Kentucky Connected Educator Roland O'Daniel

In what ways are you a connected educator?

I would say I’m a connected educator because I use technology to enhance how I’m able to work with my colleagues and schools. Relationships are important in the work we do as educators and the technology just makes it easier to share ideas and information with those interested. I

How does being connected impact your practice in schools/classroom?

I enjoy using technology to enhance what I’m doing with teachers. I look for technology that adds something to the experience as well as make it easier to connect. It can be as simple as twitter and sharing resources, or using Google Docs to co-create lessons and articles with schools across the state.

For me technology opened up a lot of opportunities early in my career in how I had students interact with content. I still remember getting my freshman algebra I students on explorelearning.com to ‘play’ with the gizmos. It was a great conversation that followed when we talked about slope and how we could impact slope. It was no longer just about the formula but about how the numbers changed the behaviors of the lines. It just reinforced for me that technology could take learning to a new level. It became about creating understanding and communicating that understanding.

How does being connected impact you as a professional?

Now that I’m not a classroom teacher, I interact with teachers and school leaders in a variety of ways. Being ‘online’ helps make those interactions quicker and easier. It also allows for input from a variety of people without having to take them out of their classrooms. I use technology to close distances. It doesn’t matter if it is teachers in the Purchase or colleagues working from the field. We ‘Hangout’ when we need to get our work done. Technology makes it easier for busy educators to use their time most effectively.

The social media side of being connected allows me to interact with people on a regular basis that I couldn’t any other way. Right now I’m working on my dissertation, so I’m connecting with others who are working in the college readiness field across the country. Without their blogs, sharing on twitter, and easy chats, I would never have the opportunity to see what these cutting edge educators are doing. It not only helps my thinking, it’s cool to meet these people and to push my own thinking in ways, I might not have thought of without them.

What advice or resources would you recommend to colleagues interested in becoming connected?

I would keep it simple. Find one or two things you like and work with those tools and build your network. As you make it routine, then don’t add more tools, add more people. The power in all of this isn’t the technology, it’s the people and the sharing of ideas. I was on twitter very early and didn’t see a lot of value initially because there weren’t many Kentucky educators on in 2007. Now that twitter is a tool used by many educators there is power.

BIO: I taught math for 17 years at St. X and in Port Angeles, WA before leaving the classroom and moving into professional development at CTL. I've been with CTL for 10 years and have enjoyed working with teachers across the state on a variety of projects. Most recently I’ve been working with college readiness and am in the process of finishing my dissertation in that area. I look forward to the challenges that await me in the next 10 years.