The first few days were a blur. I had some successful meetings, and it was great to see all of the old and new faces. One thing really sunk in. Our principal, Jeff Richardson, was speaking about always communicating with respect and not allowing your passion to cloud the fact that you may be acting rudely to another. We have also initiated a new form to our team leader and PLC (Professional Learning Community) meetings, dialogue, then discussion. This is a great way for people to share their thoughts in a non-threatening environment.
I met a few times with fellow integrationist/coach Hector Londoño. We talked at great length about our "Big 3" ideas/goals for the coming school year. I will go more in-depth with them once we present them to our administrator and get them approved. I also met with Alma Harder, our new Elementary Vice Principal, about the possibilities of our Outlook Calendars (more to come on this as well).
One thing I must work on is streamlining my researching practice. Twitter is an incredible PLN (Professional Learning Network). There is an incredible amount of passionate educators sharing their ideas and links to information. I was expecting a lot of wonderful resources, but the sheer volume of resources has been a little overwhelming. I found a great group of educators to follow by reading this blog post by John Mikulski, blogger of Classroom in the Cloud. Here are the two posts: 57 Must Follow Educators on Twitter Part I and 57 Must Follow Educators on Twitter Part II. There is a great art to Micro Blogging, and I am going to try and inspire the educators at my school to give it a try!
Another resource I have focused on this week is Pearltrees. Pearltrees is a wonderful way to experience and share the web. You basically create different Pearls for different categories of web pages, pictures, files, etc. The uses for Pearltrees are unlimited, for educators and students alike.
This is an exciting time for being an educator (and hopefully even more so for being a student). There is a shift coming, and all it takes to start is one small step. What's your one small step?
The journey of a first year Technology Integration Specialist trying to encourage a paradigm shift in education. My views do not necessarily reflect those views of my employer.
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