Sharing is Caring and Full of Opportunities

As I mentioned last week, I recently made the decision to work through the ISTE Coaching Academy series.  I shared the idea with my PLN and it has quickly grown into more than I anticipated.  Recent conversations have led to the set up an online community for Technology Coaches in AISA.  I made the request to create it on Monday and as of today there are already 24 members of the group, eager to learn together and share ideas.

I’ve been accepted as a presenter for the online Global Education Conference next week where I’ll be presenting about our oral history project here at LCS.  I’m pumped that this project is in its third year and continuing to grow.  The opportunity to share it with others and hopefully see their students and schools reap the benefits of a similar project is exciting to me.

So I share these ideas, not to toot my own horn, I do that enough in traffic around here, but to illustrate the power of sharing your work and ideas.  It opens opportunities, creates connections, and gives us a chance to grow.  I’m more excited about the connections and next steps that will come out of these current projects than I am about leading them.

I’m not looking to become a consultant, traveling the world presenting my canned presentations and racking up frequent flier miles.  That doesn’t appeal to me.  I think of it in football terms.  I don’t want to be the striker with the fancy hair and sixty goals per season with the mic in his face after every game.  I want to be that quiet midfielder that keep the game flowing and occasionally puts the ball on the strikers foot in stride.   Every now and then I take the lead, but I’m usually just quietly doing my job.

For me its seeing others succeed that keeps me going. That’s why we’re in education right?  Its not about my success. Its about my students, or in my case now, my teachers.  If I can set them up with opportunities to score, we all win.

So take that chance.  Submit a conference proposal, or start your own blog, or even just ask for ten minutes at your next staff meeting to share something awesome your doing.  You know you’re doing something awesome.  Then watch those around you grow and flourish and just sit back and see how far that positivity can go.