Where I’m Coming From

My run officially starts tomorrow, but I wanted to get my standpoint up.

I’m a high school mathematics teacher, and I focus on my class. I spend most of my time thinking about curriculum, not theory. I take a pragmatic approach and always ask, primarily: does it work?

However, I’m willing to try anything once. So I’m going to break open this week and take on one of the Big Issues: why is it so hard for mathematics teachers in particular to use social technology, and what’s needed to fix the problems? Mathematics teachers are often frustrated, because the generalizations about social technology don’t answer the question: so what do I do with it? There’s a lot of technology coordinators out there (greetings!) and I want to bridge the gap, so you understand where we’re coming from.

I believe both tech optimism and tech pessimism are dangerous. Too much optimism can blind one to failure, and too much pessimism can cause something to be discarded after only a single failure (when all it needed was a retooling). I’ll be aiming at the middle road, trying to balance practical reality and unrealized potential.

I’ll be out of my element, but feel free to compliment or criticize or add or subtract. I’m not going to have all the answers alone, but maybe together we can work this out.

Jason Dyer, Guest Blogger