“Take it Easy. Don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy.”
“Take it Easy. Don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy.” -Eagles
One January my husband, Ried, and I were between jobs and decided to take a belated honeymoon road trip while we waited for the next thing to turn up. (Sounds very young, free and childless, right?) We were in New Mexico when the January sky decided to dump a ton of snow in a very short period of time. The roads were covered but my husband grew up in the Northeast and had been driving in snow since he was 17. We pushed on—slowly—but we pushed on.
As we traveled, another car sped by us, slipped, and then slid into a full on spin. Ried eased up on the gas and our car began to slow down. The other car continued to spin in front of us. It was like one of those moments you see in movies when everything seems to slip into slow motion. We still swear that every time the front of the car spun in our direction we saw their faces clearly, eyes wide and mouths open in what must have been a scream. We somehow stayed behind them as momentum and the snow kept them traveling forward in their spin. After hours and hours (well, it was probably just seconds), their car took one last spin and stopped safely in the left lane and we continued slowly past them in the right. We both took a breath and continued on our way.
I think of this story when I’m working on technology integration in classrooms. It came to mind a lot when schools shut down and left us with the challenge to move the whole operation online. It can be exciting to focus on the newest technology, racing forward, trying every new tool or idea that comes around. But, that approach can send you into a blind spin with no clear direction or purpose. Your spin may actually end up at the same place on the path as the teacher who chose a measured approach, but the ride will leave the teacher, students and parents breathless, dizzy, uncomfortable, and frightened.
Or… you can move forward at a measured pace and choose technology tools that connect to learning goals and make a meaningful difference in your classrooms. You can focus on equity and make sure each student in your class receives the help they need. You can look at what you are doing and utilize technology to improve how your students understand and interact with the world. You can choose tools that have value because they can be used in a lot of different ways. And, you can choose to promote creativity and critical thinking inside and outside school with a combination of great teaching, engaging curriculum, lots of choice and voice, and some powerful technology tools.
Whether you are traveling on a snow covered road or integrating technology during a pandemic, you want to remain focused on your goals. Taking a measured approach and using the tools that work well for you and your students will move your classroom forward and prepare your learning community, even when you have to work at a distance from each other.
