Getting into gear!
I have worked on the outside of the education system for 8 years now. When I left full time teaching I started working with schools providing courses and advice about their use of ICT in subject teaching.
Providing professional development for teachers in this area is much needed- there is much to do and schools move only slowly, a few teachers in the fast stream with many preferring to teach in ways that they know and feel comfortable with.
In the UK schools are organised into county areas and education services, together with professional development, are often provided by the local authority. The independent provider has to work with and around the local authority services and sometimes it can be tough to get work.
So, if teaching was what you did, and now you provide services to schools and teachers, you have to learn new skills and marketing gets to be an important issue. Learning to market one’s services is where I am now at. Getting into gear is what I have to do.
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OK, so now I’m curious:
How did you learn to market yourself? What advice would you offer others? What do you wish you knew then, that you know now?
(Not that I’m leaving teaching anytime soon, your post just prompted my thinking in the direction above).
@Kim thanks for your comment! I think that marketing is really important- I have done very little of it, and now need more work!! So ,I have lots of ideas for things that I believe would be useful ideas for practitioners- for example all of the Web 2.0 stuff that is evolving so quickly that it gets almost impossible to get on top of.; like blogging itself which I think can be a fantastic tool in the classroom.
So, I have the great idea…only problem no one else knows about it, and in fact may not even know that it would be a great idea if they heard it.
I am about to mail all the schools in my area with some ideas of stuff I could do with them, so will have to give it some careful thought.
Do you think that promoting my services should really take place in a different place to my reflecting on how to do it? Do you think that it seems unprofessional to discuss how to do it in the same space?