In short, my family. Before coming to Emma Willard, my wife and I were living in a 500 square foot apartment in Brooklyn with our then 2 year old. We were excited about the potential for more space to grow our family, be closer to family members, and explore new career opportunities. When we saw the position of "Instructional Technologist and Electronic Resources Librarian" posted at Emma, it felt like a bit of a stretch for me, but after interviewing and chatting with a number of folks on campus who believed in my vision to create and develop an Academic Technology department, we knew it was the right time to make the leap to move. The rest is history, as they say. A crazy pandemic-fueled history.

I have to say that my day is never the same, but one thing that is consistent is my morning cup of loose leaf Ancient Forest Yunnan tea from Whistling Kettle. This is essential to my morning. After that, my day can consist of anything from troubleshooting why classroom technology and projectors aren't functioning properly, meeting with teachers to plan how to leverage tech, to enhance their teaching and projects, checking in with my advisees about the latest happenings in their lives, and strategizing with others in the tech department about how to best support the school, dropping into a class to demo some tool that will be used for a class project, and the most common thing is just being available to the many teachers, staff, and students who just pop in my door saying "Oh! I wanted to ask you something..." That last piece is really what my day looks like the most sometimes during the school year.

 

I think that one thing that would surprise the average person is that I'm not sitting in my office constantly thinking of ways we can use more tech throughout our days, but thinking carefully and critically about when we should be using tech and how to use it purposefully, not just for the sake of it. Everyone is always surprised when I still keep most of my notes and to-do lists in a small paper notebook (or two) that I carry around with me all the time, instead of using a digital tool or iPad. 

This is a tricky question because there are many spaces I really love. The first one that comes to mind is Ms. Buinicky's office in the library. My first year at Emma, Ms. Buinicky and I shared an office, and it was an amazing working relationship that remains to this day. There are many days even now where I go over and just sit on her couch, and we talk about all the things going on in our relative job spheres, and it helps provide so much perspective when speaking with someone outside of your immediate bubble and space.

 

The other space I really love is the Stanton Dining room. If you don't know about this space, it is a small dining room next to Kellas Little that can hold 8-person or so lunch meetings. This space was so fantastic for the Ed Tech Team to have an intimate space to think and work prior to the pandemic, and I'm hopeful that we'll be in there again in the future!