I am, dare I say, a middle-aged woman. No cats though. I have been married twice - both times to a "Dan", but not the same Dan. Together we have six children, three each from our prior marriages. The kids range from 12-20 years of age, and have contributed to some of the grey hair I have accumulated. I am a teacher at an alternative high school, which is undoubtedly the additional source of my grey hair.
My youngest (twins) are entering into their senior year of high school, and my oldest is the 20 yr old. The four of us have traveled to 49 out of the 50 states, and we will be finishing our US tour with Hawaii next summer. That trip will cost about as much as one of their first years of college, but I feel like it will be worth the adventure. I know as a teacher I am not supposed to say I teach to have summers off, but I could not have asked for a better opportunity to be on the same schedule as my kids and take the summers to travel all over the country.
Because the twins are rounding out their high school career, I have decided to finish up mine as well. This has led me to go back to school to pursue a new degree in a very unfamiliar yet fascinating field: information studies. I am hoping to use this degree along with my others to pursue a career in EdTech. Working from home gets more appealing by the day. So does the thought of not being on a bell schedule.
Email: mcmulle2@uwm.edu
For the last 15 years, I have been a high school teacher. Initially, I began as a special education aide, and decided to go back to school to get my special education license. I was a special education teacher for about five years, but quickly realized in that time that in order to best serve the needs of my students, I needed a stronger background in reading. So, I went back to school to get both my reading teacher license and my reading specialist license.
I then became the reading specialist at the high school, where I remained until my position was cut. After that fun surprise, I resumed my role as a special education teacher and moved over to the alternative high school, working with the same students I had at the regular high school. I now run a competency program at that school. That transition and helping implement a new LMS system in the building as a pilot made me reconsider my role as an educator and helped me find a passion in technology.
In addition to my primary job, I tend to work at least one other - kids are expensive.I am an adjunct professor at WCTC, teaching primarily reading classes. I have also been an Uber and DoorDash driver, and have dipped my toes in Instacart, Shipped, and Amazon Flex.I also recently worked at Kohl's - great benefits and discounts around Christmas! I have also been a kitchen expo, helped catering companies for events, bartended, and freelanced some website designs.
BSIST Projects
In the course INFOST 440, I learned PHP and how to incorporate it into webpages. A collection of the pages can be found on this link.
For INFOST 310, I was able to evaluate our new LMS program, Beacon, that we are piloting for a company. Using the principles of HCI and intentionally selecting users with varying knowledge of the program or digital literacy skills I was able to provide the company with a different level of feedback. I found that project to be extremely beneficial and can see the value in understanding design principles for both technology and interaction. This is my Usability Report.
I am currently working on Systems Analysis and Design project for INFOST 340. This project is challenging and involves a hefty amount of critical thinking. I am enjoying the analysis and design process, knowing that the captsone for this program will be creating the prototype of a program- something I'm very excited about. I think the captstone will allow me to demonstrate and practice everything I have learned this year. Here is the Planning Phase from this project.