Ebb and Flow

This is now my 4th year out of the classroom. This is significant to me because I remember thinking back in my 4th year of teaching that I was finally catching on. I was able to focus more on my students than my teaching. I automatically was able to do menial tasks and certain challenges from when I first started teaching became second nature.

I am not there yet in this role.

This transition has been harder for me. Some of it comes from changing districts in the middle of it. I am sure that if I had remained as a Tech Coordinator at Conant I would have it down by now. However, there is one thing that I am beginning to keenly understand.

The ebb and flow of Instructional Technology training and support.

July through September is nuts. There is so much happening that every misstep or problem seems disastrous - that you won't recover or get on track. School starts and teachers and students settle in and you are able to get back into a flow. The tech team begins to get over the mountain of help requests - they start to be closed faster than they come in. The focus changes from deployment of technology to teaching students and teachers how to use it. Hopefully in that process we help our teachers to teach more effectively and challenge our students to learn.

This week we had Charlene Chausis in to work with our staff development team. I finally felt like we were taking that step and beginning to move forward with what is really important in educational technology - Education (thanks for the help Charlene!).

Soon the ebb will take us into the planning process for next year's technology. Next week the focus will be on goal setting for my team. I really expect that this will help us greatly.

Here is to knowing that I am still learning...