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My Goals and Personal Mission
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My Goals and Personal Mission
I believe that all portfolios need to include three forms of
reflection, focusing on the past, present, and future. These questions
are:
- - What? (the artifacts that I have collected from the past)
- - So What? (what these artifacts show about my learning at the present time)
- - Now What? (my future learning goals)
So, here are my future goals. This portfolio comes at a time when I am
winding up my PT3 grant, and getting ready to retire from the
University of Alaska Anchorage. I am using this portfolio to help me
reflect on my strengths and how that will contribute to my future
professional direction. After I retire, my husband and I want to
begin providing training to "baby boomers" and senior citizens on using
digital storytelling to preserve their memories and life stories for
future generations; our mission statement: "using today's technology to
tell yesterday's stories to tomorrow's generations." The current
popularity of scrapbooking and genealogy all indicate that there is an
interest to preserve these memories. But those who study genealogy know
that we can find the dates and facts about a life, but stories that are
not preserved are lost forever. Everyone has a story to tell. Digital
storytelling is one way to preserve and share our family
legacies.
Perhaps we can also work into the process a "retirement transition"
focus, using digital family stories as a way of finding a new purpose
in retirement after a very busy working life. Learning to share digital
stories could become a powerful transition activity. And in the
process, new retirees could learn technology skills that they might
have missed in their professional careers.
Here is an opportunity for schools, as well, to bring this digital
storytelling process to their communities, to match young people who
have the technology skills with older people who have the stories to be
preserved. Then, we can truly become a community of lifelong learners
who share our knowledge and wisdom with each other.
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