Happy Holidays and New Year’s Resolutions

I would like to wish everyone who happens to read this blog a joyous holiday season. I hope you have a restful break and “recharge your batteries” as we begin the second half of the school year. Due to the fact that I am on a teacher contract, I am spending my time at home relaxing, catching up on reading and conjuring up ideas and tasks to complete when I return to work on January 2nd. I am going to work another day over break (I worked last Thursday) to replace some computers and complete a wiring rack project. Other than that, I am enjoying my time with my family, friends and pets (a springer spaniel and a chocolate lab).

As I reflect on the beginning of the 2007-2008 school year, I have been consumed with repairs and making sure everything is up and running. What I have not done is visit classrooms and labs to absorb how technology is being utilized throughout the district. A lot of us make New Year’s resolutions at this time of the year and promise to adhere to them throughout the year. Some people make a promise to lose weight or quit smoking. Some of my personal resolutions are to be a better listener, be more organized and donate blood (I am O-, the universal donor, which is always in short supply).

This year, I am making some professional resolutions. One of them is to visit classrooms (with teacher approval) to observe how technology is used in their classrooms. I plan on getting permission to take pictures, and possibly some video as well. With their permission, I would like to post my observations on this blog. Another resolution is to post to this blog more regularly. I have been struggling the past couple months with things to blog about. Sometimes, I started to write something and then checked my RSS feeds and noticed someone else already blogged about it. An example of this is that I had just read an article about MIT creating courseware for high school students. I started typing and had to leave for one reason or another. I came back a couple of hours later and checked my feeds and noticed that Alvin Trusty had already posted to his blog. I guess I could have posted anyways. I figured that if people read mine, they probably read his as well and I don’t want to have duplicate posts. Although, I do read the same stories in the news feeds I read. So, in the future, I will post even though someone may have already blogged about it. We may have different angles or a differing opinion.

My last resolution is to provide more professional development opportunities for our staff. I am going to make myself available in the mornings for training before school and I plan to make videos for teachers to download. Thanks to a blog post from Ryan Collins, this can be done for free!

Happy Holidays!