Welcome to Dr. Hebert’s Classroom!
However you got here, I’m glad you made it and I hope you enjoy your stay.
Continue readingAn EdTech Eulogy
Friends, teachers, designers. We are gathered here on this solemn occasion to bid farewell to two beloved edtech tools.
Jamboard, the neglected offspring of Google, leaves us in search of new blank canvases. We mourn the ideas gathered and shared on those slides. Jamboard was, for many years, the best digital replacement for sticking sticky notes to the wall. I fondly recall the students who, having contributed their ideas to the board, sorted, straightened, and organized their peers’ sticky notes. As we lay Jamboard to rest, we are grateful for the many assignments you facilitated.
Flip, formerly known as Flipgrid, leaves us in search of a video discussion board. Your recorder was both easy and fun to use. Your stickers and frames gave space for creativity. The mixture of video and text responses opened the door for rich and varied conversation. As we say goodbye to our trusted friend, we are likewise grateful for the many discussions you facilitated.
These tools will live on in our hearts even as they disappear from our course syllabi.
Let’s all take a moment of silence in remembrance of their loss.
Continue readingLessons from My Doctoral Journey
I graduated a week ago.
I’m still having a hard time believing this day finally came. Everyone I know seems to think that it was a foregone conclusion that I would start and complete a doctorate, but I wasn’t completely sure of it at any stage. I’ve doubted myself, I’ve questioned my own intentions, I’ve thought I wouldn’t make it.
But here I am. Dr. Waneta Hebert.
I learned a lot over these past four years; obviously a ton about educational technology policymaking, instructional design, program evaluation, and of course, research. But I also learned a lot about myself and about life. So today, just a few days after my amazing advisor draped a ridiculous light blue hood over my shoulders, I write this in hopes that it will help someone else standing in the position I was just years ago. Here are some of the non-academic lessons I learned along the way.
Recharging My Soul: Transformative Insights from the ATD International Conference & EXPO
There is something I’ve always found revitalizing about attending conferences and conventions. Existing in the same space as other people in similar jobs and roles as you or with similar interests. Sharing and gathering new ideas and concepts. Collecting free stuff in exchange for a lifetime of emails from businesses in the expo hall. Exploring a new city. It’s all such a special experience.
Honestly, the last couple of years, I think I’ve been in a bit of a conference rut, attending the same conferences from the same organizations and seeing the same presentations from the same presenters. And it’s nothing against the conferences I’ve attended; I was just too overworked and overwhelmed to reach that former level of excitement and engagement. It certainly didn’t help that I developed this annoying habit of presenting at every conference I attended to fluff up my CV and doctoral dossier. Being so focused on my own presentations and responsibilities overshadowed all the good stuff happening around me.
If I’ve learned one thing from these four years in this doctoral program, I learned my own limits. This year, I’ve been making more of a conscious effort to be mindful of my workload. I’ve said no to projects that I genuinely want to do but that I know I don’t have the bandwidth to give participate at the level that would be needed.
But that’s a different blog post.
This one today is about the conference that finally turned things back around for me and got me excited again. Last month (I know I’m a little delayed in writing this reflection, don’t blame me, blame my dissertation), I attended the Association for Talent Development (ATD) International Conference & EXPO in New Orleans. The theme was “Recharge Your Soul,” and I do believe I actually recharged that week.
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On Leadership
Welcome to the Fall 2022 semester, everyone! It is that time of year when everything gets busy and everyone gets tired. It’s also that time of year when I get reflective about my own goals and accomplishments. This semester, one of my classes is about leadership, so that’s the topic of my reflection today. Am I a leader?
The semester started with a Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire. The exercise reminded me of the Emergenetics instrument that I completed when I started working as an instructional designer. Emergenetics identified me as a mixture of Analytical and Conceptual, meaning that I have big ideas and then I figure out data-driven ways to make them happen. The overall description seemed pretty accurate, so I was excited to see how this leadership questionnaire would portray me.
Continue readingTips For The Novice Professional Development Presenter
I remember when I was in middle school, I knew that I was going to be a teacher when I grew up, and I just kind of assumed that by the time that happened, I would be confident enough to stand in front of a classroom and speak. When I got to high school, and I was still terrified of presentations that required me to speak to my peers, I figured I needed to get a little more proactive about the problem. So I joined the speech team. I wasn’t very good and never won any medals or awards, but it was my first step toward becoming a speaker.
