When I first started brainstorming ideas for an end of the school year blog post, I came up with a long list of things I wanted to reflect on. I wanted to write about all of my successes and all of my failures. I wanted to reflect on the kids who inspired me, and the ones who frustrated me. I wanted to write about how my philosophies have changed and evolved. Those things are all great, and I plan on processing through them this summer, but what I finally decided to write about is why I won’t read blogs before bed…
To begin with I’m a self-proclaimed tech nerd. I’m not even a good nerd. I know a little bit about a lot of things, but if you had to ask me how to do something tech related, I would stare at you dumbfounded until I could sit down with the tech and figure out how to do the task on my own. I don’t know what all of the most innovative tech trends are and what the next best thing will be. Instead I’m a 2-steps-behind-the-frontrunner nerd. I’m a nerd who learns about tech from other, more advanced nerds. If there was a king of all nerds, I would be the translator who translates the king’s commands to the common folk (and makes stuff up when he doesn’t understand). But I’m a nerd all the same.
As a nerd I suffer the same ailment that infects all nerds to some degree. I can’t sleep because of technology. I spend hours tossing and turning, thinking about a blog I just read or an app that I heard about. I design lessons in my mind and organize elaborate scenarios of how that blog post could change my teaching world. I know every idea isn’t world changing, but right before bed the possibilities are endless. So I end up obsessing over new tech in my dreams. I don’t know how to stop it, or turn it off. I finally had to make a rule that I cannot read blogs before bed, because otherwise my brain starts racing with ideas for my classroom. Or I get angry because someone is misusing tech and wasting all of its possibilities.
What’s worse is this ailment affects those around me. I want to share my ideas, and it drives the people in my life crazy. I tell them my half-developed ideas about technology that hasn’t been invented yet. Or I bore them with step-by-step instructions on how this app will revolutionize my classroom. They try to be enthused and sometimes they may be genuinely interested, but sometimes I think I come across as an ADD lion in a room full of three legged zebras. I can’t stick with one idea.
It truly is an illness and if anyone has any suggestions on how to stop the gears from turning in my head, please help me.
P.S. Right now I’m obsessed with the possibilities of an app called Aurasma and the possibilities of Augmented Reality. Awesome stuff!
