My first blog post at work

Unfortunately, due to other duties assigned to me this year at my job, I haven't had time to implement a lot of the ideas I have for my Technology Integration position. I love the new duties and I am getting some help soon so there is that to look forward to! However, while at the TCEA conference a couple of weeks ago, Promethean showed us some new updates to their panels with the latest software update. I was extremely excited about these updates and I wanted to push them out to my staff. While I was thinking of the best way to do that, I thought of this graduate program I'm in at Lamar and thought maybe I should try a blog at work.

I currently have a Google Site that is our district's Tech Site. I created it last year and I try to update it as much as I can. One of the things I don't like about using just a website is that there is no notification sent to staff automatically when I make updates. I decided to build a blog into this site and once I get more comfortable with it, I'll show staff how they can sign up to get emails every time I post. As I was embedding my new blog at work through Blogger into my Google Site, I realized some of the limitations that Dr. H. talks about in class pertaining to doing such a thing. While it will work for me for a while yet, at some point I may look at moving the entire site over to another platform in the future for more ease of use.

I spent about a week on and off on this blog post for work. Since blogging is still very new to me, I felt vulnerable and inadequate at times. I almost didn't post it at all. I almost decided just not to even start it.

I almost decided to stick with what was comfortable...and then I realized that is the same thoughts some of my teachers have with new technology in the classroom.

It was then that I realized that no matter how unpolished it may look, no matter how much I may hate to look back at it later and see the mistakes that I made, no matter how inadequate I felt, I needed to do this. I needed to start this blog and I needed to start it now. It was time for that first post...which I hope will be the hardest.

I put some final touches on it and sent it to a friend to critique. We changed up the look and some features until we were finally happy with it. Well, she was happy with it, I was settling with it so that I would stop procrastinating. Then it was time to email it out to the staff. I put that off all day as well. I was about to send something out that I wasn't 100% sure about. Something that I wasn't 100% proud of with where my knowledge stood. Something that might make me look bad. But, again, I reminded myself that this is how my teachers feel often and I can't expect them to try new things if I don't.

So I typed up that email. I made sure to tell them that this was new to me and that I was going to figure it out and get better. I then told them that I realized that I ask them to do new things all the time and I wanted to make sure that they saw I can be vulnerable as well. Then I took a deep breath and I sent the email...to the entire staff. All of them. My vulnerability and inadequacies are on full display and you know what? It was just fine. I got the first post out of the way and now it is time to do another one and keep working on it so that I no longer feel inadequate blogging.

If you would like to check out my first blog post for work, you can do so here.