Why I Love My Job...

      As I start what amounts to my third year at KSU Iteach, I think it is a good time to reflect. I joined Iteach in October of 2014, and I began my work almost immediately in Fulton County Schools as a coach during their personalized learning push.  This was a position I had been looking for, but I did not realize what a change it would be from my previous 10 years working as a high school teacher. 
     My new role was that of a coach. I had been in the education technology community for a few years, and I thought I knew what this would really look like. I was very wrong. While I did some good things those first few months, I also struggled a bit with these new coaching challenges. Iteach gave me room to grow. To me, that's the first thing I truly love. I judge my jobs by what I have learned from them, and Iteach gave me the room to learn how to coach. 
     It also gave me all the great things about teaching without the things that most teachers hate. I still get to be in classrooms helping both students and teachers. I don't have to worry about things like testing, grading, and the paperwork that drags teachers down.  I also feel like I am continuing to help kids by helping teachers make their classrooms better. In the end, my scope is bigger because I get to not only help the kids in my classrooms, I get to help many classrooms.
     Leach also lets me do what I really want to do in the education technology , and that stays on the cutting edge. I am a huge believer in maker spaces, and Iteach is moving that way. We just purchased almost any maker space tool that you can think of.  We are putting together maker camps. We also just purchased a Ricoh Theta to do 360 videos and VR. This commitment to the cutting edge makes me love my job even more. 
     Iteach is what I wanted in a job. It gives me all the great things associated with teaching without the bad. It's taught me something new. It stays on the cutting edge. All of those things make me very excited for the future. This year will bring change as we move past the initial personalized learning groups, and I can't wait to see where that goes.