"A" is for AGILE

"A" is for agile....

 Dictionary.com defines agility as:  Quick, well coordinated, marked by an ability to think quickly, mentally acute or aware.  Antonyms of "agile" are:  awkward, sluggish & lethargic.

A recent article in Edudemic defined the most important characteristics of modern learners.  They indicate that agility with technology is one of the most critical skills for any learner (including educators).  For them, agility is defined as adapting our learning to leverage the power of technology, but also being agile enough to stop using that technology if it is proving not as useful as first hoped. 

The dog in the picture above is demonstrating his agility by being able to react quickly to changes and roadblocks in the course, while still maintaining forward progress (The second photo is there because I found it humorous).  If he were running a straight course, there would be no need to be agile.  Being fast would suffice.

I have held a number of technology leadership roles.  In fact, these roles seem to find me.  However, I am not a "techy."  What I am is (what I now understand as) agile with technology.  I know just enough about broad categories of technologies and how they work to be quick to "leverage existing technology" when needed and quick to use my current level of knowledge as a scaffold when I must learn new technologies.   I don't care about the code behind the technologies or about all of the back-end necessities when creating networks (I'll leave that to the "techies").  Instead, I know the value of technology as a tool (and the inevitability and ubiquity of it) and use it to make what I do faster, smarter or more creative.  This means I have to also be aware of what is out there in order to meet those goals.

Our students need to be agile with technology as well.  Their future managers are counting on it.  Therefore, as educators, we must demonstrate agility with technology and make sure that we provide opportunities for our students to develop those "muscles" in our classrooms.

As the technology integration leader at some of my campuses, I was often asked, "When are we going to stop learning new stuff and just perfect what we already have?"  The answer is "NEVER."  Just like the dog cannot be awkwrad, sluggish or lethargic and go around the twists and turns in his course, or worse, sit down and refuse to run the course, we cannot ever stop seeking and learning new technologies at least well enough to be able to continue learning and leveraging the latest technological tools in our daily lives and in our classrooms.