Beginnings

The art of teaching has been my quest and craft since the year 2000. I’ve had amazing opportunities to teach in a variety of schools in a variety of settings from Title I, international boarding, virtual, public, and independent schools. Whether teaching the emergent, at level, or advanced student, they all represent one thing: potential. Each student is a life that matters. A life that I can reach during our short time together to help them navigate life beyond high school as a result of the skills they acquire and/or strengthen during our class.  I’ve had successes, failures, and everything in between, and as a result, have learned quite a few lessons of my own.

These are truly exciting times to be a teacher. The field is changing rapidly as we learn more about how students learn best, how technology can be a tool to foster the 21st Century Skills of creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking, and how Experiential Learning projects such as those modeled after Google’s 20% Time can be used to promote empathy in and outside of the classroom, as well as serve as building blocks for students’ future careers which may not even exist today. In fact, my intrigue into the world of Educational Technology and the vast potential for taking student learning to the next level prompted my completion of an Ed.S. in Educational Technology degree from Boise State University. I love learning!

My hope is that my reflections on the successes and challenges of my various classroom experiments coupled with the classroom infusion of the knowledge and skills I’m gaining from my BSU classes on best practices in blogging (both professionally and classroom blogs), gamification, web design, research, etc. will be helpful to anyone looking for new ways to infuse Educational Technology and Experiential Learning into their own ELA practice.

A colleague told me early in my career that “teaching is the loneliest profession because once we close our doors, we’re on our own.” I’ve been on a quest to dispel that notion, and am hopeful that I can be part of the growing online community of educators who together are creating, collaborating, communicating, and critically thinking as we prepare our students for life beyond high school.

Thanks for joining the community. I’d love to hear about your own mission and vision for your ELA classroom. Please post your thoughts and share them below.