When it all started...

It was the summer of 2015. The State of Indiana Department of eLearning was sponsoring another summer's worth of eLearning conferences at local schools throughout the state. Knowing that my 4th grade students would be coming to me in August when school starts with brand new Chromebooks, I decided to attend one of the local conferences in Scottsburg, IN called Digipalooza. That is when I first heard George Couros speak. He was the day 1 keynote speaker. To be honest, I had no idea who he was other than reading the little bio provided in the conference information.

WOW! His keynote was a roller coaster of emotions: laughter, tears, joy, and inspiration just to name a few. Then came the little jabs of knowledge that all educators need to hear.

Change is an opportunity to do something great!

Schools become irrelevant to students when they don't look anything like the real world.

50 years from today relationships will still be the most important thing we do in our schools.

Would you want to spend the whole day learning in YOUR OWN classroom? 

If you only teach the curriculum, you've failed the students.

To innovate, disrupt your routine. 

After George's keynote that conference was buzzing with energy. I was deeply inspired and was ready to be innovative with my classroom & teaching. The one quote that has stuck with me the most was "Change is an opportunity to do something great!" I knew that with this technology that my students and I now had in our possession I couldn't and shouldn't be teaching the same way. It was time to do things different and better.

Since that time I have tried to transform and innovate in my classroom (some with and with out the use of technology). Somethings were a success and some were failures. I still want to be better. I want to improve & have an Innovator's Mindset. I want to have a complete overhaul of what I know and understand as great relevant teaching. For the sake of the current and future students in my classroom & my fellow educators at my school, I want to help be an agent of change and do things that are better and different. So I have decided to join the Innovator's Mindset Massive Open Online Course.  (You can checkout the Twitter hashtag, #IMMOOC for more information.)

I'm ready for #IMMOOC that begins next week!

Are you joining #IMMOOC? I would love hear why and what has you inspired by George Couros' book The Innovator's Mindset.

My plan is to use this blog as a journal to share and reflect what I am learning through my journey. I would love to have your feedback during this experience . Leave a comment if you'd like or connect with me on twitter, @SEANJFAHEY.