What a Great Time to be an ASSET Innovator!

This past year has been a difficult time with the economy. No money for anything extra, teachers laid off until the budget was decided on, teachers in flux, not knowing if they had a job or if they did where they might end up in the district. With all of this uncertainty, teachers were supposed to stay upbeat and continue giving a good education to their students. I would walk into teachers' meetings and not be sure what I would find, but every time I did, I was amazed at how they were looking for ways to work with their students and open to new ideas. I felt like I was throwing out a fantastic educational lifeline that had little or no cost attached. Their enthusiasm was contagious to all present and before I knew it, teachers were looking at the resources available and sharing ideas on how they could use it with their students.



ASSET allowed me to share so many fantastic resources. Many people thought ASSET was no longer around. It was my privilege to share the fact that ASSET was still around and had many outstanding programs that cover all of the grades and subjects. Once they checked out how easy it was to access the ASSET site and saw the wide choice of programs, they were sold. Whenever I got an update of PBS programs, I sent it out to the teachers. Many times I would get comments back about ideas they tried out and programs they used with their students. I would forward these ideas to other teachers, hoping they would also try something new and then pass on their insights. I would also have teachers asking me if there was anything available for a certain age group or a specific topic. I would research it and before too long, I was always able to find something that was on the ASSET site that would work. Were they ever excited when they got that e-mail! Teachers are so busy and time is so limited that I was glad to do the looking and then sharing it with them.



It was an honor to be an innovator this year because I felt like I had this awesome product, available to everyone and all I had to do was get the word out. My only regret is that I didn't get to all of the schools, but I belong to a district technology group and there were reps from all of the elementary and middle schools. I regularly shared with this group (we meet monthly) and these members went back to their schools and passed the ideas on. I plan on continuing to spread the word next year and take more advantage of the free face to face classes that are available. The more we get the word out, the more this resource will spread like wildfire and we will be able to continue that spark of integrating technology into the curriculum.