About

Hello and welcome to my blog!  My love for technology began when I was young – around age seven.  I was the first person on my street to have a computer with a Pentium processor and 512 MB of RAM.  I was also the first person on my street to have high-speed internet – way back when the first high speed provider was @Home.  Having been exposed to computers and the internet for such a long time, I’ve naturally become a technology enthusiast and guru, and to be honest, a bit of an Apple fanboy.

I graduated as a two-year NHS member, senior scholar, highest honor student from Fox Chapel Area High School in Pittsburgh, PA.  I was also awarded the Principals’ Leadership Award for 2009.  I was one of only two students out of my class of 460 that received that award.  I spent nearly four years working for FC as a technology specialist.  My job included desktop computer setup, maintenance, and troubleshooting, as well as network setup and maintenance, including working with Mac OS X Server, running custom cabling, etc.  My job gave me many opportunities to work with the latest technologies and services available today.  Currently, I’m employed part-time as a consultant so that I’m able to work on my breaks at RMU and Tuesdays and Thursdays during the week.

During my time at Fox Chapel Area High School, I played a crucial role in a grant writing process that helped the school receive over $500,000 from PA’s Classrooms for the Future initiative.  It was the second largest grant awarded in Allegheny county.  One of the reasons for the large amount was the inclusion of a student cohort group that I helped to develop and lead.  The student cohort worked with teachers and administrators to help train them on the new technology, as well as present them with possible “best uses” for their classrooms.  Technology is not a way of learning; it’s a tool for learning.  All of the same principles of good teaching, including differentiated instruction, still apply to a technology-infused classroom, and the cohort of students stressed this to teachers.  Although I’ve now graduated, the cohort continues stronger than ever helping teachers with the integration of technology in their classrooms.  (Read my blog post about our Cohort’s TRETC presentation here.)

Currently, I’m pursuing Computer Information Systems at Robert Morris University in Moon Township, PA.  I was awarded a full-tuition, presidential scholarship there and am very pleased to be moving along in my studies applicable to CIS.  RMU hired me spring of 2010 to act as an IT Associate Systems Administrator in the Enterprise Server Group and manage the Mac OS X systems and server.  I will be in charge of leading the project of redesigning the Mac infrastructure this summer which will include overhauling the accounts, sharepoints, manage client preferences, and related items.

I hope you like the site.  Please feel free to contact me using the form on the contact page, or through Twitter: @mboylan.  I tweet a LOT, so if you don’t want your stream filled with my ramblings, you might not want to follow me.

You can also call me by using Google Voice.

My resume can be provided upon request.  Please just use the contact form above with the subject line “Resume Request.”  Please include in your message a brief description of why you’d like a copy of my resume, what organization you represent, and any other relevant information.

Thanks for visiting my site!

Updated 10/27/2010