Over the winter break, I truly took a break from work. That included a break from Twitter, education reading, and podcast listening for most of the time as well. I felt like I needed the time for myself and my family. It was completely worth it.
As January 1 approached and I spent a little time online, I noticed many people tweeting about their 2020 #oneword.
I love the #oneword concept and have incorporated it into a graduate course I teach. I love trying to find a word or phrase that can encompass a goal and give you focus.
As I read through different words from people around the world, I started to wonder what my new word should be for 2020. What do I want to focus on? Should I wait until summer to pick a word? (As a teacher back to school time can be a more natural goal-setting time than Jan 1).
But then I remembered that I already had a #oneword!
Hmmm – seems like I might have lost my focus if I forgot I had a #oneword! I scrolled through my blog to try to find my #oneword only to realize that I had not written a post about it – but I had made a graphic in Adobe Spark and posted it on Twitter. (Note: I did write a post about my 2018 word – positive).
My 2019-20 #oneword is CONNECTIONS – and now I’m writing a blog post about it!
I am also going to print two copies of my graphic – one for my home office and one for my school desk – so I can refer to it more often. But even though I haven’t kept the #oneword front and center, I realize I have been focusing on CONNECTIONS. I guess CONNECTIONS was a natural fit for my year.
To me, choosing the word CONNECTIONS was about trying to improve CONNECTIONS between:
- Me and my DFHS colleagues
- Me and our DFHS students
- Me and District 5 colleagues
- Me and educators outside of my physical community – yeah PLN!
- Our technology goals and school/pedagogy goals
- Various content areas
- My goals and how I spend my time
While I can always work to improve CONNECTIONS, I’m happy with what I’ve been able to do so far this school year in this area.
Some of the opportunities I’ve had to strengthen CONNECTIONS since the summer include:
- Working with my Technology Teacher Leaders (TTLs) and teachers in all departments in our school both one-on-one and in teams
- Working side-by-side with students at iCare (our school technology help desk) and in numerous classes
- Collaborating with other Digital Integration Specialists through co-teaching a social media graduate course, starting our #Listenin5 podcast, and through District 5 #LeaD5 professional development
- Traveling to TCEA in Austin to work with educators on the first steps of ISTE Educator Certification
- Participating in Twitter chats and other Twitter conversations with people from around the world.
- Collaborating with my Assistant Principal for Instruction and my TTL team to create connected instructional technology PD opportunities for our teachers
What a year 2019-20 has been so far! I can’t wait to build even more authentic CONNECTIONS in the second half of the year.
Reflections of an Instructional Coach 