First off, where have I been? Well, I’ve been to Brownsville, Atlanta, Denver, Tulsa, Memphis and then back one more time to Atlanta. Most of these have been with what I call my “summer job” of being a presenter/trainer for Teacher Created Materials. My Denver trip was the ISTE conference in which you can read some of reflections in previous posts.
The TCM presentations have covered social studies strategies such as Using Primary Sources and Differentiation but I have tried to share my passion for ed tech with every group I met. To those of you who attended one of these trainings I want to thank you for stopping in and reading here.
Now although I spent much of the summer training others, I was inspired by the TCM Georgia sales rep and friend of mine, Petra who asked me on the way out of my last workshop “So, what kind of Ah Ha moments did you have?” Well, it got me thinking about the entire summer and what I will walk away from this which will make me a better educator and trainer.
Well, the first would be the comparisons that I have found between my district in Rocklin that I teach, and that of all these other districts. Ironically, the comparison strategy is one that I used in most of trainings, so looking for the similarities and differences has been a focus of mine. The most obvious difference is size. Rocklin has just two high schools and when compared to some of these giant districts like Atlanta Public Schools, it’s amazing to see how these institutions have so many resources at their disposal. Such as having a social studies director who manages just that curriculum, or having so many teachers participating in their PLCs. I found myself envious at times of opportunities that many of these teachers had being of able to participate and collaborate together. In many of these circumstances though I found a status quo mentality where teachers were teaching in the ‘same ole’ model. So many of them were inspired by the possibilities that many of these new technologies can make possible but I continued to hear the same comments… “I don’t know where to start” “I don’t have the technology” “My students don’t have internet access at home”. My response to all of them was virtually the same though… “Just get started, and DON'T be afraid of opening your classroom to the world, always think about what is best for our kids”. I also found myself very appreciative of Rocklin Unified which is truly a great district to teach in. We have great teachers and kids and our size allows someone like me who is just a classroom teacher to help be part of the process implementing technologies like Google Apps for Education for the entire district.
Other differences were apparent as well: student achievement, socio-economic factors, and the amount of technology in classrooms. But although each district has issues to deal with (but oh, does California’s budget crisis seem to dwarf all their financial problems!) I found so much passion in teachers who are excited about wanting to try new things. I gave virtually every group a introduction to the world of Web 2.0 tools along with a bit of a pep talk to get them excited about trying out these new technologies.
So what was my Ah Ha moment Petra? Well, it is a motivation for me to want to reach more teachers, motivate more teachers and want to help in redefining the 21st century classroom.
I titled this post as Chasing Sunsets. I have loved being in so many places, but I do long to be with my wife and girls at home. So as I had back to the west, I often stare out at the window on the plane and feel like I am just chasing that sunset on my way back home.
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