I’m NOT the king of the world

All hands on deck! A well planned lesson is going down! That is what happened to me yesterday. The goal, discuss and get my students onto www.blogger.com (they all have gmail accounts already so it makes a little sense). I mean they all can log into blogger and create accounts so what went wrong? What sunk this unsinkable lesson plan? I don’t want to use this post as a means to vent, so I’ll be brief and use some bullet points.

• Nine of my thirty computers couldn’t connect to our network and thus couldn’t connect to the Internet
• Eight to ten students had login issues
• Once online, students were asked to give a mobile number to verify their accounts (this wasn’t going to happen)
• The backup plan was to write a post in Word but due to the addition of a compatibility pack over half of my students’ programs froze

How about that for a grocery list of set backs. So, why share? Why relieve the horror? Why not crack open an Oranjeboom and let the day slip away? I just can’t let it go. I need to reflect and learn and isn’t that part of what teaching and this blog is all about? Hells yeah! So what have I learned?

First, and foremost I learned not to freak out. Lessons fall apart and working with technology you open yourself up to even more elements that are out of your control (hardware, network, Internet service provider, etc.). Eventually, the wheels will come off and when they do, it will try your patience, tolerance, and there are not too many ways one can practice this. While I do not enjoy these incidents, I do enjoy the challenge.

Chance favors the prepared mind. If you can steel your mind to the fact that it can all go south, then you will find yourself better prepared for that unlikely event. This preparedness (which I did not have yesterday) will shine through to your students. This goes a long way with the student body and your colleagues. While I did not shine through yesterday, I have learned and will prepare for success the next class when we try to get the blog set up.

Finally, I’m an IT teacher. I must be an authority in Ed Tech and if my peers see me running around with my head cut off, they will be less likely to come to me with integration ideas, tech questions, and basic technology needs. If I freak out at a small failure and don’t rebound, then I don’t deserve their respect. It is a bit of a pride issue and I am proud to be in education and doing what I’m doing. It helps motivate me to be better, take chances (like today), push myself and the people around me. Basically I want to be a better teacher and that journey will have setbacks and bad days (like yesterday). I must keep pushing forward towards becoming a better educator and these obstacles are opportunities to do that.