When it comes to “technology” I have to say that I am a wee bit challenged in this department. I know I would like to be more tech-savvy but getting from tech-challenged to being more tech-savvy is a pretty big step! When I signed up to be our school’s digital literacy coach I had no idea, really, about what that actually meant but thought it would be a step in the right direction. Time to step out of the ol’ comfort zone. Sign me up!
Then we had a couple of evening Engaging the Digital Learner sessions with lots of great speakers and time to converse with colleagues! I learned a lot from these sessions (like that small steps were what I would be taking on my “being more tech-savvy road”.) The evening sessions were really great opportunities to talk and share with colleagues in a very motivational and like-minded environment. I learned that moving along the more tech-savvy road is one that is going to take some time and that made me feel a lot better about signing up.
My road to wanting to be more tech-savvy started with a conversation a colleague and I had around the idea of having a class website. “You should try weebly.com,” she said, “I just went to a workshop and they showed us how to set up your very own website, for FREE!” Then she said… “It was really easy!” Ahhh…the old “it is easy” trap! “Yeah, sure,” I said, and thought to myself…there is no way it is easy to put a website together, especially for this technologically challenged teacher. NO WAY! I asked her a few more questions and then she convinced me to “just take a look” at the website she was working on.
Well, it was adorable! And after showing me a few things I decided it was time to step out of the “I don’t know how to get started” zone and step into “I am going to give this a try!” zone. It was time to get on with it and time to get myself a website!
The first thing I had to come up with was a PURPOSE for having a website. I decided that having a website had to make my life easier NOT more work so as a Kindergarten teacher my main purpose of the website is information for the parents of my Kindee students. Next I came up with a name for the website that the parents would be able to remember (Cindy’s Kindees) and then I sorted through the many, many themes weebly.com has ready to go.
Once I started I really got hooked on putting a website together. When I finished I was very excited and quite proud of myself, and even felt a bit tech-savvy! My Kindee parents really like the website and I have even heard them talking about it to each other. I receive less emails from parents now as parents can visit for the website for loads of information, calendars, newsletters, etc. I know the whole process took me longer than a tech-savvy person (one day I would like to be a fully fledged member of this club) but, for me, Weebly.com made the experience quite painless and easy…and there’s that word, yes, I said, easy. (This technologically challenged teacher also has a QR code in my window so that my “parents in the know” can use it to get to the website…now that’s pretty tech-savvy…I think.)
This past ProD Day I actually got to help my colleagues get started on putting together their own websites. So in the end I really did get to help my colleagues with a wee, a weebly, bit of technology.
Thank-you Sandra, and to all the DLC’s for sharing, motivating, listening, leading, and coaching…and for giving the little nudges we all need to step out of our comfort zones. Tech-savvy… um, I am not quite there yet but I am happy to say that I am out of the comfort zone with my water wings and a set of training wheels. |