June 21, 2012
What’s a Tech Teacher Do With the Summer Off?
Are you going on road trips? Are you playing with your children, seeing friends you forgot existed, or engaging in retail therapy?
If I have time in between what I HAVE to do, I’ll join you. It might be a virtual trip, but we’ll make it happen.
Here’s what’s on my plate (so far) this summer of 2012:
- Attending ISTE 2012. It’s in my backyard this summer–San Diego.
- Attending training my school signed me up for on UbD, our new grading program (forgot the name), and robotics. One of the training sessions comes with a free lunch.
- Editing a K-6 technology curriculum and a keyboard book for Structured Learning (a great publisher of edtech resources for the classroom)
- Working on a tech thriller I hope to finish and get off to publishers. Of course it has lots of cutting edge technology in it and a quirky AI named Otto.
- Picking the brains of my two children. One works in cybercom for the Navy; the other the Signal Corps for the Army. Most of the stuff they can’t tell me, but I love hearing what they can.
- Working with tech teachers at my local school district on a technology curriculum for their K-6 classes.
- Presenting at several schools on tech ed topics. If you’re interested in working with me on that, please contact me at this link.
- Consulting with a Denver school district online to train their new tech teachers in what to teach in their computer labs next year.
- Getting back to my inquisitive, curious roots. I used to spend hours figuring out how to solve problems, find solutions, determine what made something tick. Now, I’m too busy. I can feel the rift in my spirit, my sapped energy, my fuzzy brain. This summer, I’m getting back to that. Here’s my promise:
For the next six weeks, when I see something techie I don’t understand, I’ll stop and ask the essential questions:
“How do you learn that?”
“How do you know that’s true?”
“How would you find out why?”
This sounds fun, doesn’t it? I know, computer geeks and their toys. Sometimes, I think we tech teachers picked our profession because we couldn’t stand the excitement of accounting. This summer, it’s more about the cerebral challenge, the mental mayhem I can cause if I figure everything out.
I’m ready.
What are you doing this summer? Can I join you?
Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-sixth grade, creator of two technology training books for middle school and three ebooks on technology in education. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog, IMS tech expert, and a bi-weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller for her agent that should be out to publishers this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
