This month, I took back Mondays. I decided that Mondays were MINE.
Selfish? Maybe. But I can't adequately professionally develop others unless I professionally develop myself so I set three goals to accomplish during my dedicated "me time" each Monday morning. Spoiler alert - I did not meet all three goals....the way I intended to at least. GOAL 1: Become better acquainted with how to support our district media specialists. We do not have a dedicated lead media coordinator. That role went away many years ago during an earlier Reduction In Force move. Supporting them has been one of my "hats" since then in some form or fashion. I was mourning the loss of our summer library program this year due to the pandemic and eager to explore ways our media program could evolve to better support limited access and remote learning. I signed up for a course designed for media specialists through NCCAT and signed up for webinars about school libraries post-COVID. Well, I got booted out of the NCCAT class. I never logged in. The boss put another project on my plate causing other things to fall off of it. Even though I was trying to carve out time on Mondays only, I couldn't fit it all in. I DID manage to attend most of the webinars and share what I learned with the boss so we can better support our media specialists. That summer library mourning turned into joy when two of my middle school librarians and I had an idea...the first EVER Virtual Summer Book Club was born! I love their enduring willingness to step outside the traditional library box! So I think I sort of met the goal, even though I didn't meet the mini-goals I established for myself. GOAL 2: Become more knowledgeable in Seesaw. Realizing that most of our elementary schools were relying heavily on this platform to deliver instruction, especially in the lower grades, I realized I needed to stop dabbling with it and dive in! I had to rely heavily on some of our district's amazing teachers when creating the Seesaw LMS resource page of our Digital Tools for Distance Learning website. I felt like I had failed at my job as their digital learning support, so I signed up for courses through Seesaw. Not gonna lie - I FAILED here. As the month went on and I got the email from Seesaw saying i only had nine days left to complete the course, I had to think long and hard about what completing this course really meant in the long run. Our district has numerous Seessaw Ambassadors. I have always said that the best teachers of how to use a tool are teachers using that tool - it was time to listen to myself. I took a deep breath and unenrolled. I can put my faith in these leaders to do an amazing job with training their peers. GOAL 3: Learn more about Google Tools. I am a Google Certified Educator and have supported many teachers as they earned their certification. I know that Google is always changing as it develops to meet the needs of its users. I also know that there are always multiple ways to do things with this suite of tools. So, I signed up for another NCCAT course and set another long-range goal to work on earning my Google Certified Trainer credentials before July rolls around. I decided to focus on this last one. As I progressed through the NCCAT course, I realized this one helped me also accomplish some of the tasks on my to do list - did you click on the Virtual Summer Book Club link in Goal 1? I created that during the course! I also was able to create a resource for others in the district on how to access a new CLASS Project resource. It's linked on the book club flyer. As for progress towards the trainer certification...I'm only a video away from getting that application in! This May Monday mantra worked for me. It made me not dread Mondays, too - I woke up ready to learn! I started my week inspired and felt grounded as I dug into the learning plans, digital tool evaluations, certificate approvals, badge reviews, hours long phone calls and Zoom meetings. Will it be the same once I have to return to the real office in a couple of weeks? I hope so - I do know that working on my front porch or with the windows open in my home office had a huge POSITIVE impact on my productivity. My other office has no windows or natural light. I often joke it is where plants go to die....some days there, I feel like a plant. Here's to Mondays!
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AuthorJeannie Timken Archives
March 2023
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