Here the little things I offer that might make an impact: 

For the kids:

I have the ability to make small strides in how I support my students. I make a difference by continually encouraging them even when they’re not doing so well. I have opportunities to turn their attitudes around toward an academic concept at school, or to get them to open their views to the world in new and exciting ways. 

For teachers: 

I’ve been working on teaching little tech-tricks to teachers make them more excited about technology. Even when it’s completely about us as educators, we go crazy for new tricks that make us look tech-savvy. And that’s the thing I’m making teachers realize: playing with technology and finding ways to utilize it makes us proud to use it. That, in turn, may motivate us to use it more, to experiment more, and hopefully in new and different ways with students. 

For me:

I’m trying to take better care of myself in 2015. I’ve said NO to so, so, so many opportunities because I need to let myself have more time. I want to dedicate time to my friends and social engagements. I want to watch TV sometimes. Oh, and sleep… that, too. 

So there you have it: I’m not making the entire world a better place by creating massive human movement. But I’m making the worlds of some big people and some little people better by doing what I love and trying to do it well. And I’m glad that I’m taking time to extend that gift to myself, too.

Happy New Year everyone! Okay, so I’m 11 days late, but let’s be honest, blogging wasn’t really my thing in 2014 and I have to start somewhere, right?! 

I NEED to do more with my blog in 2015. So I signed up for  the #YourEduStory blogging challenge earlier this week thanks to the ever-wonderful Jo-Ann Fox. And while I don’t know that I’ll be able to complete the challenge (sanely) every single week, my personal challenge is to do it every two weeks at the very least.

Week 1, which I’m already posting late for, suggests that we write about our “one word” for 2015. Tia Henriksen and Tracy Cramer have also issued a similar challenge for my school district. The basic premise is to choose a word that we try to live by each day for the entirety of the year.

Initially, I began thinking that my word for the year should be “change”. Change is something that is constantly happening as I push myself, my students, and the teachers I support to try new things.

But change didn’t seem like a good enough word. After all, it was the attitude I took toward change that was the important aspect to focus on. With that thought in mind, I landed on the word flexibility for 2015. 

Flexibility works in so many ways for me: 

In the classroom: One of the best things a good teacher can do is roll with the changes and make them meaningful for the students. An authentic sidetrack can become a very powerful learning opportunity and I want to continue getting better at finding strength in this part of my flexibility. 

Mentorship: Having a student teacher means that I need to spend a lot of time mentoring which doesn’t always land at a specific meeting or collaborative time. Often, questions are at “just-in-time” moments that require flexibility and focused attention. 

Coaching: Needs of teachers are so varied across our staff. In order to reach everyone, I need to be empathetic and flexible to each and every skill level.

Personally: I have been striving for more social time as I continue to balance the myriad of professional commitments that I have taken on. When opportunities to see my friends have arisen, I’ve been taking advantage of them and letting professional work wait instead of taking rainchecks… and that feels good! That needs to keep going even when I get caught up in the midterm mess.

So there you have it: my first post of 2015, and here’s to many more! Happy New Year!

I’ve always known that I’m NOT the best teacher for every kid in my class. However, I've always been someone who’s worked to be the best teacher that I can be for them. At different times in the year, I've learned that I'm falling short of being the best that I can be for some of my kids. So what can I do? ...It’s not like those kids are going to disappear from my class!

Like any effective teacher, I will change my approach for them. I will mold. Adapt. Flex. Find new and exciting projects or activities that will pique curiosity, motivate, and engage those students. We all know that these changes don’t come easily, or even quickly. They take hard work and determination.

But what happens for me when I try these new things… these new pedagogical tricks and strategies? When I give the integration of a new technology a go? When I experiment with passion-based projects and their associated organized chaos?

Well… here’s the long and short of it: It just might not work.

Actually, most of the time it doesn’t work. Sometimes this is because I am a self-proclaimed ‘program skimmer’; I don’t like to read the instruction manual before attempting to build the model. More often than not, it’s because the technology that I’m tinkering with doesn’t work the way I had envisioned it to (the NERVE!). But the bottom line is that I fail in my classroom in front of my kids... ALL THE TIME.

So why am I sharing this? Isn't a teacher's blog a place where shining and celebratory ideas are shared? Where pristine examples of lessons are glowing with positive commentary and reviews?

Umm, nope. Nope, nope, and nope. And if yours is like that, you’re not sharing the hardships. We all have them… And we need to share them.

Just like me, you’re probably not the best teacher for every kid. That’s okay. Remember: that which we share is that which will allow us to learn, grow, and expand. Let’s celebrate and embrace moving out of our comfort zone in teaching. 

Bill Selak and I have been chatting a lot on the topic of modeling innovation and educational risk-taking on Voxer. We both feel that it is important to innovate within your teaching practice, reflect, and have a space to share and feel supported in BOTH your eduwins and edufails. Join us on Twitter by using the hashtag #EdFailFwd as we try to help ourselves and others to deal with the everyday obstacles we encounter in our jobs and move forward. Let’s #EdFailFWD together! 

