Preparing for change

This year I went to a BYOD conference in Auckland, at the end of the conference I was asked what did I think. My response, if there is a position come up at this school, I am going to apply for it. Who knew that before the year that a position would appear in the edgazette. I had to apply. I had two weeks to get my application ready, get my CV up to date. It had been 3 and a half years since I had done any work on it. I had an application to fill in that aligned with my thinking and what I would like to see in Secondary Schools in New Zealand, alignment to the curriculum and getting teachers to challenge themselves. Who knew that a week late I would be challenged already.

Getting the application in and waiting, waiting, then an email to let me know I had been successful, however I had a 5 minute presentation to do when starting my interview, over google hangout.

I was thankful that earlier in the year I had participated in teachmeetnz, an online PLD session where teaches all around the country deliver a 5 minute PLD session on a topic that they are interested in. Having Sonya work through a couple of hangouts before allowed me to have some confidence in using the technology. But what to speak about for 5 minutes. This was another challenge. I am a Digital technologies teacher, who has been passionate about the subject even before teaching. I have a wide number of areas that I could talk about. But one thing that stuck to me was a PLD session I had been to this year and a homily by the priest at our leaving mass for year 13 students. The WHY? This is now starting to become a major part of my development as a teacher and the one question I want to start with for classes in the future. The WHY? From the why will come the who and what? This links with the technology curriculum, the visions, and is something that I have been challenged with a lot this year. WHY.

A couple of days later I received a phone call saying that I had been successful, something that bring a tinge of sadness, but also joy of possibilities. I look forward to working at Hobsonville Point Secondary School in 2015.