As I'm typing, I'm realizing I may be getting the cart before the horse and in order for this all to make sense, I need to back up a bit and set the stage.
Over the last two years as an Instructional Technology Specialist, I've inadvertently allowed myself to become further removed from the reason I love my job and distracted by the extra stuff. The first year, I spent time connecting and establishing relationships, working with PLC groups, and of course, providing professional development. I spent time tapping into my creative side and worked with teachers to create usable materials. I spent time researching innovative ideas and determining how to best support the teachers with those ideas. Most impactfully, I found myself working with kids and in classrooms helping teachers. Carrying out the role for which I was blessed to be hired.
Enter year two, something began to change. A huge focus surfaced as we worked to roll out @canvas and figure out how to make that work seamlessly. I was able to do things from year one, BUUUUTTT, I found myself being bogged down with the back-end side of things. I found myself setting up accounts, trouble-shooting issues (above my knowledge base), resetting passwords, and asking lots of questions to make sure what I was presenting on was going to work correctly.
#TruthTime - there are few things I like less than standing before teachers (or kids) and having problems due to something which could have been avoided. Technology fails, no doubt about it. Wifi can be splotchy for no apparent reason. However, when the issues stem from something avoidable, if completed correctly in the beginning, I cringe with frustration and brace myself for the lynching by the angry mob. This became more of my focus...away from tech integration and attempting to try and guess, plan, question every possible issue to avoid the mob. Okay, a bit dramatic, I know. No angry mobs occurred, but with enough things that could go wrong from human and technology errors, I focused on attempting to eliminate as many ahead of time as possible.
Time at work which should have been spent researching, creating, investigating, sharing, became infiltrated with the list of other things. I'd spend time at home creating and researching. But not to the amount I'd like and then the work/home balance began to suffer. It was a vicious cycle.
I began the year with a humungo list of dream ideas...things I'd wanted to do with and for the school district. Yet, sadly at the end of year two, I found few crossed off the wish list.
#TooBoggedDown
I felt defeated and I'd let myself/others down. I WAS working like a maniac trying to keep up...however, on things you really couldn't see. I wanted to be working on the learner driven things, tapping into the creative side, but found myself distracted by the other stuff. If I'm truly reflective, we did roll out with our Learning Management System, @Canvas, which was a big task, worked to emphasize the importance of connecting with a PLN, and accomplished lots of other things...but not to the magnitude I'd wanted.
Now that you have a background, enter the end of May of this year and planning for the new year started to roll at a frantic pace. My mindset started changing as we began to look at creative ways to house curriculum, plan for professional development, new teacher technology bootcamp, etc. Attending ISTE was a huge refueling opportunity for me. The ability to connect, be inspired, and be amazed at the possibilities. I found myself with goosebumps listening to some of the options. Then, enter #edcampldrmo this week and a session title Get Your Leadership Freak On. (Truthfully, part of me attended the session because I was curious of the title.) In the session, I listened to various ideas of how various district leaders were being creative with their learning spaces, administrative center spaces, and building their culture. They were speaking my language through thematic activities, team building, etc. I started tossing some general ideas around in my head on the way home. And, then enter the whistle...
While explaining the session to our newly hired Instructional Technology Specialist, (thankfully, I have someone to divide and conquer the workload!!), I mentioned I'd like to do a theme for our boot camp and threw around the idea of having some snacks which matched the theme, maybe make it a little more relaxed. A little something to help the transition to a new district and ease some anxiety by having an uptight, formal environment. I threw out an example of cheese balls which would be "beach balls." From there he said the word, whistle (referencing our "boot camp") and whammo! The creative juices started flowing. What started out being a simple Pinterest search for a couple of food ideas transformed into a 3-day learning adventure surrounding a theme, snacks, giveaways, scavenger hunt, and will provide a connection which will explain our role and how we can help the teachers. All from the word whistle. #MindBlown
I left Tuesday afternoon and on my 30 minute drive home, I was more excited and pumped than I'd been in a long time. I ate dinner and then spent more hours surfing the net for ideas and learning activities we could modify. We need to model the type of instructional leader we are asking our teachers to be. I was inspired to take action on those risks we encourage our teachers to do. Again, all from the word whistle.
I'm anxiously awaiting the start of our boot camp at the end of this month. I'll be sure to share the good, the bad, the ugly. I don't want to share out all the goodies now in case the newbies would see this post. All I know is, for the first time in a while, I'm almost obsessed with how excited I am (and my hubby is nearing his max capacity of listening to me talk about it). Let's get this party started! #AllFromTheWordWhistle
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