Tech Ed Grief

"Get going, you don't want to miss the bus!" I call out to my fifth graders. To be honest, they are not by biggest concern at this moment. It is 3:02 and I am slotted to be on a podcast panel that started two minutes ago. Why would educators set the end of the school day bell as their starting time? Well, the panelist reside in time zones from UTC-7 to UTC+7.

This month's COETAILcast was the first in a long time that wasn't while I was teaching. (Plus I have moved countries and our internet is exponentially faster.) I won't summarize the entire call, as you can watch it yourself (or read the notes) if you are interested. I won't even go into the conversation about the 'ecosystem' of learning or the discussion of leadership and technology at this point, though those ideas I will be pondering for days to come. The moment of my day that I want to share is about grief.

What? You are recording a podcast about technology and education and your reflection is on grief?! Yup.

So often in technology change is about more tools, more access. Sometimes it is about stagnation and how to re-energize things. For me, I am having to grieve. After having taught in a 1:1 environment the past several years I now have 24 students and four iPad minis with a PC lab town the hall that my kids get to visit once a week for 45 minutes. As I try to figure out how to utilize technology I am having to take all the things I know about integration and funnel them through a much smaller conduit and to be honest, I am struggling. Jeff named it, I am grieving.

The good news is that I am nearly at acceptance and on the precipice of beginning this new journey of determining exciting tech integration with huge limitations.