Spent some time chatting at K12 Night Falls session tonight, even though I have had very little time to listen to all of the great presentations. I felt a bit of deja vu as the chat rolled by and the conversation suddenly sounded just like the one I had in the Fireside David Warlick chat. Is it me? Yes, principals need to be involved if technology is to work. Yes, students know more than we do about technology. Yes, teachers say they have no time to learn tech. Yes, yes, and yes. Same conversation- why? I am trying to reflect and frame my online experiences, and maybe there were people in that chat room who have never heard that before, and needed to hear it. Maybe those conversations need to happen all the time to keep people aware. Is there this revolving door of educators where the technology doorman must continually repeat the conversation for those who just came in? I think that may be partially true, but I am personally ready to move on to the “how” part of the work. Now if anyone reads this, don’t take it the wrong way. That conversation did occasionally dip in the direction of “how”. Maybe I am just writing this as a personal message to myself to say “get going with it already!”
That said, I can say that I am now officially obsessed with the idea of building bridges. I have decided that the first part of it might have absolutely nothing to do with technology. I have a pretty good rapport with teachers in my building, but if I want them to jump over this gap, and into the unknown, that rapport is not good enough. They have to respect the way I teach, they have to respect the way I professionally interact with peers, they have to trust me. So today, I broke bread (shared sushi actually) with some colleagues that I don’t normally hang out with. The principal and his family went too, and we barely talked about school, and I never once used the words twitter, blog, or wiki. I learned that my principal is left handed, and he did his student teaching in Japan. I learned that someone I thought was a risk-taker will only eat ranch dressing on her salad. We shared wedding plan updates, new house stories, and halloween preparation tips. We connected on a non-school level. Do you see how important this can be? I see….
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