It’s tricky, being a technology teacher. The pace at which new things are created and the tech world changes are astounding and difficult to keep up with. Your students, in many cases, are growing up with the new technology and will be using the latest and greatest. The jobs of the future don’t even exist right now, so, how do we prepare them for those positions? We give them the current best information and they can use that as stepping stones for understanding the tech they are going to see in the future.
There are obvious places to go to learn some new things. Linda.com, Linkedin Learning, etc, and chances are you’ve already looked at those. They are the fairly formalized learning platforms and while worth looking into. A more tricky thing to find out is a kind of cultural information, the things that reside within the minds of the folks in the community but are not easily written about. How does someone get access to those?
Conferences
In WordPress, there are WordCamps, where the communities gather to exchange information. All the major platforms have conferences in some form or another. The trick is what happens between the presentations, at lunch, at the after-party, this is what many call the “Hallway Track”.
Google Alerts
Hopefully, you already have your name listed here, but, additionally, you should have other topics in this. Head over to Google Alerts and add some. Google will deliver the latest news from a variety of sources to your mailbox. It takes a little tinkering to make sure it’s not overwhelming, but, totally worth it.
Just Do it
Nope, not a Nike commercial, but they do have a good saying. Find a project and make it happen. This doesn’t have to be big, but do something that moves your knowledge forward. Install BBPress and get your students on it. Use the latest in teaching techniques to make a unique lesson. 100 points for making something go viral!
Kiera is a software developer, instructor, and CTO at Wiley Solutions, the makers of DragonTeach