Sorry, I know the title is a little cheeky, but I just couldn't resist. Just watched Apollo 13.
Today was a good day. We (BK's Business Teacher, Diena Mennenga and Teacher Librarian, Theresa Reiter) attended the AEA's 'Shift Control" Session - day 1.
This morning we were introduced to National Teacher of the Year who is from Iowa and teaches in Johnson - Sarah Brown Wessling. A very innovative, tech savvy teacher! She presented to us some of the tools she uses in her classroom and gave all of us some very good ideas to work on for ours.
Below is the video from CNN (on YouTube) with President Obama recognizing her with this honor. Pretty cool!
In the afternoon we attended "Tech Bootcamp" conducted by Castle's Nick Sauer facilitating and Dr. Scott McLeod on the sidelines. It was very difficult for me to contain my excitement when I looked around the room. You see, I have an inner geek that is just struggling to get out, but not everyone understands. I compare it to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but in a good way. Not a good vs. evil, but rather like the light in someone's eyes when they get it, and the glassy eyed look when they don't understand my passion for technology.
Anyway, getting back to the room. While looking around, I saw a diverse group of people as far as age, and tech abilities. However, each and everyone was totally attuned to Nick and Scott as they introduced all of us to the nuances of how to blog, subscribe to information on our Google Readers, and other techie things including Apple's iPad. Scott McLeod has a nifty little pen/highlighter stylus type utensil that works with the iPad that I am hoping to look at closer tomorrow or on Friday.
All of this keeps churning in my head.. how can we excite our teachers back at BK to use these tools? How can we as a group show them what all of this can be used for and how it will impact instruction and student learning ending up in student success? How can we get past the 'this takes so much time' statements? It does take time, but once it is done, it will be easier.
Everyone wears so many hats, but in my mind that shouldn't be an excuse to not do it. I don't think that BK can wait or take things too slow. The National Teacher of the Year, Sarah Brown Wessling's students are incredible examples of what we as instructors can do to inspire our students!
