Technology Helper

Who couldn't use a little help with technology?

Yesterday we had our neighbors over for dinner. Their kids played with our kids and Dee asked me about web pages. She is a new teacher at a local high school and has become interested in communicating with her students in a new way.

So, I gave her my, "Google is awesome," speech. Shared Blogger- because I love it, and Google Page Creator- because it is more flexible. After a few minutes of discussion over pizza (no pizza wars last night), she was ready. I helper sign up for a Google mail account and in no time she was posting her first blog entry, adding links and creating her own web page.

I wish everyone was that easy to work with because my job would be so much easier. I have been thinking about how all of this happened and I think I may have some ideas about it. The things that made this such a smooth transition for Dee that other teachers are missing in a reverse top 5 list;

5. She has been out of teaching for a few years and has rediscovered her passion for teaching.
4. She sees that students have new abilities and can be reached in different ways.
3. She has real world technology experiences- she has skills developed outside of teaching.
2. She is open to new ideas.
1. She cares more about the students she teaches than she does for the status quo of what her coworkers consider quality education.

I might have missed something, but the important thing to me was that I saw in Dee more interest in technology in one night than I have seen in many of my coworkers in years. Kind of scary. Dee was nervous about it. I think she is still working out exactly how she will use her new tools for teaching, but she will use them. I am excited for her, and her students.