Tara received her degree in Elementary Education at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, with a minor in psychology. She started using technology
in the classroom when she was student teaching, showing UnitedStreaming videos and working with the Interwrite system. She says she found that students
learned better with interactive lessons.
Tara had her first classroom experience with Mimio Interactive systems when she began teaching second grade at a school that wanted to experiment
with interactive teaching. The principal funded one Mimio Interactive system for each grade level in the school. Tara had her Mimio system up and running
in no time. She got right to work exploring what it could do, and taught her first lesson with it the next day. Her enthusiasm for the technology led
the principal to appoint her head of the Mimio teacher group. After she did a Mimio presentation for all of the teachers and the PTA, funds were provided
to purchase eight more Mimio systems.
As a member of the beta Mimio Masters group, Tara quickly increased her knowledge of the software. She uses her Mimio Interactive system all day long,
teaching language arts, math, writing, social studies, science, and computers to her second-graders. She takes advantage of numerous interactive websites
in her teaching, including Starfall, Reading A-Z, DiscoveryEd, BrainPopJr, and NLVM.
Tara has been conducting monthly Mimio meetings for a PVES Mimio group, providing mini training sessions, answering questions, and sharing ideas and
lessons with other teachers. She also presented this year at the FETC in Florida and Celebration in New York. Moderating the Mimio Quick Learn sessions
has allowed her to share ideas and help other teachers use Mimio technology to its full potential.
Tara is currently pursuing a Master's of Education in Health Education through the online program of East Carolina University.