I started this blog as part of a Principal’s Development Course through the Ontario Principals’ Council: Digital Leadership. Beyond the uncomfortability of sharing my thinking, setting up the site has been more daunting than I expected; after all, I have decades of website management experience. Selfishly, it was reassuring to hear the similar ways in which dozens of other tech-savvy professionals were also struggling with the nitty-gritty of setting up their blogs: choosing a platform, creating a design that fit their vision, and deciding on the static content like About pages.

When I took that deep breath, I recalled a conversation I had with a parent early in March’s shift to Emergency Distance Learning. I was acting as tech support for students and families, and this mom was having trouble logging on to her children’s Google Classrooms on their different personal devices. I walked her through as best as I could, then sent a follow-up email with links to some further online resources. Her response included a surprised self-reflection that she had called a friend, then the teachers, then me for advice rather than searching the internet for an expert-created walkthrough. I heard her voice loudly and clearly in my mind as I started going step-by-step through the WordPress Get Started online tutorials.

I’ve tried to maintain a growth-mindset when it comes to creating this blog (for my digital leadership course through OPC), but I’ve found the technical details for the initial setup were not meshing with my vision for how I’m hoping this blog will come together. I’ve set up and taken down three different formats, and am still wavering. In fact I’ve taken a long pause, which was a disappointment for me.

Through writing this post, however, I’ve realized that my frustration is a helpful reminder – to slow down, take my time, and be willing to set something aside with a plan to come back. My goal for the rest of July is to post something every three days: creating content brings my through the reflection process which piques my interest and acts as a motivator. From there, I’m hoping to see some emergent themes to create categories which are meaningful to me.

I dipped into my previously-created images to remind myself that mistakes are for learning. I don’t want to catch myself saying it to students without living it myself, as best as I can.

Michael Fullan’s 2011 project around Learning is the Work impacted my work as a teacher and researcher earlier in my career. Learning – for myself and others – is my driver personally and professionally. For several years, a close colleague had “learning is the work” as her email signature, which inspired me to create this inspirational image to guide my daily decision-making. When I’m working to prioritize my time, I ask myself: What can I do today that will move my most important work forward?