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Hi! My name is Kim and I am the Library Learning Center Teacher at Willard Elementary School in River Forest, only 3 blocks from Dominican University. I graduated with a Masters in Library Science from Dominican in May 2015 and knew that I was going to continue my education at Dominican as soon as the Tech Specialist endorsement was announced. I started toward this endorsement last fall. I have completed 3 of the required courses for this endorsement so far and plan to take one course per semester until I earn a second Master's Degree.
The image below is taken from our website: http://www.district90.org/our-schools

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This June 24th I will celebrate my 23rd wedding anniversary. My husband and I actually met in high school, but didn't date until 4 years later and were finally married 4 years after that.

We have two sons, Tyler and Cameron. Tyler is 19 and will be a Junior at IIT (Go Scarlet Hawks!) this fall studying architecture.
Cameron is 16 and finishing his Junior year of high school at Stagg (Go Chargers!) in Palos Hills and is looking at colleges so he can become a chemical engineer. Both sons are singers and play musical instruments as well as actors.

My husband is a mechanical engineer and car enthusiast - he started building cars when he was twelve. He serves as a Chaplin with Racers for Christ at local drag racing events and has met some legends of drag racing through the years. A picture of his dream car, which he lovingly restored and takes to car shows quite a bit, is included below.

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When I am not at Willard Elementary, I am a Sunday School teacher and lay assistant at my church (See a picture of a painting in our Narthex done by one of our members below).

I also enjoy reading, Jazzercise, scrapbooking, and mixed media art. My family has traveled to Hawaii and decided that if we had infinite resources, we would move there! We love to swim and SNUBA, parasail, hike, and enjoy the beautiful waterfalls. We considered moving there to teach and work, but our families are here in the Chicagoland area, and couldn't bear to move away from them.

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I love being an elementary school librarian. It is a perfect blend of helping students find "just right" books, providing reading strategies, modeling proper reading techniques, digital citizenship lessons, technology, and so much more. I am able to help the teachers as much as I help the students most days! With technology being integrated into most librarian's days and a part of the I-SAIL standards that Illinois librarians follow, it was important to me to continue my education by becoming an endorsed technology specialist. I chose Dominican because, not only is 3 blocks from where I work, but I know how great the professors are from my previous Master's Degree experience. I hope to earn my endorsement within the next year or so then finish my second Master's Degree within another 5 semesters. This Master's in Education will help me provide for my students, faculty, staff, and parents as well as the community in which I work.

Below is an image of the Technology Specialist brochure for Dominican that encouraged me to continue my education. You can find it under the link for the brochure on this page: http://educate.dom.edu/academics/endorsements/technology-specialist-endorsement under the

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Digital & Media Literacy in the Classroom

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Digital & Media Literacy in the Classroom

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This course is one that I have been looking forward to taking. I use media in many of my lessons whether I am reading books or discussing digital citizenship. Students in our school are now 1:1 with iPads and I want to make sure that the lessons I provide are not simply a replacement lesson using an iPad, but a lesson that is much more rich thanks to the technology we offer.

I have worked with students in the past on how to access and evaluate information. I have worked with them on producing information using technology as well. This course will provide me with more information to better serve my students so I am truly providing modifications or redefinitions of current lessons that provide for each student to make mistakes and truly learn according to his/her own style.

The image below is taken from Kathy Schrock's guide to the SAMR model and is actually a ThingLink representation of the SAMR model. Go to the site and click on the actual image to learn more about SAMR. http://www.schrockguide.net/samr.html#

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I would love to say that I have my learning style all figured out, but I seem to learn more about myself and my learning style each and every day. Each new lesson, workshop, class, and session that I attend is a new opportunity for me to grow as a learner and determine what worked (and didn't) for me. What I do know is that when I am passionate about a topic, just about any style will work for me. I can sit in a lecture, read, watch a movie, interact with others through a discussion, conduct experiments or trials, or work with technology if I am interested in a topic. On the 🤬 side, if a topic is one that I am not passionate about, I have to work to keep myself interested. I often challenge myself to find how this information will best help me help others. That challenge inspires me to focus on the new information no matter what way it is being presented. I believe that I am a combination of auditory, visual, and tactile when it comes to learning, and therefore, I feel it is important to give everyone opportunities to learn using all three of these styles to determine which way works best for each individual.

One of my favorite images about learning styles is from The Educators blog: http://www.theeducators.co/2013/08/30/learning-styles/