My current Dip

Last year I was fortunate enough to be invited to TIES by our district.  It was one of the best professional development activities I've ever been involved in.

What I loved most about it was that I realized there are a lot of other crazy, technology loving, think differently others out there.  As soon as I walked into the first morning session featuring the day's keynote speaker, Marc Prensky, whose classic "Engage Me or Enrage Me" is a staple of my College Comp class, I the first thing I thought was "these are my people."  I felt right at home.

So when we were heading for home the following day, after attending a session by one of my favorite people in education, George Courus, I began asking our technology coordinator about being invited back next year.

"The way to ensure that you can go back to TIES is to present a session there next year," he said.

With that, I began devising the session I was going to present.  I got so fired up that I submitted two proposals.  Luckily, they were both accepted.

While this was wonderful - after all when it comes to education, there is nothing I love more than engaging with students via social media and using it to build a platform to enhance my classes - I soon realized I had to actually get down to doing the heavy lifting of designing the presentations.

That led me to do a lot of research over the summer.  I three books to use as the base for my presentations -

Gary Vaynerchuk's Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook! which I actually bought while I was at the TIES session last year.

Michael Hyatt's Platform.

And Don Tapscott's Grown Up Digital.

Then I did a little more research on how to best present my slideshows and discovered Carmine Gallo's excellent Talk Like TED.

And so I began to put the slideshows together, taking bits and pieces from various slideshows and Keynotes and presentations and notes I had kept over the past few years.

Then I soon realized I was in a dip (you College Comp students take note here): it wasn't turning out like I wanted it to.  I knew I was committed to trying to put together a spectacular presentation, so there was no way I was going to quit. 

As you College Compers know, having read Seth Godin's The Dip, I only had one choice: lean into the dip.

And that's why I'm at home today. I took a personal day to roll my sleeves up (actually I'm wearing t-shirt) and get to work.  The harder I work, the sooner I'll be out of this dip.  

So I chucked everything that I had been working on and started from scratch, so far it's flowing amazingly well.  I'm engaged and it doesn't even feel like work at all.  Sir Ken Robinson (remember The Element, which we read first quarter?) would say I'm in my element.  I would agree.  But that doesn't mean it's not work.  It doesn't mean that I'm out of the dip yet.  

Hopefully, by the time I am back in school tomorrow, I'll be out of this dip . . . and looking for the next one.

#livingthedream