I love this.
He's right. When you do what you love, it doesn't feel like work at all. I will again be teaching 4th grade starting one month from today at Oak Hill. I'm passionate about what I do, and adding technology to the mix just feels like icing on the cake. 10-year-olds simply inspire me. They challenge me. They're just brutally honest and tell it like it is. They push me to be better, and most days I feel so guilty that I learn more from them than they do from me... but I'm realizing that that's okay. More on that later.
In October, 2011, I attended a flipped workshop by Brian Bennett at Harrison High School, and he challenged me to think outside the box. Actually, I don't think there was a box present at all. I spent the remainder of the year wanting to jump in, wanting to "flip," but lived in fear. I created a web site for my class and added content and basic information, but never could add my own videos. Why? Because I didn't want to mess it up; I wanted my videos to be... well, perfect.
I was so excited to attend #flipcon12 in Chicago in June, 2012; my mind is still swimming from all I learned. Wow. In his keynote, Brian made a statement that stayed with me: "Do you need it perfect, or do you need it Tuesday?" He's right. So, enough living in fear. I'm making the leap to a flipped classroom. I've danced around it long enough. I've read about it, researched it, chatted about it via Twitter, (#flipchat) watched videos about it, and it's time. It just makes sense.
I will be flipping several lessons this year, reflecting along the way, and I'm anxious to see where we go. I will post the web tools I'll be using in a future post, as I have learned soooooooo much this summer.
Here we go. We're going to flip for 4th graders. It will get bumpy, a little messy, but filled with tons of learning - for all of us. It won't be perfect, and that's okay.
Feel free to follow our journey here...
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