School has been back for 4 days. We started three days before the long weekend and now today. Thus far it’s been a great start to the year. Now, I was hoping to do all kinds of reading and blogging this summer but, alas, the best laid plans of crickets and men. (We have a cricket infestation going on!) I was also very busy this summer doing a host of other things and spent less time than I usually do at the school. When I did come back, I was refreshed and ready to get back at the work.
Being ready does not mean that I’ve hit the groove yet. Like the start of any school year, there are many different things that need to be done, forms that need to be filled in and checked and other administration items. Then there is the teaching, which I have one class. I enjoy the class, Communication Technology Production, but it has been slow starting. Friday the site we had been using for mindmapping was down so we tried another only to find out that students couldn’t remember passwords. In the end, the students did a good job of the mindmaps and, hopefully, learned of a new tool that they can use. I still am not completely satisfied with my plan for the year so I’ve been redoing parts and I’m hoping to get it done soon.
This is where the difficulty has arisen. I can’t find my groove. I know it might take a few weeks but I’m just feeling something isn’t working right but I can’t put my finger on it. I know that within this week I’ll have most of my meeting dates organized and be ready to get back into action with some of the committees I’m on but I just don’t have any real flow going at the moment.
I could be that I have too much swirling around in my head and I need to get some things down and then I’ll feel more comfortable with what is going on and what I have to do. It’s not that I feel overwhelmed – I mean really, would I be typing this entry if that was the case! It’s more a feeling like – well – loose endedness. I know that one of my goals was to use my time at school much more efficiently but it seems that each day just blows by and I’m not sure what exactly I’ve been able to accomplish but I’m wiped at the end of the day.
It could be that I haven’t yet found an effective way to list and communicate all my upcoming dates with the people whom I’m suppose to be communicating. You see, I went out and bought a PAD this summer as I thought it would really help with getting organized and I wouldn’t need to haul around my laptop. However, it doesn’t sync with my ical so I am using the software it came with and I haven’t had time to figure out how to get the two to sync so I’m listing things twice and missing items on both. I’d really like to get that figured out so if anyone has any ideas, let me know.
On the positive, the staff is using a pbwiki to share information, calendar dates and track student lates. So far it has worked great and I know when things are taking place at school, which students are not arriving on time and what different classes are doing. It seems that the staff is catching on to using such things. I’m also planning to help each teacher with using and integrating some form of Web2.0 into their teaching – helping them become more familiar with a particular tool and sharing things with people. Some people are really excited about this idea.
I know as a leader people look to me for guidance and if I’m having trouble getting organized, what will others think? That’s were it’s good to know that stuff like this isn’t the end of the world. Experience tells me that this is a learning curve that I’ll have to get through and the groove will arrive soon. I think it’s already there just hidden under a pile of paper that has invaded my desk along with the annoying sound of crickets that invaded our town and school. I never was really fond of Jimney!