Sunday, October 27, 2013

Thoughts from #ecoo13

Reflections on ECOO 2013 And now to decompress.... My brain is chock full of teaching ideas, tips, tools, resources, could-dos, should-dos, all of which I want to spend more time thinking about. Thank goodness for note-taking apps (or even the humble pen) that have allowed me to try and remember every shred of infoI collected in 48 hours. I will go home, pull out my trusty tablet, and stare T these notes thinking, "yeah, I should totally do that...I should start Monday". Who's kidding who though, it's much more involved than that; here are the points in common that I'm taking away with me: . Learn it yourself first. Playplayplayplay. You can't break anything! Become more comfortable with a tool before foisting upon your children win aspirations of learning greatness. Armies need a general, not the Walmart Greeter. . Give myself permission to fumble and drop the ball. Kids will think no less of me if I totally mess up a presentation, or accidentally erase files or links. They'll laugh along with me if I start laughing first. It's all good- I'm new at this stuff too! (More like, "here, _____, find out what this app does, and come tell Mme all about it!") . Fuel the passion. My professional goal for this year is to assess without paper. I've tinkered with Evernote, skitch, Edmodo! Google docs, livescribe, all with the end goal of finding a new workflow that works for me. Note: this should make you uneasy at times. This is the shift hitting the fan. Worm around, scratch your head, and say "what next?" Instead of "what now?" If you're slipping back to an old way of doing things, perhaps this wasn't the passion you were really trying to foster and grow. No problem, just keep trying to evolve and improve in ways that make you excited, and that make you look objectively at your practice and say "yes! This is awesome!" I'm likely going into my classroom this weekend to see what went down in my absence, and to try jumping back into the fray. I will find myself thinking about total pedagogical upheaval, about ditching everything I currently do, this is the nature of ECOO and like conferences for me; I wouldn't change that. I need to love myself with the skills I bring to the table today. I need to allow myself time and learning curves like water slides to get better at the role I play in this journey called Education. It doesn't matter if I'm not a guru tomorrow; what matters is my students leave me feeling empowered, excited, and good about continuing down their learning paths more equipped than in September. Thanks to conferences like ECOO, I'm going to feel that way too.

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