I'm Jonathan (the whole thing!!) Vaughn. I'm a transplant to Sulphur Springs, TX from Chicago, IL by way of Newport News, VA. I spent 8 years in the Air Force - 6 active duty and 2 reserve - where I was a flightline avionics tech. I had the pleasure of maintaining F-15 C/D, and F/A-22 fighter aircraft at Langley AFB, VA. Of the two, my overall favorite was the F/A-22 while I much preferred working on the F-15. My reserve service was spent working on the A-10 at Barksdale AFB, LA. While on active duty I earned an A.S. in avionic systems technology which, upon enrolling at A&M Commerce, I quickly abandoned and changed to history with teacher cert. I am also carrying a minor in writing. I made the change because, frankly, I wanted to do something that mattered. Playing with jets is fun stuff, no doubt, but what long range significance is there? I didn't (and don't) see any. When I consider history, however, I see a subject that I am passionate about learning. I opted for the teacher cert because - as my 12 yo son will tell you - I am also quite passionate about sharing what I learn and the implications of it. My wife suggested the writing minor because she thinks I'm good at it (and a bit long winded too, which doesn't hurt). So that's how I arrived here. My long range goal is to teach history in an environment where individual thought can be fostered and encouraged. I want students to really absorb what history is, decide what they think and feel about it, and realize how it has produced their personal 'today' and guides them toward their individual and collective 'tomorrows'. I want to learn everything I possibly can that will make me a great facilitator of that kind of learning, including how to implement the technological tools that will help me connect to students. Although I'm not really tech savvy, I'm taking the examples that I've observed thus far in my classes and starting to build an idea of how I'd use technology in my own classroom.
I envision a classroom setting in which students are encouraged and enabled to interact with history. This may be through computer based programs, or something of the sort, designed to allow them to choose a particularly interesting aspect of the lesson that I would have lectured on. I want them to be able to feel like they've in some way taught themselves the lesson and made it come alive. I'd also like for students to have access to personal interactive timelines where they'd be able to input the historical information that I give them along with their own family history so they can have something to relate all of those facts and dates to. Most of all, I want students to really think about the history they've learned and reflect on how it affects them. I want them to have opinions about it and judge it. Something like a blog would be an excellent tool for that. I don't ever plan to assign homework (I'm morally opposed to it), so I'd like to use tools like blogging to point students and their parents to web-based and other resources that would aid them to in navigating my courses succesfully. In this way, students would not be enabled and encouraged to make the learning their own, they'd also be forced to.
My biggest goal while in this class is simple; I want to learn! Because tech is a bit foreign to me, I want to take advantage of the opportunity to learn as many of its applications as possible. I want to learn to effectively use the tools available to create in the future the classroom that I've described. While working toward this goal it would also be nice to build some relationships with people of like mind and goals. I look forward to gleaning wisdom from those of my classmates who have already been in the classroom environment and can help me achieve the vision that I have. This should be a fun and interesting semester.
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