The first time I stood at the front of a library full of my coworkers with their attention on me was both exhilarating and absolutely terrifying. At the time, I was a middle school English teacher, not even yet department chair. Despite how nervous I was to stand up in front of my coworkers, the entire experience was amazing, and I proved to myself that I could do it.
Continue readingExploring a World of Magic
As I work to finish up my last assignments of the Spring 2022 semester, I have finally arrived at the final stop on this journey of exploration that I’ve taken with this eighth entry.
For several of the explorations I’ve done on this journey, I’ve tried to purposefully push myself outside of my comfort zone by exploring areas that I don’t know very well. This final week, I want to push myself outside of my comfort zone by doing something that is actually well within my comfort zone but that I don’t frequently share publicly: creative writing.
Lesson #1: Even that which is comfortable can help break your own barriers.
Continue readingExploring the Past (without time travel)
I’m finding it hard to believe that I’ve already arrived my seventh exploration in this thought experiment I’ve undertaken. It has really been an enjoyable experience and I’ve learned a lot along the way about being an explorer of the world, learning how to look at everything around me through a qualitative inquiry lens, simply experiencing the things that I normally would barely notice.
There are a total of 59 explorations in How to be an Explorer of the World by Keri Smith, and by now I’ve read through them all several times. When I started this journey, I intended to complete only 8 of the 59, and with only two explorations left to go, I’m finding it more difficult to choose. While this is still my intention, I think I may return to this thought experiment later on. Perhaps I could repeat some that I’ve already completed and see what different lessons I can learn, or I could simply return to the explorations that I’ve marked with my blue post-it notes but haven’t completed.
Regardless of where my future exploring takes me, this week’s exploration is taking me into the past, albeit without a time machine (the TARDIS was otherwise occupied this week).
Continue readingThe Sounds of Exploration
One of my favorite things to do is to hang out in the backyard with the dogs. They love it because there are so many things to smell and chase, and I love it for the tranquility. We live in a suburban area in a neighborhood that’s been around long enough for the trees to be massive and the houses to look a little dated. There are several large trees (as described in one of my earlier explorations) that make homes to several types of birds and dozens of squirrels.
For my next exploration, I wanted to get back out into the backyard, into nature, and see what I could discover about my own home. After flipping through the pages of How to be an Explorer of the World by Keri Smith while sitting at the patio table, I settled on a type of exploration I haven’t tackled yet: sound.
Continue readingExploring Beyond My Comfort Zone
When I was growing up back in small-town Ohio, I lived next to a pair of sisters who were some of my closest friends for years. Both sisters were (and still are) incredibly artistically talented. They had sketchbooks and always created the most amazing drawings. One even did the artwork for my first tattoo. I had (and still have) zero artistic ability or talent. I used to doodle little 2-dimensional TARDISes in the margins of my math assignments, and that was as far as my ability to draw ever took me. While my friends drew in their sketchpads, I was writing stories in my notebooks.
Several of my explorations so far have stuck very closely to my strengths with writing and reading and books. This week, I’ve chosen to push myself outside of my comfort zone, away from creativity with words and into creativity in drawing.
Continue readingExploring the Farmers Market
Friday afternoon, I stood out in the backyard with the dogs as the wind whipped my hair around my face and threatened to topple the bench swing. I thought for sure the weather was going to thwart my plans of exploration yet again.
Thankfully, I was wrong. The Baytown Farmers Market was not cancelled or shut down early due to wind, rain, sleet, or any other strange weather Texas can throw our way. And so I was finally able to circle back to Exploration #12: 50 Things from How to be an Explorer of the World by Keri Smith.
I don’t know why I was so drawn to this particular exploration. It could simply be that when I tried to do it before, I wasn’t able. I’ll admit that I’m a pretty stubborn person, so the simple fact that I couldn’t do it when I wanted made me want to do it even more. I also can’t say exactly why I was so determined to complete this exploration at the Baytown Farmers Market, especially considering the directions say to “Write down (or document) fifty things about one of the following: a trip to the library, a trip to the grocery store, a walk in your neighborhood.” I could easily have completed any of those three, but I thought a once-monthly pop-up farmers market would yield more interesting and diverse results.
Lesson #1: Location matters.
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