Next year, after 34 years of teaching (the last 33 at the same school), I am retiring at the end of the 2014-2015 school year. I'm retiring from public school teaching. I am not retiring from working (I'll only be 56 years old). Now there is something I didn't ever expect to say: "only 56 years old".
It's a scary thought--retirement. Secondary teaching (English and driver education) is all I've known since graduating from college in 1981. Or is it? I spent two summers working as a reporter and page/ad designer at an area newspaper. I spent a year doing reporting part time for another. I worked another summer designing athletic programs in the sports information office at a local college. For several summers I was a house painter.
I've taught professional development/graduate-credit courses in cloud computing and Web 2.0 tools for education, digital video, and Web page design. I taught a digital photography class for our local public library. I've done some staff training in technology for my current school district.
I've been a coach of volleyball and basketball. I was a high school newspaper and yearbook advisor. I developed and still teach a high school class in desktop publishing, which includes print media/page layout and design, Web page design, digital video editing, and presentation design.
Along the way, I was fortunate enough to learn and use Adobe CS and CS4, including Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat, Fireworks, and a little bit of Flash and Dreamweaver; Microsoft Office 2003-2010; Google Apps for Education, and a host of browser-based Web 2.0 software. I've learned how to do screencasting, audio editing with Audacity, animated videos with PowToon, presentations with PowerPoint and Prezi. Let me take a breath here (pause) and add that I go back as far as PageMaker 5.0 and Microsoft FrontPage.
So I am more than a teacher. Upon retirement I want to put all the above skills to use. I want to do software training, teach professional development courses, write, design, consult, teach online; almost anything besides teach driver education. I have skills. It's time to put them to use.
So I am trying to get a head start on my next career with techmantraining.com. It's been a slow process getting it off the ground, but I guess I have over a year to get something going so that I will have at least part-time work after retirement. I will eventually have some online classes and tutorials available. I will be teaching a Prezi course at a local community college this spring. I would love to do some entry-level design work and/or writing for a publication. I will freelance, contract, work from home, or work at a company. I just want to put all the skills I've learned to use; I want to spend the rest of my working career using these skills because I love them! They have become my passion. My head is in the cloud; I am caught in the Web. Please, no more driver education! I can't take it anymore.
It's a scary thought--retirement. Secondary teaching (English and driver education) is all I've known since graduating from college in 1981. Or is it? I spent two summers working as a reporter and page/ad designer at an area newspaper. I spent a year doing reporting part time for another. I worked another summer designing athletic programs in the sports information office at a local college. For several summers I was a house painter.
I've taught professional development/graduate-credit courses in cloud computing and Web 2.0 tools for education, digital video, and Web page design. I taught a digital photography class for our local public library. I've done some staff training in technology for my current school district.
I've been a coach of volleyball and basketball. I was a high school newspaper and yearbook advisor. I developed and still teach a high school class in desktop publishing, which includes print media/page layout and design, Web page design, digital video editing, and presentation design.
Along the way, I was fortunate enough to learn and use Adobe CS and CS4, including Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat, Fireworks, and a little bit of Flash and Dreamweaver; Microsoft Office 2003-2010; Google Apps for Education, and a host of browser-based Web 2.0 software. I've learned how to do screencasting, audio editing with Audacity, animated videos with PowToon, presentations with PowerPoint and Prezi. Let me take a breath here (pause) and add that I go back as far as PageMaker 5.0 and Microsoft FrontPage.
So I am more than a teacher. Upon retirement I want to put all the above skills to use. I want to do software training, teach professional development courses, write, design, consult, teach online; almost anything besides teach driver education. I have skills. It's time to put them to use.
So I am trying to get a head start on my next career with techmantraining.com. It's been a slow process getting it off the ground, but I guess I have over a year to get something going so that I will have at least part-time work after retirement. I will eventually have some online classes and tutorials available. I will be teaching a Prezi course at a local community college this spring. I would love to do some entry-level design work and/or writing for a publication. I will freelance, contract, work from home, or work at a company. I just want to put all the skills I've learned to use; I want to spend the rest of my working career using these skills because I love them! They have become my passion. My head is in the cloud; I am caught in the Web. Please, no more driver education! I can't take it anymore.
