In my new role as a University Instructor, I have a different set of responsibilities. For one, I am not struggling to grade 100 papers, tests, and projects each night. I am grading 40 papers, tests, and projects...
But one responsibility that stays the same is that I am constantly reflecting. How can I be a more effective educator? How can I make my assignments more meaningful? How can I help turn out the most effective educators into our profession? As I reflect, I research.
I am not of the era where I have grown up using technology. My students once marveled at the fact that I did not "surf the 'net" or send my first email until I was 21 years old. For them, technology and the Internet have been around as long as they have. So, I was once a part of the resistance. As the old chemistry adage goes, "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." I was part of the problem. I knew relatively little about technology. The first two schools where I taught were not technology-rich environments. Then I moved to a medium-sized school where technology was abundant. I was a little afraid of it at first. Then, I began to investigate and discover. I took online Professional Development courses that were devoted to enriching my classroom with technology. In the next few years, I went from being the teacher who was learning all about this technology thing to the teacher who was leading others. By the end of my time in the elementary classroom, I was reaching out to those teachers who, like me, were part of the resistance.
As I move more deeply into my career as not only an educator, but a trainer of educators, my love for technology still flourishes. As I prepare for the furtherance of my career, I continue to learn and research and find new technologies that can be used effectively in the classroom. The key word is effectively. My passion is to educate learners to make their classrooms effective in every way, by making technology the tool, not the focus of the lessons.
Thus, the purpose of this blog. As I learn new resources and try them out in my college classroom, I will pass them on. I believe that, when we have information to share, we should do just that. We are like sponges. If we continually take in information, without sharing it with others, we will grow; however, like the sponge that doesn't get squeezed out, we will just stink.
