About Me

 My name is Laura Winter and my focus as a learning technologist is extending the teacher/student interaction and increasing student learning potential.

I worked for ten years as a public school teacher and during my  tenure access to learning technology was very limited.  As a teacher time was my number one challenge. There was never enough time to prepare all resources needed for class itself, let alone the time needed for each student.

I worked as an executive bilingual secretary for 15 years prior to returning to school for a Masters in Education.  I taught middle school Spanish for my first year and then the next eight years taught at a Montessori public school teaching first, second, and third grade in a self- contained classroom.  I spent my final year teaching kindergarten at a school with the lowest SES in the district.  While teaching is my passion, after ten years I was burnt out.

I feel fortunate that I could return to administrative work in a higher educational setting.  I miss working with students.   I currently work at Carnegie Mellon University in the School of Computer Science in the Machine Learning Department.  I support five faculty members who teach and research in various areas of machine learning.  All of the faculty I support teach and conduct research with college, masters or PhD students.  I miss working with students.  I look forward to learning ways to become more involved with students in my department.

I have a passion for learning and teaching languages.  In high school I spent a year as an exchange student in Tunisia, North Africa.  Before college I lived and worked in Spain and then after college I went to Argentina on a Rotary scholarship .  Through my living abroad and working as a bilingual executive secretary I gained a working knowledge of French and a near native fluency in Spanish.

My most extensive use of technology has been using Duolingo and Quizlet for teaching Spanish.  Part of the use of Quizlet was to reinforce the practice of vocabulary learned in Duolingo.  This home practice allows for easier use of the vocabulary in conversation exercises.  My experience has shown that this makes for quicker engagement with the current vocabulary and content.

As I am still learning about the abilities and role of the learning technologist, I don’t yet know all the different ways it can be applied.  I envision applying my learning technologist skills to teaching language, specifically Spanish and English as a Second Language.  I would also like to use it for tutoring, outreach, and as a consultant with home schoolers.