Happy "connected educator" anniversary to me!  It's been exactly a year since I stumbled into my first #edchat and #patue chats, which inspired me to start my own blog. 

That's where this journey of transformative career growth truly began for me. On this day last year, I think I was following 30 people and probably had the same amount of tweets. One year later, I find myself reflecting on the professional journey I've taken and I am considering some thoughts:

• I became seemingly unconnected to suddenly connected; what changed for me that day? 
  
• Why did I keep coming back for more?
  
• How did Twitter and blogging transform my practice?
• How do I feel now?

Unconnected To Connected: What Changed For Me That Day? 

Nothing really changed about me as a person that day. Or the next. Or the next. 

What changed was the tools I used to get the job done (the job being to find resources and ways to professionally develop myself and grow as an educator).  I came into that situation with a growth mindset and I learned about a place that would feed that motivation. Most social media users are motivated to be present, participate, help, and share. Some watch from afar (AKA lurking), and that's cool, too, but the general idea is that everyone there is trying to grow their pedagogy and practice.

Why Did I Keep Coming Back For More?

Twitter was easy, fun, and I could access what I wanted, whenever I wanted, through the power of a hashtag. I could connect with educators I didn't know, chat with ones that I did, and even make new connections in my own district through it. 

Because of the list of Twitter educational chats curated by Jerry Blumengarten, Chad Evans, and Thomas Murray, I had access to several topical areas in education that I may be interested in. This list guided me on many occasions so I knew which hashtags to use for specific questions I had.

How Did Twitter and Blogging Transform My Practice?

When I jumped into the Twitter world, I dove in head-first and prolifically tweeted for the first 4-6 months...

Twitter chats. Impromptu discussions. Questions to hashtags. Late night work crew. Google HangOuts. Online edcamps. 

The pedagogical ideas and philosophies that are offered through these networks of educators on social media only scratch the surface of what became a transformative change in my practice. Blogging helped me to reflect on how I designed learning opportunities with my students and how I approached specific situations. Discussions with educators from varying regions helped me to gain a huge appreciation for my own province, district, and school settings by being exposed to other educational climates and their respective challenges. Connecting with these peers at local and global levels also held me accountable to my word -- when I told someone that I was going to try something, I really had to try it -- I did say it on the Internet, after all!

Advice for newer edu-folks taking this road: The tools are aplenty and the ideas can be overwhelming. Take what you need and take a break when you need it. Social media and those motivated & sharing educators will still be there when you come back. Check out this post by David Truss that outlines (literally) everything you need to know about tapping into Twitter as a professional development tool.

How Do I Feel Now? 

My feelings, one year later? One word: grateful.

I'm grateful for my PLN and all that they've done for me. I'm grateful that they are better than Google or any educational database out there when I'm looking for that one thing that's going to make that lesson pop. I'm grateful that I have support locally and globally on my students' and school's initiatives. I'm grateful for the opportunity to travel, present, and share the stories of my students and to learn about the students of others. And most of all, more than anything, I am grateful for the connections that have blossomed into incredible friendships. 

So, PLN, thank you. We all stand on the shoulders of giants, and you're mine. 

Oh, man.  September is over.  Queue the music.  Breathe.  ... Right?

This first month of school has brought with it many adjustments in my world.  I'm at a new school, teaching a new grade, working with a new staff on technology goals, and getting used to the workload involved with two graduate courses. Needless to say, September has been a bit of a whirlwind.  Mix those together with all of the things I was already doing and that is a recipe for an imbalanced disaster.  A month later, I'm just starting to finally feel like I'm on top of these new demands.  My absence from blogging has been due to my attempts to normalize my new realities.  Something had to go on the back burner for the month.  But now, I'm in control.... for the moment.

People often ask me, "How do you have time for all of that extra stuff?" These questions always spin me into a state of reflection.  Of course, I've asked myself the same thing.  How do I have time?  Is my life in a perpetual state of imbalance?  Am I happy even though I work practically every waking moment of the day? Is burnout inevitable? 

If you've ever been in a similar situation, you'll relate that reflecting on this is extremely difficult.  When you're so entrenched in the status quo, it's hard to see how far you can bend before you break.  While connecting to new people and ideas is important, it's also important to take a step back to understand what you're capable of and why it matters to you.  That's what fuels my passion -- the "why" I do it, not the "how".

So here's why it all matters to me:

1. I absolutely adore my students and want to deliver the best educational experience they can possibly have.
   
2. I love learning.  I love finding out new information.  Between my PLN and the MET Graduate program, I am consistently forced outside my comfort zone, and that's a good thing.
3. Growth is essential in our profession.  If you don't set out to improve yourself, no one is going to do it for you.
4. I am passionate about meaningful technology integration in the classroom.  It needs to be relevant for the future, not the present, and certainly not the past. 
5. Throughout this journey, I've made incredible connections who have given me consistently overwhelming support every step of the way. I want to pay it forward and inspire others to connect.
   
