Teacher Talk

What's New?!

CLICK HERE for the latest from my Classroom 2.0 Blog

Tired of Learning

That's right, I'm getting tired of chasing edtech. While the technology is changing rapidly and it's incredibly exciting to be a part of these changes particularly as they relate to the world of education...I'm starting to tire of 'keeping up.' Please understand, I love the excitement and have always been an early adopter. What is exhausting is that sometimes I would just like to use the technology instead of understand it.

Image from Somadjinn. Spinning Disco Lamp. MorgueFile.

For example, I want to access all of my email from one location (Thunderbird works for me). So, what's the issue? The level of technical expertise I need to make this happen. So, I set up an account wanting to get my gmail to this desktop application. That's easy until I get a warning that says,

Mail server pop.gmail.com responded: Your account is not enabled for POP access.

So, I go to Gmail and look around for the link to the settings page so that I can enable my account for POP access. Hey look! I can FORWARD the email to another one of my accounts...this should meet my need. In fact, what a great idea! Done. Ooooh, and here's the POP access infor too...as long as I'm here, I may as well make sure it's all on.

Basically I over-engineered a solution and now recieve emails as well as copies of emails in Thunderbird. What's more is that it all stays ad nauseum in Gmail. My EdTechies friends and colleagues will tell me exactly how to fix this, the issue...I don't want to know how. And while I want it fixed, I don't want to fix it.

It's All About Me (Being a Professional)

Several weeks ago I declared this blog in need of a revamp. Since then I've spent a great deal of time reflecting on ed tech, social networking and my own professional development. Of course, all of the thoughts stay neatly tucked inside my mind.

I've been watching and learning from newbies to blogging (NB) as well as those who are blogging experts (BE).

What have I observed?

Trepidation & Innovation
Does it make me nervous? Yes, especially at first. However, I believe we need teachers who can model how this can be done professionally. (BE)

Intuition & Risk
I have great passion for what I do and am diving into the edtech professional development arena as well, in hopes of bringing the excitement of technology into more classrooms. (NB)

What have I learned?

Certainly, there are liberties I have as I'm not currently working in a school. In fact, there are benefits to not being employed at all.

• As long as I'm not prepared to fire myself, I've got "job" security (wondering if this isn't really "in" security).
• Morning is any time before noon.
• I generally agree and get along with myself.
• Ignoring bureaucracies that don't make sense to me.
• Setting the barometer for sense-making.

Does this mean I'm free to blog with random disregard? Absolutely not.

In addition to being accountable to myself and my family, I'm accountable to teachers, both instructors and customers. My participation in the education community, by default, necessitates and deserves professional representation.

In brief, trepidation, innovation, intuition and risk are a normal part of the blogging experience. Throw in a dash of my own good judgment and a sprinkling of support from people I respect and I can open up, letting those thoughts get a little air (of course, don't want to be TOO open-minded for fear my brain will fall out altogether, but that's for another post).