bradshreff
It has been an interesting year for me. For a couple of personal reasons (the details of which I don’t really want to get into here), I have written nearly nothing in a year. I haven’t found myself in a writing mood. I didn’t even win NaNoWriMo this year, and for anyone that knows me, this is a huge failure.
On the flip-side, I have found myself more passionate and interested in my day-job, teaching. I have been in a new school, now a high school teacher instead of middle school, and that has certainly been a factor. In addition, I’m working for a principal, and admin team as a whole, that genuinely appreciates me and my work. I like my kids more (though I’m not going to try and say there aren’t individual exceptions), I enjoy my day more, and I generally like my co-workers. This is weird to me.
Along with a more supportive administration, I also now have an administration that looks to my strengths, and asks me to impact the school in a positive way with those. During this year, I have been part of a Digital Curriculum Teacher Leader core consisting of 5 teachers from our school (and in a school with nearly 200 teachers, that’s a small number). Through this training group, I have come to be a teacher leader for technology, running Professional Developments for my fellow teachers and administration. So, when the idea of a Digital Curriculum Instructional Coach for next year was floated by my principal, I said that it should be me, and he agreed.
Despite all the evidence in front of me, I have still always considered my online presence (and really, even internally) considered myself an author first and a teacher second. My acceptance that this was not truly the case was not easy.
Still, after a long and blunt conversation with me (and yes, I talk to myself, and I don’t need your judgment!) I decided that this long-neglected blog needed a facelift and a repurpose. So, you can now expect to see more frequent posting, especially posts focusing on technology in the classroom. And who knows, maybe I’ll start writing fiction again because of it (hey, a guy can dream, right?).