I'm Amazed

Reading a post by my friend, John Carver, earlier last week about Superintendents being in the lead role of educational practices by their districts.  I was amazed that many of the things that John said I had said to our faculty at our first meeting on August 13th.  To even have thoughts like Mr. Carver humbled  me greatly and made me feel good.

I have a one year contract at my current district, and I really like it here.  I told our staff that I was approaching this job like I had a multi-year contract, which most superintendents get.  We are going to gravitate to being a google school, we were not renewing our Office license, we are going to switching to gmail over our current email provider, Novell.  I then continued to show them some of the tools we had used at my previous district and how important I feel it is to incorporate technology into our everyday teaching.

Fortunately for me the staff has been very receptive and some have really jumped on the bandwagon.  I've always said we just need to turn the kids loose and they will take off, I have found this to be true with adults also.  I showed a teacher edmodo and what an asset it can be, she shared it and now five other teachers have had their classes sign up for edmodo, this really made me feel good and I also know I need to keep challenging and sharing with them.  It only takes a few to take the bait, and then others will follow.

I then had a teacher from another state want to visit with me about technology, which I was glad to do, his wife teaches in our district and told him about my day one presentation.  We had a great visit, and even discussed me coming to their district for a day of Professional Development, as they are behind technology wise.  I would be happy to do it and then he told me his board had passed a policy that cell phones are not only banned for the students, but also the faculty.  I was amazed, are you kidding me?  To deny people the use of these handy items is right out of the 1960's when I went to high school.  So I told him if I do come over to present please make sure at least one board member or better yet all board members attend.  Behind tech wise I'd say so.