First Reflection Blog

My name is Jason Arneson. I am currently the senior admissions counselor in the undergraduate admissions office at Trinity International University. I work with all of Trinity's incoming transfer and international students. In my spare time I play bass for the worship team at my church and work with our junior high youth group. I also lead a once a week bible study for a group of junior high guys. I have been married for just over three years and my wife and I are expecting our first child (a daughter) in February. We currently share our house with an excitable German Shepherd named Bear.

I completed my bachelor's degree in English/Communications in 2004. I intended to go into journalism, but after my internship the summer prior to my senior year I found that the work didn't appeal to me in the way that I thought I would. However, with only a year to go I went ahead and finished my degree. During my senior year of college I had the opportunity to work as the editor-in-chief of our student newspaper. My responsibilities included meeting with each writer, evaluating their work and coaching them on how to improve. I thoroughly enjoyed this role and it caused me to consider the possibility of teaching as a future.
After graduation, I took my current job in admissions. My work with high school students, coupled with my volunteer work with junior high students, again caused me to think that teaching may be a valid career option. Now, with the tuition waiver benefit available through my job and our first child on the way, my wife and I decided that I should go ahead and complete the MA/T to get my certification.

I feel fairly comfortable with current technology. I have experience blogging, using digital cameras, scanners and CD burners. I have also had experience with a variety of Microsoft office utilities and have done some mass marketing email design as well. The only thing that I have almost no experience with is the Mac operating system. That is something that I would like to get a better handle on (either in this class or on my own) as I know that Mac is the standard in the district that I live in.

As far as expectations for this course, I essentially hope to gain some insight into ways that technology can be incorporated into the classroom to the benefit of my students. I am excited about finding ways that I can improve my instructional skills and student engagement through technology. My only concern is that what we learn in this class may later not be applicable to my teaching environment (i.e. we may be taught to use technology that is not available in our later teaching settings). I know that, to an extent, this was my wife's experience. She completed her bachelor's in elementary education and had a course similar to this one. However, technology in her school was not as readily available.