The Journey Begins

Well, I’ve decided the time has come to begin to put down my thoughts and experiences about my journey through education with technology. Prior to this year I have been a business education teacher for 16 years. It has always been my job to teach the students how to “use” the technology, to aid them in their journey through high school, but I never really taught them how to integrate it into their daily life.

Currently I am serving as the K-12 Technology Integrator for the York Suburban School District. This is a one year position to see whether we really need an integrator. I assure you that we DO!

My journey to this position began three years ago when I returned from attending my first Pennsylvania Educational Technology Expo and Conference in Hershey, PA. I attended a hands-on workshop led by the Technology Integrator for the Milton Hershey School. It was at that moment that I knew what I wanted to do with my career. I wanted to integrate what I had been doing in the classroom for 13 years with other teachers. I believe students need that connection. They also need the technology. The world they live in is totally different then the world I grew up in. I shared my vision with my principal who eventually became our Assistant Superintendent, and after some convincing, here I am. I plan to use this blog as a place to share what has worked and what hasn’t as I integrate technology in our district.

The big question was where do you begin. You have 3 elementary buildings, a middle school and a high school. We (administration and I) that I needed to spend the majority of my time in the elementary buildings, because they had been ignored for so long. In addition, the high school received a Classrooms for the Future Grant and would be receiving a “Coach” to help them integrate technology. (I’ve really come to enjoy working with Aly one of our English teachers and our CFF coach. I think together we make a great team! I’ve learned a great deal from her already this year.) Would I really have enough to warrant a full-time position? I used our district on-line message board and asked any teacher who had a project or idea, or wanted me to work with them to create a project idea to email me and we’d go from there. I was really worried that I was going to have to go looking for work, but the email began to arrive and I’ve been busy ever since. In the next day or so I will begin to share some of the projects that I’ve been working on.