Preparation, part 1
Now that the decision is made, the preparation must begin. We’re moving from NC to NY so that I can attend graduate school at Columbia. We’ve applied for student housing. We know where we’re going to live in the ~6 weeks between needing to move out of our campus housing in NC and up to our campus housing (we hope) in NY. But the decisions about what moves with us are upon us. I’m reminded of TLC’s show Clean Sweep with their Keep, Sell, and Toss signs, only ours are Take to NY, Store in NC, Sell, and Toss. Some of the “Take to NY” is easy; cat, coffeemaker, laptops. Some of the “Store in NC” is easy: books, CDs, seldom used dishes. The rest, I imagine will be harder. Advice from people who live in small NY apartments appreciated!
Moving On
Today I officially announced that I would be leaving the school where I have been for the last twelve years with this letter to my Head of School.
With many wonderful years at Saint Mary’s to treasure, the time has come for Daniel and I to take the next step in our lives. After much consideration, I will not return to Saint Mary’s School for the 2012-13 School year. I have an extraordinary opportunity to earn a master’s degree in private school leadership from the Klingenstein Center at Columbia University in New York. My heart tells me that I must follow my passion for education and attend Columbia to work toward my goal of one day becoming a head of school.
Leaving Saint Mary’s is without a doubt one of the hardest things I will ever have to do and I will undoubtedly miss the people of this community more than I realize. Just as the time students spend at Saint Mary’s ready them for their next step, my time at Saint Mary’s has provided me with invaluable experiences and wonderful memories that have prepared me for this next adventure and the challenges it will bring.
I will be ever grateful for the many opportunities that I have had to grow at Saint Mary’s. It is important to me to prepare the way for my replacements and to do all I can to make their transition a smooth one. I hope to be able to be able to assist in finding the best possible people to lead the school in technology and in communication and to work alongside them to transfer my “institutional memory.” I am proud of what I have helped to build during the twelve years you and I have been at Saint Mary’s, and I look forward to seeing how she will continue to grow in the years to come.
The coming months will be full of transitions, sad “lasts” and happy “firsts.” In the meantime, tips for living in NYC are welcome.
Launching jessicasepke.com
Welcome to JessicaSepke.com.
My project for January was to “spring clean” my online presence. I’ve created jessicasepke.com from three existing sites
- jessica.sepke.net (not updated since 2007)
- jessicasepke.typepad.com (a blog entitled “tech life balance” that I periodically posted two between 2009 and 2011)
- jessicasepke.wordpress.com (a blog that I actually completely forgot that I had ever started until I went to create a new wordpress account and realized that I already had one)
Posts from the two blogs appear on this site. Conference presentations and resource listings from jessicasepke.net have been updated here. I’ve also included new information, links to social media, and a resume. Outside jessicasepke.com, I’ve updated linkedin and tried to generally find broken links and outdated info and get it fixed or updated.
Take a look around the web, you may have a blog that you didn’t remember starting!
Thanks, but I already have a tablet
Recently, I got an email from my local T-Mobile representative advertising that the HTC Flyer, which… wait for it… you can write on. You can edit documents! You can record audio with notes! You can manage your calendar! You can write. on. the. screen. Oh. my. God.
Sigh.
I’ve been doing all this and more since 2005 on my Lenovo Tablet PC. Forgive me, world, but I’m frustrated with the idea that writing on the screen is something new. I’m frustrated by the idea that we’re actually having to decide between touch, pen, and built-in physical keyboard. I have all 3 in one machine. Will that machine fit in my purse? No, but I like a small purse and I already have a smart phone.
I work in education. I’ve taught with technology for 12 years and started my school’s one-to-one tablet PC initiative in 2005. I got the 55th tablet IBM/Lenovo made. When I selected the Tablet PC for my school, we didn’t lose any functionality. The Tablet PC took the laptop and added the ability to capture electronic ink without a separate graphic device. We didn’t lose anything, but we gained a world of technological capability. With our most recent round of Lenovo Tablet PC’s we gained touch screen capability – a triple threat of the tech world.
The current crop of tablet devices all seem represent some loss. iPad – no integrated pen, and no keyboard, and no easy projection capability. HTC tablet – pen is separate, no built-in keyboard. I don’t like clutter and I like to have all the option to do anything I need to do wherever I am. So, I don’t need a third device with limited capability. Maybe I’m unusual (heck, there’s no maybe about it), but I’m happy with one computer and my smartphone.
To be clear, I’m not hating on the iPad, Samsung Galaxy, HTC Flyer or on people who love them. I’m just saying that I’m not going to drop an all-inclusive technology that I know works for me in favor of something with more limited capacity. I’m intrigued by the idea of a smaller, lighter, G4 device that integrates all of these things and Windows 8.
Folks, it’s not that new. After all, I’ve been able to write on my screen since ’05.
Legacy of Being the Shy Child
I was shy. Painfully shy. Though my mother tells me that when I was little I would pretend to be lost in the grocery store so that I could talk to people and ask them to help me find my mommy, I have no recollection of being anything but shy.
I couldn’t order my own happy meal.
If asked to speak up, I whispered.
I avoided being called on in class.
“Getting to know you” games were a personal hell.
Even through college, I didn’t participate in class often. If I worked up the nerve to speak, but answered the question wrong or had my idea rejected, I would never speak in that class again. In one class, I would whisper my questions to a friend and she would ask them; until one day she raised her hand and loudly announced that I had a question for the teacher. Any question that I had was lost in an overwhelming desire to sink into the floor and disappear from the 23 pairs of eyes that turned around to see what that question I was going to ask.
In small groups of friends and co-workers, I was fine – soft-spoken but funny and thoughtful. But raise the number of people to more than 3 and my palms would sweat. I would get tongue-tied and nauseated. It was awful. Awkward. Limiting. Horrid.
Then I became a teacher. Then the technology director. Then I started a one-to-one tablet PC program. I talked in front of my students. I trained groups of faculty. I spoke to groups of over 500 with grace and a wicked sense of humor. I volunteered to be the opening convocation speaker. It was a true transformation.
But lately, I’ve noticed that I still live with the legacy of being a shy child. I want to feel like I have something really valuable to say before I say it. I don’t speak up often in meetings unless I know that I have a real contribution to make. But the biggest legacy of spending two-thirds of my life in the shadow of shyness is that social media is hard. Really hard.
I’m on Facebook, but I’m more likely to “like” than post a status. I’m on twitter, but I’m not sure if what I have to say is valuable. I have a blog, but am averaging less than a post/month.
At first, I thought that this was just because I lead a crazy-busy life, but now, I think it’s the legacy of being the shy child. Parents at my school tell me that they always look forward to my segment of the opening assembly. Co-workers tell me that they love when it is my turn to speak because I’m concise and hilarious. What I can’t figure out yet is how to recreate the transformation from shy student to comfortable public speaker into the realm of social media. Suggestions anyone? I’ll be over here sitting in the back of the twitter feed trying to hide behind the tall kid…
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