New class-New Year and Newbies!

I noticed tonight that no matter what class I take, we are always starting from square one. There are always newbies in each course that may not know how to use all the tools we are familiar with.  I noticed this particularly tonight because  I am spending my summer preparing teachers for next year's classes.  We are starting from square one again with new learners who do not have the technology skills our students developed over the last year.  I think I would prefer to loop with a class, rather than start all over every year.  I think of all the skills our students have learned and how other teachers will benefit from that next year and we will be "stuck" with the "toddlers."  It is not a fair thought, or even a nice one, but it is honest.   I am excited over the prospect of thrilling a new set of students with empowering tools, but the thought of starting from how to turn off a laptop correctly is a little exhausting.  I also have a new group of teachers who have not used smartboards or laptops with students, because the ones I trained retired and took their skills with them to the golf course. I can only hope that we can plan better for next year knowing all the missteps we may have made this year.   As I start this new course, Adult Learning, I have to remember that we have some new students amongst us and they may need time to learn all we know already about wimba and blackboard. I am a total newbie to the concepts being presented in this course, I haven't even heard of  Andragogy before!

  I loved listening to the newbies from our last class totally take lead in this class tonight.  Their growth is a testament to their strength and tenacity. Of course, I did not enjoy hearing them try to get me to go first.  I think they are trying to throw me under the bus...