I was doing some work with my boyfriend recently. He is also a new teacher, and he is familiar with technology- he hosts his class website on Google Sites and utilizes Google Docs and the like. However, he doesn’t use a lot of the social media that I’ve become obsessed with and that has simplified my life- Diigo, Twitter, Tumblr, RSS feeds, Dropbox, Evernote (and more recently, Radbox). I’m not necessarily using these tools in my classroom, but they sure do make my classroom life easier and enhance my knowledge of what’s out there. We started talking about what I use outside of Google Sites/Docs (since I use these as well).
I would explain one tool to him and then, inevitably, another would come up (“So you use Dropbox for…?” “No…I use Diigo for that.” “Well, what’s Diigo?”) As this conversation continually expanded, I realized I was beginning to sound more and more crazy.
“How do you stay organized with all this stuff?” he asked me.
“This keeps me organized!” I insisted.
It made me realize something. I am increasingly aware of how these varying technology tools have made my life easier, but I also seek out new technologies. If I were to try to explain how these have simplified my life all at once…I simply sound pretty crazy to someone who does not learn new technologies quickly or isn’t aware of them. However, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t know these tools exist.
So, my question is: How do we introduce these tools to our colleagues without sounding crazy?
