A New Start

After twenty-plus years teaching language arts in Catholic schools, I’m moving into a brand new position as Director of Technology. As vice principal, I’ve been the unofficial technology director for a number of years in addition to my teaching load. Next year, however, I’ll be leaving the classroom in order to have the time to focus on technology.

One of my main tasks will be designing and implementing a technology curriculum, and I’ll also be supporting and mentoring classroom teachers in their use of technology.

Though this school year is close to ending, I’m already thinking about next year. For one, I have to move out of the classroom I’ve been in for the last nineteen years. As the eighth graders began cleaning out their desks and lockers this week, I began my own excavation project. It’s a bittersweet task, packing up books and resources that I won’t be needing anymore, setting aside materials for my colleague Lindsey who’ll be stepping into my language arts position.

But it’s also been a healthy task as I’ve purged some of my old files. I’m trying to convert as much as possible to pdf format, and with the help of the school scanner I’ve been able to digitize three full drawers of files, tossing the paper into the recycle bin.

Yesterday I took down posters, bulletin boards, and pictures, some of which have been up since before my youngest daughter was born. Where do I put them all? I’m not going to have a classroom next year, so I guess I’ll have to cart them home and try to convince myself that they’re just too valuable to throw away–I mean, seriously, I can’t throw away cardboard standups of Gandalf the Grey and the Tardis, can I?

How can I throw Gandalf away?

Besides the physical preparations to be made, I’ve also got an ever-growing list of resources to explore and learn about, so this summer is going to be an exciting time of professional growth. I keep an EdTech list on my iPhone’s Notes app, and here are just a few of the things on it right now:

• Participate in NCEA’s STREAM Symposium Webcast on June 24.
• Finish working on the school ereader policy.
• Explore Remind101.
• Finish setting up Google Apps for Education (a huge task!).
• Look into using instant login from Clever.com.
• Learn to code (ha!).
• Create an iTunes U course to distribute documents to teachers next year.

That ought to keep me busy for awhile! I’ll keep you posted on my progress.