Monday, September 5, 2011

The New Year

As Labor Day weekend is about to come to a close, and marks the traditional start of the school year, it seems like a good time to think about what this year is going to bring and what I hope to get out of it.

This is the second year of my relatively heavy investment in using technology in the classroom.  I think that I am better at it now than I was at this point last year, but I know that I have a long way to go.  I can only hope that I get better at how I use technology and that I use it to engage my students more in the history, because technology is a tool, not a toy.

I am also a mentor again this year, for the first time in three years.  Being a mentor is always enlightening because it really forces me to think about how I am teaching and engaging my students.  Being a mentor is a two-way street.  I always feel as if I am better for the experience, because I get to examine everything about my work as a teacher and educator.

My biggest personal goal is one that I have been working on for the past few weeks and that is the completion of a half-marathon, which I will be running at the beginning of October.  The training has been tough (this past weekend's run of 11 miles was not particularly enjoyable), but I feel that I have put in the time and the effort and that I will be able to finish the race and run it in the time I want.  We'll see what happens in a couple of weeks.

These are always subject to change and the accomplishment of one goal leads to others down the road.  So, I will be re-evaluating this post as the year goes along.

1 comment:

Lisa said...

You've got some great tech project ideas coming up this year (I'm looking forward to seeing the constitution slideshows!). Also I believe that until I surpass you in tech awesomeness that you are still my mentor.
11 miles is more than I think I've run in the past three years. It actually makes me tired just thinking about it.