I can breath a sigh of relief, as of around 3PM last Sunday I am officially done with my coursework at CMU.  I’m expecting my diploma in the mail any time now.  I chose not to drag my family out to yet another graduation ceremony in the spring (I’ve dragged them to three so far).  But nonetheless I’m now the proud owner of a Masters Degree in Public Management in Educational Technology Management (ETM) from the Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University.  I loved being back in school, the coursework was stimulating and kept my mind working, but I have to say that I’m pleased to be done with the program as my life has become exponentially more complicated since starting the program three years ago. . .

Nora and Val with Daddy!

I should mention that none of this would have been possible without the support of my wife, Marie, who sacrificed and covered for me when I wasn’t able to be  around, especially during this last semester!  Thanks Marie!

So, the question inevitably becomes, now what?  I think that I have begun to answer that question during this school year, as I have been pleased to see my role in my school shift in the right direction.  I’ve been placed in a position of some responsibility when it comes to the technical and implementation side of our Edline System and new report card at the two middle schools.  I’m also pleased that I’ve been asked to do some work providing the exact type of link that I envisioned for myself, as an educational technology integrator bridging the gap between the technical and the educational.  As a part of the team evaluating solutions to data gathering (and sharing), curriculum warehousing, among other areas, I feel like I’m having a positive impact.

So, what now?  I’m planning on taking this respite from my academic demands to do some real introspection & reflection on exactly what my personal vision is.  I think I will be blogging more reflectively on real-life applications, developing my professional learning network & rebranding my website(s) more professionally.  There’s always something to do.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 17th, 2009 at 10:23 am and is filed under education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.