Has Anybody Seen My VCR?

While sitting at home this weekend watching a show on Amazon Prime, my mind started wandering back to my teenage years. Back then, instead of having an endless library of digital content at your fingertips, so many of us ventured out on a Friday night to rent a video. It wasn’t long before local, independent video stores all went out of business, so we all headed to Blockbuster Video with the hope of perhaps finding a certain new movie on VHS. You also likely remember that sticker attached to every tape, which read, “Be Kind, Rewind.” VHS turned to DVD, and DVD turned to streaming content. Blockbuster Video no longer served a purpose, and went out of business. While there is certainly some nostalgia attached to a video store, we cannot kindly rewind, as progress marches forward. When this ‘revolution’ in home theater occurred, we adapted. Similar stories can be told about our vinyl record collections, cassette mix tapes, cellular flip phones, and countless other things. And yes, our classrooms are changing too; evolving to embrace a new digital world which has been thrust upon us at breakneck speed. We aren’t going back, cannot stand still, and must take that daunting step into the future. As we have moved from Dell desktops in our classrooms, to Surface Pros in our hands, to iPads in the hands of our students, new challenges certainly have been present around every corner. For some, these changes are long overdue and readily welcomed. The digital age seems as seismic a change as the invention of the printing press. Yet for or others, all of these changes are an unnecessary distraction from the core content which is being delivered in the classroom. If it wasn’t broken, why fix it? My VCR still works just fine. Whether you are ready to crawl, walk, or run towards this iPad movement, let us take a moment to celebrate the small accomplishments. We all adapt and change at our own pace. Describe one positive thing about these technological changes, and then add the phrase, “yes, and…” Continue the sentence at your own speed, and write your own story. Whether today’s victory is simply successfully pairing your iPad to a projector/television in your classroom, or as transformative as having students completing a choice board project which has them creating iMovies, take a moment to congratulate yourself and your colleagues on that achievement. In the past several months, you have likely accomplished more than you realize. This blog will be used to both help us through this journey and to celebrate our accomplishments. Whether you are running, walking, or crawling towards our iPad revolution, (or even if you are still hiding in the corner from a scary monster), we are all in this together. Each victory should be celebrated, and we will all move forward together. Blockbuster Video is a fond distant memory, and we don’t want to rewind. Let’s get ready to fast-forward!