Welcome back 21-22 teachers and staff!

Hi everyone! If this is your first time here, check out What is This Website?, our first post. Then come back and read this welcome message!

Welcome back, teachers!

We are back, students are back in front of us, but it's not school as we once knew it. And it likely won't ever be again. What a concept...to think about later, because right now it's hustle time.

As TISes working to support you each day, we can't emphasize enough how important it will be to set up your digital classroom space and use some time at the beginning of the year to introduce your students to it. Although we probably all agree that we'll be working less in that space than last year, it's still crucial that you and your students practice your skills, habits, and routines online together in case of future emergencies.

More than that, though, we've learned a lot about ourselves and our students from working online together this year. We certainly want to put the stressful and inefficient elements of emergency remote and hybrid learning behind us. But at the same time, many teachers we talk to tell us that they feel more confident and ready to blend digital learning into the face-to-face classroom. If you don't feel the same right now, we can't blame you.

We have to acknowledge that we all learned these new skills, techniques, and technologies in the midst of trauma. Just as we can't expect our students to build new knowledge and skills when there's trauma in their lives, we can't expect ourselves to have grown normally in our teaching under such pressure. It's not only understandable, but scientifically supported, that we might either reject some of the techniques we learned in the past year, or simply forget them.

That's why one of my goals this year will be to help you go back and sort through the mess.

• What digital teaching practices will continue to help you as you consider "flipping" or blending the modes of instruction and assessment in your room?
• How can we hang onto the time-saving elements of digital learning so that we make the most of our time with students?
• What learning tools were you made to use that you still don't really understand?

We're going to explore these and similar questions to help bandage up and reinforce these modern teacher moves.

It's a privilege to be traveling next to you on the teaching journey.

~Your Technology Integration Specialists