Introduction Letter (NETS-T 1)

Hello there.

My name is Nicole Cohenour. I am 30 years old and will be starting up a teacher education program this fall at CSUSM.

I was born in Gulfport Mississippi and moved out to California when I was 3 years old and have remained here ever since. My schooling started at Carden Conejo at a private Christian school. I was there for preschool and kindergarten because my mom taught kindergarten there and so is was way too convenient not to go. I then transferred to the public school district. I attended Meadows Elementary for grades 1 thru 4 and then Park Oaks Elementary for 5 and 6. Junior high school was at Los Cerritos Middle School and then on to Thousand Oaks High School. I move to San Diego in 1999 and attended the San Diego community colleges until 2003 and then transferred to San Diego State University. I graduated in 2006 with a BA in Applied Design with a minor in Art History (Non-Western).

I consider my knowledge technology as basic. I used PCs for years but after being an art major at SDSU I now prefer to use Macs. I pretty much do word processing and surf the internet. I participate in a few social networking sites and have designed a few websites with the help of templates and cut and pasting from example websites. I look forward to learning more ways to incorporate technology in the classroom.

I was not very familiar with the College of Education at CSUSM when I applied to the teaching credential program. It was only later that I learn that the school is very reputable in the education world for turning out top notch teachers. When reading the College Mission Statement it was clear that they are focused on the issues of equity, social justice and encompassing cultural diversity. I feel that in today's world it is very important for teachers to be sensitive to the many different cultures and backgrounds of their students. In our diverse classroom we will be helping to develop our future leaders and I look forward to enriching my students lives.