Its not everyday that you decide "well, its time for me to write something." When I was in middle and high school, I was very excited for periods and/or classes of "creative writing." It was fun flexing that muscle, getting lost in some sort of other world I was weaving. Then, out of nowhere I stopped. Why? I found my first love.
From the moment I set foot into Mr. Church's novice debate class in 1998, my focus began to shift. I started researching, and researching, and researching....and then access to the internet grew, and I could consume more and more and more. My thirst for creating a new creative world got lost in finding a deeper understanding of our own world....and turning it into the absurd (if you've ever seen or listened to anyone talk about a policy debate round you know what I mean).
That love of distorting reality in the game of debate still exists to this day (as I did it in College, and coach it to this day). Because of my consistent desire to do research for debate, I rarely read anything else. My PD opportunities only came from whatever our district offered, and I rarely looked elsewhere. However over the past several years, I'd been getting the occasional email about a new app or a teaching method to try, and little by little, I'd try to add new tools to my toolbox. But I would limit what I wanted to try out of a fear of failure. Which is the same thing we know our students experience on a daily basis.
In the last year and a half, I've embraced the ethos of Mark Manson's Subtle art of Not Giving a F*ck. I should be willing to engage whatever I think is important, what may be the best for my students, and engage them in a way that matters. So, on a daily basis, I'd find ways for us to try and fail collectively. We'd create games on the spot. We'd rekindle the creative spark I had in middle school.
Given the fact I'm willing to try just about anything on a daily basis, and get student feedback on if they like a certain tool, method, or idea, I'd share our reflections with anyone who's willing to read them!
If you check out the rubric above, I'll use the genail.ly tool I created to evaluate different forms of technology, or I'll show some awesome things created by my students in an effort to inspire others to try new things (or learn from our failures and do it better). We need to be willing to use these technological tools we see taking a meteoric rise currently, and find how we can automate or simplify the mundane elements of our job, so we can do what matters, build relationships with our students and help them grow in whatever capacity they wish!
If you've made it this far, thank you for reading! I hope you're ready to continue joining me on my journey to build a plAIground where we can find what works best for a new generation of learners!
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