Leap of Faith

Ok so I'm taking the plunge and starting my own blog. I've been reading more and more about the future of writing and how it is evolving to the web and I sit nodding my head in agreement. That made me step back and realize if I think that this is the way students need to be writing, it is awfully hypercritical of me to nod my head while I'm still not doing it. So this will be the place where I practice what I hope to preach to my teachers and students.

Here is a little about what I do in the education world. I have been an educator for 13 years at The Oakridge School in Arlington, Texas. I started teaching in the Lower School lab and coaching volleyball, soccer and tennis. After two years, I moved to the MIddle School computer lab and dropped tennis from my coaching responsibilities. After two more years, I moved to the Upper School where I developed my own curriculum in what we call Digital Production. In the one section of Digital Production we covered web design, photo manipulation, flash animation and video production. After seven years the program had developed into one section of Digital Production, one section of Honors Digital Production (students work on the school website and other promotional/marketing material for the school) and two sections of Video Production (students work on a once a week 'news show' that is broadcast to the student body). I also picked up a couple of sections of Economics which is what my degree is in. A year and a half ago I made the decision to leave the classroom and become the Director of Technology. My goal is to help inspire teachers to improve their craft and include some of the technology skills that our students will need in their lives. This year I am involved with five of my teachers through a journey of 21st learning investigation through PLP with Will Richardson and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach.

The name of the blog comes from my interest in educational technology as well as a homage to my father's nickname. My dad played professional baseball for 18 years and his nickname was the "Amazing Emu" so I have stolen that for my blog monicker. I just thought I would explain the name of the blog in case anyone was curious.

This blog will mostly be just a place for me to flesh out my journey of learning. I don't expect a lot of people to read it but maybe somebody will find something interesting in it and hopefully it will be a good place for me to explore my ideas. So here's my first step in my public, transparent journey.