And so it begins...

Here we are, near the end of the holiday break.  While many teachers in my area are focused on spending time with their families, tech coordinators, integration specialists, tech directors, never really shut our brains off.  Even if we aren't at the school, we rarely take the time away from researching the latest trends, attending conferences, networking, blogging, writing, speaking - the list goes on.  But we do it because we love it and we know that we are helping our students - your students - to have a better educational experience.

About Me
I began my education career as a teacher.  Over the years, I have taught almost every subject in middle school and even a few at the high school level.  My first love is science - specifically geology - however, I have always had a passion for technology.  When I took a few years off to be a stay-at-home mom, I began delving into the online world that existed at the time and taught myself how to write HTML (CSS didn't exist at the time).  My plan was to design some website pages so that our family could follow the growth of my boys even if they didn't live close by.  That excitement grew and I continued my self teaching of technology.

I returned to the classroom just before finding out that I was pregnant with son #4.  When I returned to the classroom, I was excited to be one of the first in our area to be blessed with an interactive whiteboard.  I spent so much time learning everything I could do with it and the different ways I could use it.  The students loved getting to be a part of the class by going up to the board, writing on it, presenting from it.  I loved getting to see their excitement.  As the years went on and I moved schools, I found myself spending so much time "teaching" science (read "sage on the stage") that I never had time for the hands on labs that were the reason I loved science.  I missed the excitement in my students eyes when learning.  I knew there had to be a better way.

So I did some research and came across John Bergmann and the Flipped Classroom.  I jumped right in and started flipping my classes.  I was able to keep the students from spending all class period sitting and being bored (because, lets face it, none of us want to sit and listen to something that we aren't interested in).  That kicked off my desire to find new ways to reach my students and led to my role as a technology coordinator.

I have now been in the position of technology coordinator at a small Catholic 6-12 school in Connecticut for 4 years.  I am a life-long learner and love to lead change.  I am a sponge to learning new ideas and finding ways to integrate them into my classes.  My goal is to inspire students to become life-long learners and find their own passions.  I also hope to inspire other teachers to make small changes and build new ways of learning that help students find their desire for learning.

So join me on my adventure of transforming education and leading change beginning in my own classroom.