How do I keep up with teaching all this new technology?

Ms. Dorothy,
How am I supposed to keep up with all the changing technology and expectations for integrating it in school? There is just so much, and every week it seems like there is something new I'm supposed to learn to do and share with my kids. I'm still not convinced they should be on the internet at all in elementary school.  You aren't a kid, and yet you seem comfortable with all these changes. Can you help me think about it differently?
- A Teacher

It is so hard for great teachers to do things half-way. Your impulse is to be an expert at it before you bring it to your students, so that you can help and support them, and that perfectionism can get in the way of taking on something new.

The fact is that you can learn alongside your students. They may even be able to help you! You don't have to be a master, just willing to give it a try.

Don't worry, you won't break the internet if you do it wrong. 

Consider this; your students are going to need these tools to be successful in the future, and delaying their exposure won't make them safer. 

Teaching children to be aware of how public and permanent the internet is will make them more savvy users in the future. And the fact is, that all these technologies are going to change and develop in the years ahead, and your students will need to develop the habits of learning, changing and adapting to new things in order to continue to be successful. 

Don't worry about keeping up with all of it, just jump in and begin exploring.  If you wait till you master it, you'll never teach it, because "it" is a moving target!

How do I get my kids to turn in homework?

Ms. Dorothy,

My boys are having a hard time taking responsibility for their work.  Sometimes they do their homework and then don't turn it in.  I start school myself in the Spring, and I won't be there to hold their hands through this.  How can I get them to be responsible?

- Mom of Middle Schoolers

When homework has no meaning, it is hard to value it.  If the boys feel like they are doing work just for the sake of doing it, it's understandable that they "forget" to turn it in, and even that they don't always do it.

Unfortunately, much of what they are going to have to do over the coming years will be as meaningless to them as the work they are not turning in now.

It is important that they understand how the game is played, and their role in it.  

To be successful in school, they will need to comply with the expectations of teachers.  Not to please the teacher, and not because the teacher is right, but because the boys need what the teachers have to offer.

In order to get where they are going outside of school, the boys need to make the system work for them.  The teachers are an important part of the ticket out of school, and if the boys understand that, it will help them to stop trying to resist and just let it work for them.

Over the next months and years, you will have plenty of opportunities to model good work habits for them.  Remember to talk about the work you do for school, and to let them see you doing it.  They will learn more from your example than from anything you say now.