About Me

Hi, my name is Courtney Ortiz and I was born and raised in Hemet, CA. I'm still living there in fact. For those of you who have never heard of Hemet (not an uncommon occurrence, as Hemet is a fairly small city) it is located about 40 minutes north of Temecula. I went to Little Lake Elementary School, Dartmouth Middle School, and Hemet High School. I attended Mt. San Jacinto community college off and on since high school in between working and traveling. It seems like it's taken me forever to earn enough credits to transfer, but I was finally able to transfer to CSUSM last semester, hooray!

Where am I on the technology continuum? Well, I’m not terribly fond of gadgets, but I have no problem learning how to use them if I have to. I can use all of the normal things; Microsoft office, excel, the Internet, etc. Plus I know a tiny bit about design software like Adobe Paintshop and Illustrator and CorelDraw. In my opinion the latter is 100 times more user-friendly than the Adobe products. But I will admit, I can get very frustrated when trying to use a program and things just aren’t working the way I want them to; due to my own ignorance about the product I’m sure. I’m more of a hands-on type of person and sometimes I truly wish I could just reach into the computer screen and manipulate things directly. It would be so much easier! I’m still waiting for that particular technology to come out J

The section of the mission statement for the College of Education that I liked best was the part about collaboratively transforming public education. I think that it is a great idea to instill a sense of community and cooperation in everyone going into the education field. I’ve seen the result of failing to work collaboratively in the district most of my family works in. It seems like everyone has their own agenda (often more for personal advancement than because it will benefit the students) and is willing to push it forward regardless of who gets in the way. This just breeds an atmosphere of frustration and resentment and creates a barrier amongst the teachers, and between the teachers and the administrators. I’ll admit, I didn’t even read the COE mission statement until this semester. My decision to transfer to CSUSM was based on the good reputation of the credentialing program among the teachers and principals I know. Also, it beat the heck out of driving to San Bernardino.