   

 With those things in mind, I can confidently say that I'm very happy with my life and the time that I dedicate to my work and studies.  Should I be making more time for other things?  Sure.  I'd argue that most educators could use a little more balance.  But just as September did, this, too, shall pass.

The educational realm of the Internet: A place where sharing is encouraged, but for the newbie, the audience can be perceived as a pack of hungry wolves idly waiting to tear your ideas apart...

If this is your thinking as someone new to educational blogging, tweeting, or sharing of information, I want to stop you dead in your tracks.  There is certainly a scary notion to sharing your ideas on the Internet, particularly through the forum of blogging, where what you share can be accessed and criticized at any moment.  At least a tweet disappears down a feed and is less and less likely to be accessed again after some time has passed.  I would argue that easy access and susceptibility to criticism is the #1 reason that the "newbies" and "lurkers" don't share their work in passion areas in a blog format.  While that reason is certainly valid, I have several reasons to counter that thought.


Who Are You Blogging For? 

Blogging should first and foremost be of value to the sharer.  My personal mission with blogging is to better develop my educational ideas so that I can better educate my students.  When I began writing my blog posts, I found that my motivation to make my ideas "airtight" increased - to rethink all possible angles, to craft my ideas and transform them from something good into something great. My ideas became more than a simple thought that floated through my mind just as I was about to fall asleep; they became strategized published works and they developed further than I could have imagined some of them developing.  Reflective processes are greatly strengthened as a result of sharing because you anticipate the criticism before it even comes.  It should be considered that you are very likely impacting and helping others through the sharing of your ideas, but it should not be your primary focus.  While it's great to help others as a result of your blog, you should be helping yourself first! 

I Don't Have the Gift of the Written Word!

What if I don't have the ability to "box up ideas" and tie a bow on them? Guess what?  That ability doesn't develop overnight.  Worse yet, what if I don't have any ideas?!  Relax!  The best writers in the world didn't learn their craft by opening up a webpage, slapping random ideas onto it, and clicking "publish."  They brainstormed.  They dreamed.  They wrote.  They re-wrote. They threw it out.  And then they started again.  Even as I write this very post, I'm keeping notes for myself at the bottom of the text box of what I need to accomplish in this post and things I've cut out because they just don't fit.  Some of those cuts have even given me ideas for future posts.  As an added bonus, blogging has helped to further develop my writing abilities and to forge my own personal style .  As you, too, continue to practice that craft, you, too, will become better at it. 


What Are People Going To Say About It?

Of course, we have to touch on criticism.  Criticism is a tricky concept to address because everyone takes it differently. Personally, I've always been the person who has focused on the single piece of negative feedback swimming in the greater sea of positive feedback.  I'm finding that there are a ton of people like me who practice that bad habit.  However, something that Dave Burgess, author of Teach Like A Pirate, writes about criticism rings mighty true in my ears: 

Through blogging, I've learned to take criticism as an opportunity to better myself.  Instead of viewing it simply as criticism, I view it as constructive criticism.  If a person is taking the time to pick apart my idea, then it is in my best interests to explore why that is occurring.  Perhaps there is an avenue I hadn't considered?  Or perhaps the context of the idea is not well-communicated through my writing style?  I always try to spin that commentary into a positive question that will help me learn how to better develop and communicate my ideas.  Educators are not meant to be islands; let the criticism of others remind you that you can be better tomorrow than you were today. 

The last thing on this topic: there typically isn't that much criticism to be had in the blogosphere.  As mentioned earlier, the tendency to focus on the negative that might happen is what instigates the fear to post in the first place.  The truth is this: the online educational world is FULL of positive and amazingly supportive individuals who will undoubtedly extend that same courtesy to you.  Feel comfort in knowing that they're anything but the "hungry pack of wolves" that I alluded to at the beginning of this post. 


How Do I Start?

That answer is simple: Pick a blogging tool and GO!!!  

I use Weebly because I love the drag and drop interface (very easy for beginner bloggers), but there is also Blogger, Edublogs, Wordpress, Tumblr... I'm sure the list goes on.  Pick one that fits with your tech abilities and/or workflow.  Once you have it set up, draft a bunch of different working titles based on your ideas and topics of interest.  I usually have 5-6 saved drafts going at one time and I'll add pieces to them here and there as I see fit.  Honestly, though, most of the time I just get an idea and complete the post in the same day.  It really helps me sort out the weaker topics that I come up with and builds relevance for my day-to-day observations of my world or areas I need to build upon for my teaching practice. 
 

It is my hope that this post can inspire new bloggers to take the plunge and start sharing their innovative ideas.  I invite all of my readers, whether new to blogging or a seasoned blogger, to continue this conversation and share feedback with me by leaving a comment below.  Thanks for reading!

- Victoria