What does the title of this blog post mean? From my point of view as an educator, it means teachers are unique in the sense that they don't compete against one another; we don't horde resources; we don't ignore the needs of a student in another classroom; we don't submarine our co-workers to get ahead; and we certainly don't put our needs ahead of the students'. I left the systems consulting profession 12 years ago because I didn't feel I was really helping anyone. My work was helping other people become more wealthy but I've come to learn that money has nothing to do with happiness. When I became a teacher, the word "passion" now had meaning to me.
Over the past two years, I've moved out of the classroom and began focusing on helping teachers use technology to improve the learning process. What's great about this new focus is that helping teachers use technology to improve the learning process can take many different forms. For example, if I can use technology to help make children feel safer inside the classroom, I'm accomplishing my goal; if I can use technology to help a teacher become better organized, I'm accomplishing my goal; if I can use technology to help create authentic learning situations, I'm accomplishing my goal. Using technology isn't about hardware and software, it's about utilizing new and improved resources to make improvements on different areas of our lives. In my case, I like to find new and improved resources that increase a student's ability to learn. If the technology doesn't improve the process, why use it!!!
Technology does not need to be something that we physically touch. For example, a new method or procedure for doing something more effectively can be referred to as new technology. Often times, we take different technologies to create a new technology for doing something. This is exactly what is happening right now to create a new technology I like to call "Sharing Technology." Internet technology, computer technology, software technology, etc. are all improving to point where more and more people can begin to incorporate these new technologies to create new and exciting methods for sharing and using information. Sharing technologies allow us to access information and resources never before available. In addition, we can access this new information quickly and easily. TeacherTube, Wikipedia, Twitter, Google Reader, etc. can all be used to bring relevant information to us immediately. You can actually set up an application like Google Reader to bring relevant information to you before you ask for it. Amazing!
So, what does "Sharing is Caring" mean? Well, as educators, we now have the ability to share our thoughts, our expertise, our techniques, our software programs, our ideas, our reflections, our favorite websites, our schedules, our hopes, our vision, our pictures, our dislikes, our email, our lesson plans, or our lectures. We can share these things because the technology now makes it easy. We can share these things because educators are not competitors; we share these things because that is what a teacher does. Teachers are perhaps the most compassionate people in the world. They care a great deal for other people, and as such, they, by definition, impart what they know using the techniques that work best for them.
The two words that come to mind when I think about what it means to be a "teacher" is caring and sharing. This blog is just one way that I can use technology to be a better teacher. This blog is my way of sharing and caring.
James P. Hollis
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