or.... "20th century teacher in search of 21st century skills".....
The summer for a teacher means the opportunity first of all for recovery from a taxing and draining year of work. After that comes the opportunity for me to update and reflect on next year's plans. And then there is the opportunity for professional development by checking in on the latest in technology, learning opportunities to grow and develop as an educator up to date with the latest technology... or maybe not..!
Tonight as I separated the burnt from the edible pieces of my dinner, I realized that maybe it is time to take a break from all of the self-imposed professional development I have subjected myself to in the name of keeping up through social media. Everyone puts out that you can contact them through Facebook, Twitter, or other social media and I have been doing my best to read and post in the idea of keeping myself in the loop. But it might be time to unplug....just to have some vacation before the social media circus starts all over again.
During the afternoon I had checked my customized reading site and learned the 7 ideas to motivate students, the 10 latest ideas to integrate technology (that is up from the 8 of yesterday); the 15 essential sites I need to visit on Pinterest (thanks to my supervisor..!), and the 25 best practices to remain relevant within the classroom (and that is just today)! I've added all of those to yesterday's 10 "no-rules" for the classroom, 7 best technology sites, the 50 things I need to know about teaching in the 21st Century, and the 25 best sites I need to visit. I am now buried underneath the math of the essentials, the names of the latest gurus, and the blogposts of the people who hold the keys to the educational kingdom of success. This is not to be confused with the blogs and best practices I glean from my Twitter account and the myriad genii I follow on that platform - every now and again adding my own 2 cents worth of dross (all while trying to sound knowledgeable) and then checking out the professional organizations on Facebook: in a week I've been to AATF, SCOLT, CLEAR, CeLTA and GWATFL. This alphabet soup leaves me nightly dreaming of organizations I can create with the remaining letters, working the ZXWV into my own webpage of petty offerings in this digital age where each person is an expert. If I miss a day, I feel so behind... I am buried under the numbers I missed, the letters I have yet to unscramble, and the sites I have not yet accessed.
But back to my dinner,... while waiting for the vegetables and the pasta to cook, I left it all to its own device while I read another article and added another site to my own wiki, and in this time, dinner: summer vegetables carefully chosen for their beauty and flavor were overcooked... and so I think, perhaps it is not necessary to try and do it all, to read all the blogs, to follow all the ephemeral tweets, to be everything to all people - but to rest in enjoying the minute and to remember that the evidence points out that the most important device in a classroom is still the teacher... and given long enough I can find and quote the article on Twitter that says just that!!
I hope you are enjoying your school year.
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