do you want to know my life story? How I got to Texas? My formal education? Teaching experience? Philosophy? Why there is a four year gap on my resume? Did you even read my resume? Do you care about the numerous jobs I've held? Then comes the sheer panic when you leave the interview and think man, I wish I would have shared about...

I often wonder, how do I truly share about my accomplishments in an interview without sounding like I'm just sitting there listing a bunch of things. Also, how do I portray the full picture of who I really am and what I can bring to the organization? Enter the ePortfolio. Blogging had seemed to me like a dying art for the common person. Sure there are authors and influencers that keep websites and blogs, and of course, well bloggers, but what about the teacher down the hall?

When presented with this idea of starting a new blog/ePortfolio for my Applied Digital Learning M.Ed. I was a little taken aback. Do I have what it takes do be a successful blogger? After doing some research and reading about the benefits of the ePortfolio, I am excited to document this journey. I think that having this blog/portfolio will really help set me up for success in the future. This will be a place to document my journey of finding ways to infuse technology into dyslexia instruction and beyond. Not only will it help me represent myself to future employers and colleagues, but my hope is that the content will also help others on their journeys to help students with dyslexia and integrate technology along the way.

Technology and dyslexia are not two words that are synonymous. Sure there is a lot of assistive technology out there (Adamu & Soykan, 2019, p. 789) and that is wonderful. But our students love to use their devices and I am not finding a lot of specific tech that helps them get in the extra reps they need in a fun and gamified way. I'm looking forward to bringing my ideas to the community and hope that we can develop some tools that help our learners thrive!

Adamu, I., & Soykan, E. (2019). Content analyses on the use of technology in dyslexia: the articles in the web of science data base. International Online Journal of Education and Teaching, 6(4), 789–797.