Introduction

=Introduction=


 * Mr. Bryan Seymour**

I graduated with a Master of Arts in Teaching from the University of Michigan-Dearborn (with my teachable major of social studies and my minor in French) in April 2008 and I student taught at Pierce Middle School in Redford, Michigan in an 8th grade American History class from January-April 2008. Before my graduate work, I attended Kalamazoo College for four years, with a major in International and Area Studies (concentration: Western Europe). I studied abroad in Clermont-Ferrand, France from August 2004 to February 2005. I have been interested in becoming a teacher since I was in the 3rd grade and I realized that I could answer a student's question with much more ease than my teacher could; my motivations to teach have been present ever since then, and I have always had teaching on my list of possible careers that I would greatly enjoy.

Most recently, I have worked at the International Academy in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan as a 'graduate assistant to the history department'. I aided the teachers there, especially those in the history department, with all tasks involved in running a classroom, from the mundane tasks of making copies and entering grades, to grading papers and tests, to substituting classes and administering lesson plans. I enjoyed my experience at the International Academy very much. Also, I am currently a part-time mathematics tutor at Mathnasium Dearborn. I aide students from 1st grade through 12th grade in any problems they may have in their math homework from school; in addition, the students have Mathnasium workbook pages that are at their ability level, not necessarily their grade level. I help the students with those pages, and consequently help them progress with their math skills.

In this e-Portfolio, I have accumulated all assignments that I have completed for a class that I took at UM-Dearborn, EDT511, Technology in Secondary Education, taught by Prof. Stein Brunvand. While the assignments (as accessed through the 'Assignments' link on the navigation bar on the left side of the page) range from the relatively simple (creating a letter on Microsoft Word) to the complex (creating a digital video), I have learned quite a bit from each one; each assignment taught me something about its specific topic that I did not know before. In this way, and in many other ways, this class was very beneficial to me as a student, a teacher, and as a person. Also, included in this e-Portfolio are the technology standards upon which this class was based. On that page (as accessed through the 'NETS' link on the navigation bar), I have listed each standard and written a little bit about how I feel that I have successfully learned each standard.

I hope that this e-Portfolio is able to convey my technological knowledge as well as my enthusiasm for teaching! I believe that this e-Portfolio, coupled with my webpage (linked under the 'Assignments' section; or, see [|the page here]) provide a fairly good representation of my educational philosophy and, second only to a face-to-face interaction, give the reader an insight to my ability and passion to teach!