I wasn't going to write about this, because it feels like bragging, and no one likes a braggart. But the more I've thought about this, the more I think I do need to write about it, for a couple of reasons. I hope you'll take this in the spirit in which it is intended.
I learned on Friday that I have been chosen to receive the School Board of Collier County's Instructional Technology Leadership Award: Innovative Principal of the Year for 2008.
There are a couple of you who are laughing your heads off right now. You can stop, please. Among the rest of you, if you don't understand why I find this mind-boggling, well, you've probably only been reading this blog for a month or so. In which case, I encourage you to take just 10 seconds (truly, that's about all it will take) and read my very first post. Scintillating stuff, isn't it? Or my not-quite-famous, intimidating-schmintimidating post from March, when I learned about RSS feeds. And stop for a moment to realize that my first post was on February 12, 2007 - and eight months later, I'm considered a model for leadership in instructional technology.
At first, that struck me as nothing short of surreal. And then, it struck me again... that isn't this the point? When you embrace instructional technologies - especially the emerging, amazing Web 2.0 technologies that promote collaboration and build communities of learners - your world quite literally can change.
I now understand how the reflective and communicative nature of blogging can refine your thinking.
I now understand how using RSS feeds can expose you to more ideas in 8 months than you'd otherwise find in 8 years.
I now understand how Twitter can gain you a network of fellow educators and new friends, with whom you can learn and laugh and grow.
I now understand how GoogleDocs can make it possible to create collaborative documents that are better than any one individual can design alone; and how Ustream can create a "face to face" opportunity to learn from someone a world away; and how podcasts can let you learn visually, or auditorally, and on your own time; and how digital storytelling allows learners to communicate and create in a different way; and how wikis can help you build a knowledge base about ANYTHING so that NO ONE has to go it alone; and how social bookmarking helps you not just organize your own best sites and content, but helps you learn from others with similar interests; and how Flickr can help you share your "visual thoughts".
There are other tools I'm just starting to understand, like Skype, and there are many, many others I don't yet have a clue about. But what I *have* learned, I've learned in eight months - and that's the point. That if this old dog could learn all that stuff in just eight months, just imagine what it could do for the young pups who are our students, if only we as educators embraced it all.
The Collier County Instructional Technology Leadership Award doesn't go to me - it goes to the amazing community of learners with whom I'm interacting on my learning journey. It goes to -
- Scott McLeod, the professor who started the Principal Blogging Project that began my journey
- Marie Coleman, the Media Specialist who persisted with me until she got me past the tipping point
- my own personal Twitterverse, my ongoing and invaluable dose of professional development, including @cathyjo, @chrislehmann, and @ijohnpederson, each of whom has sparked an idea in my brain that translated into something really wonderful
- and the amazing people from the Lorenzo Walker campus who are embarking on their own learning journeys, either alongside or in addition to me, including (with links to some of their work or the resources they're using, where I have them):
(I just *know* I've left someone off (this feels like giving out Valentine's in 2nd grade)... so if I left you off, tell me so I can add you!)
To those of you who are new to this world, I say to you this: Don't be impressed or intimidated. I have been transformed as an educator, and (I think) as an educational leader, in an unbelievably short period of time. As we all explore together, it may feel odd, or we may goof up as we figure out our best steps in figuring out boundaries - but I believe that if we always focus on doing what's right for students, we may occasionally make mistakes, but we'll never truly go wrong.
Step into this world. You deserve it. Our students deserve it. And twitter me, eight months from now in June '08, when you realize how much it's changed you, too.
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