About the Program

I am currently a grad school student with UNCC’s CATO School of Education pursuing a M.Ed. degree in Learning, Design, and Technology with a concentration in training and development. As a Digital Media and Film instructor, I have found that there is a crucial need for better software applications that digital and visual arts teachers can use to effectively integrate technology into their curriculums to meet their course’s learning objectives. Although I have only started this program, the knowledge of different learning theories, such as Constructivism - where the learner builds upon their own experiences to actively engage with what they are learning - has helped me in restructuring my own class’s curriculum and making the course material matter for my students. While I genuinely enjoy teaching in the classroom and working with my students hands-on, I ultimately aspire to design and develop software specifically for arts educators. An early concept that I have been working on is a young filmmaker’s app that gamifies the pre-production and post-production processes by allowing K-5 students to put together parts of a script to conceptualize their own story and mini-games that teach digital film sequencing in a non-linear editing timeline. While programs such as Scratch and Code.org have made huge strides over the last decade for K-12 technology instructors, there is no such program at the same level for K-12 film teachers, especially those like me teaching at the K-5 level. I plan on applying the knowledge and skills that I develop from this program to make this much needed change in the realm of digital and visual arts education.