The Power of Reflection

Over the past couple of days I have been preparing a presentation for K-12 Principals entitled "Harnessing the Power of Educational Technology" (I'll share more about this at a later time).  I must say that I have been quite impressed with myself as I decided to create the entire full day presentation using Google Sites.  During what seemed to be countless hours of tweaking presentations, searching for videos, and deciding what content I wanted to cover I found myself reflecting on my growth as a leader and learner.  The paradigm shifts that I have experienced are nothing but amazing.  My passion for helping all students succeed and taking my staff where they need to be has always been there, but my immersion in the world of web 2.0 has provided constant fuel to become better at what I do.
Technology is not always my driving force as many think.  Most of the time it is the inspirational conversations I have with educators from all corners of the globe on how they are moving away from traditional mindsets to unleash the creativity and learning potential in their students.  What is even better is that members of my own staff are beginning to embrace ideologies of authentic instruction to prepare students for success in the 21st Century.  In order to get to this point I had to look myself in the mirror and question some views I had in order to move forward without fear of failure.

Change in education tends to be evasive and not sustainable.  All to often entire educational organizations are comfortable with the status quo and if it isn't broke don't fix it mentality.  The honest truth though is the our system is broken and it is up to us to be open to new ideas, give up control, and work together to meet the diverse needs of today's learner.  Some might think that this is not possible, to difficult, ore requires an extensive amount of time.  These experiences and reflections I just shared prove that we all have the capacity no matter our position to transform our system of education one little piece at a time.