I have finished my first year back in the classroom after a 10 year hiatus in educational technology. I haven’t eased in to summer yet. I am still working and learning. I will officially start summer on Saturday as we head on to vacation. Since school has been out I conducted a webinar with National Geographic Education (embedded below), taken part in planning meetings with National Geographic, attended a week long institute on Geo-Literacy and Leadership, and this week I am attending a Geographers in the Field offered by the South Carolina Geographic Alliance. In two weeks will complete 80 hours of professional development! For anyone who says teachers get 3 months off in the summer… you’re wrong. First off, it’s not 3 months… and second, we spend a lot of the summer learning and planning for the next school year.

With it being summer, I am reflecting on the past school year. What did I like? What didn’t I like? What did I do right? What did I completely fail? What were my successes? The aha moments. The HOLY CRAP moments. What lens did I have teaching coming from a district office position? How has the classroom changed since I last entered? I almost broke mentally, how did I fix it? What got me through the tough times? What has professional development and building my professional learning network done for me? All of these questions and statements are swirling around in my head. So this summer I have decided to start a #Year17Year1 series of posts to reflect and work through it all.

I would love for you to comment throughout the series on any post that you relate to or ask questions if you don’t. My goal is to post twice a week through the summer so join me on this journey of reflection.