Hi everyone-
Before I jump into my introduction and blog post, I’d like to take a moment to apologize for being so late to the party. Admittedly, I did already write and post this initial post, but I’ve somehow managed to delete it and I’m not really sure how I did it. Anyway, here’s hoping that I can get my life together and figure it out before I fall too far behind. Ok, enough with all that- let’s get started, shall we?
My name is Reyna and I teach/coach/mentor and lead in my current role at a small international elementary school (about 520 students) in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. My primary role is with technology integration and moving my school from a siloed ICT model to a fully integrated IT model where technology is embedded in the teaching and learning happening across curriculum areas. I’ve been in this position for the last 2 years and things are finally starting to come together.
Another role I assume is the specialist team coordinator where I oversee and represent the PE, Music, Art and World Languages teachers and liaise with other coordinators on the academic leadership team. This is a new role for me and I have enjoyed dipping my toes in the leadership waters, but I’m feeling overwhelmed with the added tasks.
Like many of you, my job keeps me insanely busy, but I do try to maintain a balance in life by involving myself in a range of activities outside of school. I work out with an all-female group at 5:30 every morning and that helps me feel accomplished and gives me motivation to start my day. I craft every chance I get, but mostly on the weekends and holidays. I do everything from painting and bullet journaling to embroidery and sewing, and most recently, leatherwork. My partner and I are also avid divers, so we tend to plan our vacations around that or we stay home and lounge around with our 2 cats.
I never really know how to answer the “Where are you from?” question because I’ve moved around so much, so let’s just say that I grew up in the States and have been living abroad for the last 10 years with my partner, Jeff. I have taught in upper elementary as a homeroom teacher in Vietnam, Brazil, Lebanon and now back in Vietnam.
As far as my interest in COETAIL, I would say it started last year when I kept seeing it in my Twitter feed. I had been reading up on it for awhile and then in November of last year, I attended Learning2Asia in Tokyo where I met many COETAIL graduates. All of them spoke so highly about the courses, that I decided to commit for Cohort 11. And here we are…
Of course, what I didn’t know at the time was that my schedule was about to get a LOT crazier because a teacher at my school suddenly passed away just before the Christmas break. As you can imagine, this has shaken our whole community and we’ve been slowly recovering/grieving and planning our next steps. One of the decisions made was to appoint me to his homeroom class because they know me and were unable to find a suitable replacement in time. I am overwhelmed but genuinely honored to be stepping into the classroom again after a couple of years and look forward to all of the opportunities COETAIL will provide for learning in my new context.
I am an absolute Twitter junkie, so you can definitely connect with me there @MsReyna2. Aside from that, I’m active on Facebook and Instagram, although I’m going through an internal struggle with whether I can delete them because it doesn’t add value to my life these days- anyone else going through that?
So, there you have it. Me in all my crazy, hectic messiness. I’m excited to share this journey with each of you and I took a personal day today in order to catch up on your blogs and this week’s assignments. I hope you are all having a great week!