I go to bed early. I do my homework. I read ahead in the assigned text. I sit at the front of the class.
And I blog.
These are all things that a younger version of me would have found terribly amusing. I used to stay up late for no particular reason, aimlessly flipping channels from one TV movie to another. I used to coast by on my innate intelligence, ignoring those homework assignments that weren't graded and procrastinating on the ones that were, knowing that my exam scores would save me.
And I used to mock and berate anyone self-involved enough to think the Internet community wanted or cared to read their quaint little journal entries. Even using the word blog was enough to illicit a sneer.
After two and a half years and roughly 250 blog posts, I will now explain with perfect clarity why I am glad I changed my tune.
As a teacher, I can not afford to stagnate. Just as I chastise my mother for not being able to program the VCR (or for still owning a VCR,) my students will mock anyone who isn't on Facebook or Twitter. One of our first assignments in grad school has been to build a wikispace. While many of my peers have been stumped by issues of formatting and functionality, I have breezed through, having experienced this process already. I am not bragging, but I am thankful for having anticipated the role technology would play in my classroom ahead of time.
In another week, I will be assigned to my mentor teacher. I can only hope that he or she is as influential in my life as the edubloggers that have guided my development for these past two years. I hope he or she is as innovative as Dan or as supportive as Jackie. Thanks to blogging, I have mentor teachers all over the world.
Admittedly, i have a long way to go. I still don't tweet and I text in complete sentences with full punctuation. I will never be able to completely keep technologic pace with my students. But as long as I can stay just a few steps behind, I ought to be able to communicate with them at the times when I really need to.
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1 comment:
It is interesting to observe the changes we've gone through, isn't it? My younger self was much like yours. And while I neither go to bed as early or blog as often as I should, I have changed as a learner. Which has helped me change as a teacher.
I hope you have a wonderful mentor teacher. One from whom you can learn deeply. One who realizes they can learn from you too.
(thank you for the kind words)
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