So yes, the Green Screen – with its high-tech gadgetry, had been in our staff room for more than a year – taunting me, reminding me of things not done, things unknown; lack – of time, of knowledge, of learning opportunities. Ugh.
For this story to happen, I had to admit to my teaching team of Cathy Patrick, Helen Kounougeris, Dorothy Mah and Saralyn Winston that, while interested and curious, I did not know how to do anything with the Green Screen. They created a safe space for me to do this in their willingness to join me in not knowing, and in a keenness to try. Which brought us to the crux of this story – how would we learn without help - without knowing where to start? It looked easy on YouTube, but I am a “Pinterest Fail” expert, so what now? Perhaps we could do it next year – like I said last year. Except…was he serious?
I need to back the story up. The whole Green Screen wonderment was started by Steve Clark (@stevewclark), one of our CBE Curriculum and Pathways specialists, tweeting out an app recommendation. When I retweeted it to my teaching team, he replied with “Let me know if I can help.” Yes. Yes please! And he did. Steve made time in his schedule to come and build the confidence in our grade team that we could do this - this piece of technology WAS as easy as it looked. A few weeks later he came back to our school a few more times and worked with us through the major glitch of iPad care and organization. (“Where’s the camera icon?” “I don’t know how to connect to the internet.” “Mine won’t turn on.” “I can’t find my photo. I saved my photo. Where’s my photo?” Quotes overheard by Steve Clark while trying to help our teaching team).
“In the end it was the walking that made all the difference. It took arriving, always arriving, to finally understand that is was never about where I ended up, but only how I got there. I hope I never get to where I am going.”
~ Tyler Knot Gregson
Krista (@MsKikiJ11), Cathy, Dorothy, Saralyn and Helen teach grade 2 at Battalion Park School. (@BattalionParkSc).