Today after school I will be giving a technology presentation to new and veteran staffers as part of my high school's mentoring program. The program is designed to pair teachers new to the district with those who have been around the block a few times and established themselves within the system.
Six years ago when I was a new employee, I had the good fortune of being paired with a fellow English teacher who would both challenge and nourish me as a person and educator. One of the highlights of our first year as mentor and protegee was taking advantage of release time to visit other teachers and sit in on their lessons. I greatly appreciated the opportunity to see some of my fantastic colleagues in action, and also to experience life as a student. By the end of the day both of us were both exhausted and had trouble focusing. Teaching is certainly fatigue-inducing, but so is life as a student in the factory.
During the hour I have been given to present, I hope to provide a brief overview of Google Docs, Blogging, Twitter, Dropbox, Grou.ps, Photo Story, and Feedly. There's no way an hour will be anywhere close to sufficient to cover just one of those topics, but hopefully by providing teachers with links to various resources, they will be able to explore something that interests them on their own time.
