Has It Really Been a Whole Semester?!?!

Hard to believe the first semester of TEAM is winding down. What an incredible experience it has been so far. Until Bette mentioned that some people had asked about grades and evaluations I don't think I was actually conscious of the fact that we were in a class, a Masters program even. I guess on some level that reality was there but on a day to day basis it was something very different. 

One of the reasons (the main one, really) that I joined TEAM was because of the colleagues I knew who had participated in previous cohorts. It was not their amazing facility with things technological, though that was certainly impressive. It was their comfort level with the "new". I wanted that and I wanted to be able to share that with my students. I wanted to challenge myself with something that really made me uncomfortable. My own education was the very definition of "old school" and I think we tend to teach in the way we were taught. That's comfortable. Clearly, though that is unfair to the students of today, the 21st century learners with whom we share our classrooms.

Well, it worked! I'm uncomfortable every day and I love it. I stumble through Marratech, mini-p's, Garageband, Delicious, Jing, Animoto, blogs, googledocs and on and on. I'm learning to jump in with both feet and to borrow a phrase "just do it". I have AHA! moments and ARRRRGH! moments but I've enjoyed them all. I'm learning to reach out for help and that may be the best lesson of all. It's good for teachers to be reminded what it's like to be clueless sometimes. Can you say empathy?

Then there's time management...my downfall. I don't know how people who are in the process of raising families do it. My hat is REALLY off to you. My goal for next semester is to learn how to budget time for all the things in my life including TEAM. I have (and always have had) a tendency to procrastinate. While I do work on TEAM projects every day I have a penchant for wandering and not producing. I think I need a twelve step program for StumbleUpon, for instance. I enjoy writing but I do it in my head and leave the actual blogging undone for too long. Right now that mini-saga/recording/images project is hanging out there wagging its finger at me. One problem is that I feel like I have to finish things in one sitting. I'm going to try to learn to take baby steps. 

Goodness this started as a blog about what the TEAM experience has been like for me (not like your grandmother's class) and has turned into a ramble. Enough about me. What has TEAM been for you so far?