I am an Educational Fanboy

I had an odd epiphany yesterday while at EduCon 2.4 in Philadelphia. This epiphany has been long overdue but I think that many others may feel the same way so here it is...

I am an Education Fanboy.

That may not be a big surprise to the hundreds of educators at EduCon who dedicate their lives to furthering education but I say fanboy in a very specific way. When most people meet celebreties they get weird. They are unable to talk and when they can get words out it's generally just "Hey... uhhh... I like your movies!" and then they slink away hoping that star never shares that awkward moment with some reporter. I have never been this way. I have met a few music and film personalities and I have been able to talk to them like regular people. I never understood why people got like that around what I see as normal people.

Until yesterday.

I am a 27 year old 2nd year teacher who dove into the world of education reform and technology about 4 years ago. I have grown my PLN and learned to respect many people in the educational sphere. At conferences I have watched people like Rodd Lucier, Zoe Branigan-Pipe, Ira Socal, Dean Shareski, Chris Lehmann and many others give presentations and talks that have changed the way I think about education and at events like EduCon I have had the good fortune to be in their company.

Meeting those people face-to-face has made me understand in some sense what people feel around celebrities with one slight difference, what those other people feel is excitement for seeing these stars, what I feel is respect. When I speak to these people I respect I don't want to come off sounding like an idiot so, of course, I wind up sounding like an idiot. Yesterday I was able to introduce myself to Dean Shareski who led one of my favorite conversations at EduCon 2.3 on Mythbusting in the classroom. I sounded like a complete moron with nothing of any significance to say. So I'd like to take this moment to apologize to Dean as I am sure I all but terrified him.

It was at that moment that I realized I am a fanboy of education. Events like EduCon and EdCamp are my rock concerts. Places where I get to meet the people I admire and effect what I do in the classroom everyday. I have a desire to be like these people I respect one day and what I truly love is that the barrier is low enough for anyone with a revolutionary idea to do so.

So I guess I should finish this up with a few points:

1. I am an Education Fanboy
2. I respect all those people who have affected change in the educational sphere
3. I want to be one of those people some day
4. I apologize for scaring Dean.

How Do You Teach What You Don't Know?

About a year and half ago I walked into my first classroom as a teacher. I walked in to no curriculum, 4 different textbooks and about a month to prepare. Needless to say it was extremely difficult to get started. My vice principal was as helpful as she could be in this regard but a curriculum still needed to be created from scratch.

My first step was to create a "curriculum" for the current set-up of the class. This involved a Sophomore and Junior curriculum to cover objectives necessary to pass the CompTIA Strata (Sophomore) and the CompTIA A+ (Junior). This was my first time writing a curriculum at all so it was a little rough around the edges. It was competent enough but focused too much on assignments and not enough on overall goals.

After some discussion with my vice principal we decided to overhaul the computer technician program. We decided to teach computer repair (CompTIA Strata) during Sophomore year and introduce programming in their Junior year. I was able to refine the current curriculum to meet the Sophomores needs and then turned my attention to the Juniors. We focused on Python and HTML/CSS as the core of the programming curriculum. There is only one problem, I don't know how to code.

Let me clarify a bit, I understand the basics of programming. I know about variables, strings, loops, if/then statements, etc but not nearly enough to actually teach a class on programming. I have designed and coded basic websites for friends but nothing approaching what people expect to see on the web today. I have messed with javascript and other client side scripting languages but would have to do alot of research to even appear semi-competent in any of them.

So the question remains, how do I write a curriculum for something I don't completely understand? Is it possible? Do I purchase a program or hire outside help to do this? Do I create a self-guided curriculum which allows the students to learn at their own pace? I have started learning python3 and am brushing up on my HTML/CSS. I am knee deep in research right now and hope to come upon a solution soon but we will have to just wait and see.

Leave any suggestions in the comments.