While leading my team through the next level of our journey as digital immersion teachers, I'm constantly reminded of my own path to where I am today. Particularly the small attitude shift that kicked open the door for me.
I remember teaching a digital immersion classroom for the first time. My head was trying to make sense of, then, make the transition from 'traditional teaching' to using digital devices where students are self managing learners. For a while my pedagogy followed suit. I was confused, struggling, I hated it, felt this forced change was making me look bad as a teacher.
The most important step I took was to take my ego and emotional aspects out of it, forget that I was struggling with the transition as a whole and just focus on mastering the task I was completing. One at a time. Once I did that, I found that understanding and change came quickly. I had enough of a basic understanding to attempt to create Digital Learning Objects. It took A LOT OF TIME, but creating became fun instead of struggle. I became open to learning from the students, and added that knowledge to my toolkit. It didn't matter where I got the information from. As long as I got it from somewhere, I could reflect on it's effectiveness and play around to make changes if necessary.
I'm still no digital genius. I know what I know. But I'm also learning that the more I know, the more I don't know. I've been in this role, in this school, and have learned as much about new apps and teaching tools from my colleagues as I did in the previous two years. I'm not afraid to fail and learn.
My approach has progressed from 'I don't understand/know so I don't want to do it' to 'I don't know, so show me.'
I'm five years into my digital teaching journey, and I'm just getting started.
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