Be of Use

This May I'll be wrapping up my master's program at UW-Milwaukee in Administrative Leadership . This program was 100% online . I've done a master's face-to-face too, and the online experience has been better for me. There's no way with a 2.5-year old and a almost 3-month old I could have done this any other way. If UWM hadn't offered this sort of format to earn a degree with licensure for Wisconsin's principal and director of instruction certifications, I wouldn't have done it. I think back to my first master's program, sitting in a car for 180 minutes a night to listen to a 2 hour lecture with some lame group work and a few breaks. Certainly the relationships I built weren't a waste, but those were more built on our collective misery for that process. I can't/won't go back to doing that. Now that I'm at the right stage in my life where I truly love learning (if only 16-year old me had a twinge of that feeling...) I want to event...

So there is tons of writing and speaking about the evolving role of the teacher. If I hear the terminology "sage on the stage" or "guide on the side"used again I may throw up. I completely believe in this evolution, I'm just tired of hearing the same line about it. A similar sort of catch phrase came up a while back in a department meeting with our technology department. At a conference a colleague of mine said a speaker was talking about using their technology to empower users (in this case teachers) to do things themselves - installing plug-ins, free software or items we have a site license for. "Think of yourself as a facilitator, not an administrator" the speaker said. In technology, teaching, professional development and I'd imagine in many other careers I have no idea about, we need to help people help themselves. As we move beyond may I Google that for you  at the intersections of teaching and technology we need to make sure we don't j...

Started this up as a New Year's resolution this year. If you look at my time stamps, it's been too long...like another resolution gone bad. But here I go again. Hoping to be more consistent. Update: Looking back on it, it may have something to do with the beginning of the Spring semester at UWM, along with doing it with two kids for the first time...just saying.