Carla White Personal Statement

I am Carla White and I am a teacher and a department chair in an online school for middle school and high school students. Unlike in a post-secondary online schools, this is more appropriate to younger group of students where they access their classes online using a platform called Edmentum. It is an online learning management system where they work at their own pace and finish classes online. It has interactive textbooks, assessment and classroom activities. I am the Science Teacher of all Science classes where I provide support such as tutorials via chat, phone or in person, provide feedback and score writing assignments and perform onsite labs for High School Biology and Chemistry class. I also monitor, analyze grades and progress of all

Although there are several fields in education I am passionate about, educational technology is what I am particularly interested in. The use of technological tools and media to make every student's online learning experience personal and engaging more than just a paper and pencil type of learning is something I would like to research on. I’d like to enhance features of communicating knowledge and exchange by exploring the possibilities of virtual interactions of students with other students for more active learning online. I am also interested in enhancing existing learning management system. Most if not all learning management system currently available for elementary and high school students are only supplemental tools for instruction and or used to recover credits on some classes that a student may have failed and will help them catch up. The possibility of being an independent learner at a young age (middle school and high school is not widely studied or explored yet and is worth researching on. Lastly, improving and personalizing learning data storage and analysis for schools to populate student progress is what I am interested with for more accurate reporting of student achievement