This is my workplace

The new prompt of  #EDUBLOGSCLUB has made me reflect on the following: at the school where I work, we ask repeatedly our students to introduce the school to other parties, such as students in other countries. Sadfully, teachers do not do that very often. Once in a while, as we attend to conferences or workshops we find ourselves sharing basic information about our schools. Where do you work at? How many students attend to your school? What subject do you teach? or some other simpler questions are a commonplace.

At first it seems a simple task. A short text accompanied with a photograph and the job is done. Why should I invest time and effort on doing that, if someone has already done it for me? The straight forward solution would be to share the school website link: Colegio Goethe Buenos Aires.  Now, my purpose here is to share with you what my feelings about my workplace are. 

 I still remember very vividly the first impressions I had as I walked in for the first time. It was for the last interview of the admission process, but the first one on site. I drove my car to the address I was given, considering the recommendation to arrive ten minutes earlier to the meeting time. Security staff checked my ID and let me use a visitor parking slot. That was the outer perimeter. After a three or four minutes walk, I arrived to the front desk in a large hall. Behind that front desk, I was able to see a large campus, big buildings and large open spaces, lots of students wearing neat uniforms and staff people walking around. That picture did not match with the memories of the school I attended as a student, a modest paroquial  school.  Please, don't get me wrong, it was not intimidating, but I couldn't help thinking about school's infrastructure and educational outcomes. 

Finding my way to the principal's office for the  planned interview was easy, staff members were so helpful to accompany me all the way to my destination. A staff member was actually waiting for me at the front desk, she started a friendly chat that helped me to calm down. Sometime latter, I realized the job interview had already started at that point as I learned she was a human resources consultant. The friendly chat  lasted for about ten minutes and then she showed me to the principal's office. The atmosphere was very welcoming. I was offered the position and invited for a tour around the facilities.   

Why am I telling you this, that happened 18 years ago? Because I keep this in mind every day I go to work: it looks like a small corporation's facilities and infrastructure, but the people inhabiting this buildings create the most enjoyable learning and teaching atmosphere I've ever experienced. 

As an IT professional and a digital learning evangelist, I learned to pack my fix-location-office in  and moved it to the cloud. It was a tough decision that many did not understand nor support,  specially top management representatives. They argued that not having a fixed location to be easily reachable (the were thinking about not having an extension number to dial whenever they needed to communicate with me) would make me regret my decision not long after.  This was back in 2004. Technology was on my side,  educational and management trends  were also on my side and this idea of a cloud based office finally took off like one of the most powerful airliners ever ! (actually I feel like I`m selling tickets to this airliner now) So, I can take my job to whatever location inside the school I prefer to and I use this advantage in many ways. Do we need to catch up with project indicators? then, lets book a small meeting room. Do we need to exchange some ideas before a PTA? then, lets have a coffee at the students cafeteria. Do we need to have an educational chat with a student about FB or TW appropriate usage before it is too late? then, lets meet at the front desk and have a walk in the school park.

It sounds great, isn't it? There are two things that concur. The most important one, the school I work for has a very strong culture of student centered learning / teaching / management methodology. Although in my country (.ar) the school system in general has a very archaic shape, international schools like the one I work for, enjoy of a certain degree of flexibility. The second one, IT resources are not an issue. Students and staff members have access to a variety of devices to carry around during school time and an incipient BYOD initiative is also in place. Don´t think it is like the IT Disneyland, but we are certainly beyond the defining event in IT.    

Basically, I work paperless, but I do not "hate" paper... I just do not need it for the most part of my personal or professional life. There are a few exceptions, like certain printed information that I'm legally obligated to keep. There are also a few drawbacks: doing backups regularly is a mayor concern, I struggle to  achieve connectivity or power supply redundancy and device or software upgrades are a must.