My Edtech Mission Statement

Throughout the past year, my teaching style and emphasis has undergone quite a change. From focusing on making lessons innovative simply by using my own brain power, Google search and the copier, I have become a Twitter enthusiast, Tumblr loving and tech inspired guide in my classroom. No longer do I create a worksheet and print it off, but I push myself to find a technology tool I want to explore and then think about whether or not a lesson could utilize that tool in a positive way. 

Over the past year I have tried to create a mission statement for myself in regards to technology in the classroom. Thinking through why I use a technology before how I will do it and what I will use is vital to a progressive lesson. 

Some important learnings over the past year since I embarked on a self revolution: 

• Students need to be perplexed in order to want to learn 


• Engagement differs from learning


• Technology use should not just be done for the sake of doing it


• Twitter is as useful in education as air is in life


• Pick a selection of go to tools for you and your students in the classroom to use.If you bounce around too much they get confused and you become overwhelmed (mine are my Google Site, Educreations, Khan Academy and Blogger for my kids)


• GIve to online communities if you want to receive. 


• Use technology to increase imagination and creativity not reduce it. 


• Collaboration is just as important as independence. 


• Adaptability, failure and discovery of concepts are key. 


• Kids are way more tech savvy than us no matter how smart we think we are. 


• Teaching responsibility trumps the possibilities of being unprepared for class in reference to 1:1. 

So my first draft of my technology mission statement as of now is as follows: I use education technologies with the purpose to allow students to grow their imagination, perplexity and acceptance of failure in a learning environment that is physically and digitally adaptable for independent and collaborative work that continus to focus on understanding the whys behind learning not the what.