On to more serious stuff. Where I'm at. With this Master's process.
I began to pursue an EdTech Master's about three years ago through Sonoma State. At the time I was living in San Rafael and teaching in San Francisco. Every Wednesday I would wake up at 6 am, drive into the Mission, teach until 2:30, drive to Rohnert Park to SSU, attend classes from 4 pm until 10 pm, then drive back to San Rafael to crawl into bed around 11 o'clock. This weekly grind was worth it to me because I was so convinced that the process of learning more about EdTech, and continuing to develop as a learner myself, would greatly improve my teaching practice and my students would reap the benefits. After only one semester, my then-administrator discovered I was leaving early (during my prep period) to make it to SSU one day a week and I was no longer able to attend. But, that was where I was at, and that was what I had to do make it work.
I am blessed to find myself teaching in a district that knows the value of technology and we were recently given a new Lenovo Thinkpad and an iPad. These new tools are in addition to the laptop I already had in my room (although that old laptop will be taken away in January). So I know find myself with an abundance of technology and the overwhelming feeling that I am not doing nearly enough with all of these wonderful resources that I know I am lucky to have. To add to this, our school board just voted to give all 7th and 8th graders Chromebooks based on the pilot this year our 6th graders did with Chromebooks. The students will receive their new tools in January. So, basically, in January I will have a completely different reality in my classroom than I do today.
This is where I'm at. I'm stuck. With the million things I feel I have to do every day to just get to school, teach a lesson, grade, meetings, and more, I have two looming commitments that I just cannot seem to get ahead of: my master's and my new classroom coming in less than 6 weeks. It seems that I cannot manage my time well enough to get my ducks in a row and start getting things done. I love my topic for my project but I simply cannot begin in light of everything else. Where do I spend my time? Getting this writing done for Chapter 1? Or planning for the brave new world that I will enter come January 6th?
To some extent the addition of the Chromebooks will actually add a great component to my Master's. It opens up new possibilities for how I will manage the workflow in my math class which is the basis of my project. I am greatly looking forward to the time I have off in December to really spend some time working on both tasks at hand. It is so exciting to have the opportunity to reinvent the current math model and I do agree with Dan Meyer that there is no better time to be a math teacher.
