For the last month I have procrastinated writing this blog post. To be completely honest it scares me. What if I say the wrong thing? What if I miss a typo? What if I say something and it’s misinterpreted? These thoughts, as well as about fifty other “what ifs”, left me feeling very anxious about this post. I had the same feeling of dread about Twitter a month ago. One of the first posts I saw when I opened my Twitter account was a retweet by Shauna Cornwell of something George Couros said, “when it comes to being innovative- to start…change one thing, not everything”. When I read that, all of the sudden Twitter became a lot less overwhelming. It reminded me that I don’t need to master Twitter overnight nor would anyone expect that. I decided I would start by opening Twitter and doing at least one tweet or retweet everyday. It’s been a few weeks since then and I have to admit that Twitter has grown on me. It’s a great way to network with others and I’m being exposed to things that I never even knew existed like “Genius Hour”. I’m so glad that I did not let my fear paralyze me because I would’ve missed out on a lot of great learning.
As I read and reread the last paragraph to make sure I haven’t accidently written any obscenities I am reminded of advice that my support teacher gave me in my first year of teaching –jump in and thrash around. I have used that mantra with so many things, like trying play based learning and as long as I take the time to reflect afterwards it never fails me. As I think about what having an innovators mindset is I have realized that being willing to “jump in and thrash around” is the first step.
Carrie Wood
Gr.1/2/3 Multi-Age Teacher
John M. King School
I am glad my tweet resonated in this process. This is not a sprint it’s a marathon… 🙂
Carrie I love your honesty in this post. It takes such courage to try something new and different. I was just saying the same thing to a few other teachers last week that I need to learn how to just jump in and try something with my students and not worry about messing up. Your jump in and thrash around resonates with me too!