Introduction

Hello, my name is Collin Berens.

Something interesting about me could be the job I was working at before I decided I wanted to teach. I got my Bachelor’s degree in Criminology, and out of college I was working for a company that did background checks, exclusively for television production companies. My job was to scrub the social media accounts of people who were applying to be on reality shows, like Big Brother or America’s Next Top Model (unfortunately, I never did anyone applying for The Bachelor, which always the first show people ask me about). Some people have said that the job sounded exciting, but I did not enjoy it, which cause me to reconsider my career path and is how I ended up here.

My content area is Social Studies. I’m a big history buff, so I’m excited to teach about that, however, I really want to teach Government. I think it is a fascinating subject and very important for students to learn as they build their own political identities and become voters. I’d like to teach high school, however getting to spend time in classrooms over the past year as a substitute, I am more open than I was before to teaching in middle schools.

I think in this class I’m most interested just to learn how I can use technology tools to my advantage in my classroom. I’m no tech genius, but I would say I am fairly savvy. However, I do think there is a lot I can still learn about all these great tools, especially how it relates to it’s usefulness in a classroom.