How it all started...

I worked as a graphic designer in print media and local government industries, for a decade, whilst also studying for my education degree by distance education. I finished my degree in 2018 and started my teaching career in 2019.

I secured my first full-time placement at a public high school, only a half hour drive from my home, and it was the perfect spot to start my teaching journey - lovely people, small class sizes and more one-on-one student attention. And, it'll always remain the catalyst for my "bursting at the seams" enthusiasm and passion towards the profession.

After a few years in the game and hiccups along the way (thanks COVID19, mould outbreak, school relocation and death of a family member – crikey!), I quickly learned that teaching is a steep learning curve, especially with motivators outside of your own control and, alongside your own personal life.

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Somewhere along the line, I became so burdened by expectations coming from every direction, that it felt comparable to drowning. I was also working overtime, coming in on the weekends, and I was staying up late at night to tend to planning, marking and reporting. It creeps up on you - but, I was burnt out. Every tank ran out of gas and I put the priority of my well being right at the very end, as most new teachers do. 

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After a well earned sabbatical and some reflection, I got back into the saddle. With time and more experience, I learnt the curated juggle, which is the well orchestrated art of technology teaching the hard way - the necessary way!  

Teaching required more mental and physical energy at the beginning for me, which is completely normal, I was a novice - that's why it felt hard. To learn how to do something right and gain experimental knowledge, is to do it wrong or hard yourself, and no prior expert advice could of made my journey any less difficult or any less required.

But, I still couldn't shake the thinking, that a teacher needs to navigate that journey alone, without specialised support or has to hit rock bottom before recovering and bouncing back, to be good at their job.

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We're continually striving to improve as teachers, we're always on that learning curve, but the real mastery is found in accumulated years or decades of life experience and awareness. Those years of experience can be shared with others and others can learn from them, but teaching is a fast paced, unpredictable and time poor environment. There is little time to learn from others, especially in isolated areas where the others don't exist, like it was for me. 

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That's when I started thinking, how can I make the profession of technology teaching well supported for like-minded technology educators, especially those who are new to the game. 

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And, just like that The Technology Educator™ was born.