Dr. Harland’s Hangout

I’m pissed! Sorry for the foul use of language. But since I made the move from high school teaching to university teaching, I’ve realized how much I should have been doing–and all the opportunities I had that I didn’t take advantage of. My Ph.D. is in educational technology, but in the time I was designing, collecting data, and writing my dissertation, then teaching for 2 years, I got behind. Then even when I was done, I was isolated. I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t get any support from my administration to pursue what I loved–which is integrating technology into the classroom. I was one of the few teachers who had a projector hooked up to her computer…that was high tech! But I wasn’t using it to its full potential. I should have known better.

I’ve spent several hours today getting twitter contacts and as I read blogs of you all, I have to say I’m impressed. Where do you get the energy? Planning is hard enough already! But there is a big group of you out there that really are doing some AMAZING things. I’m diigo’ing your sites, and hope to share these with my future teachers in the fall…meanwhile, I’m feeling guilty. I have so much I could have done with my high schoolers but I just didn’t have the support or connections to do it. I was unfamilar with the new ways to connect with like-minded individuals/educators on the web. Man-oh-man, I’m going to make sure my future teachers don’t make the same mistake I did! The high school classroom can be so isolating! But with the www, and Web 2.0, it isn’t that way any more!