Coming to Terms comment
7 12 2008
After reading Kim Cofino’s post Coming to Terms I posted the following comment on her blog. Please go out and read the post it is fabulous.
Love your posts Kim. I have been struggling with the same thoughts and title shift etc. in my role also (I’m an Instructional Technology Specialist). I think it is important to have these conversations about titles because they help us to reevaluate our role in the school. They help us focus our thoughts on what we really should be doing. And eventually, at some point, it would be nice to have some standard title that really helped us as we help teachers.
I personally don’t use my title much when I explain to teachers how I can help them. I’ve shifted my explanation to teachers and focus on the teaching and learning. I usually explain my role by saying something to the effect of “teaching and learning IS changing and my job is to help you meet this change and technology is one way of doing that”. Usually my first presentation to a new group of teachers that I haven’t worked with before is on teaching and learning and I only touch on the technology at the end of the presentation. I try to establish myself from the beginning as a teaching and learning expert and not as a technology expert.
This has worked well for me. I’ve really just let the title go. I hardly use it. I don’t think that is the solution but that is where I’ve gotten. Our titles are ambiguous and the nice thing about that is that you can change the roles as needed.
