Be Contagious

"good educators share useful tools with each other."

Several weeks ago, during a PD session with MS teachers, I shared a Web 2.0 tool called Wallwisher.  It wasn't the point and just happen to be a small tool that I used during the time together.  I used it in that specific session because I wanted participant-to-participant interaction, rather than participant-to-facilitator interaction.  It worked well for my purposes.

From there, one of the administrators attending went on to share it with our school leadership team and use it in a meeting.  One of our coordinators then proceeded to use Wallwisher with MS and HS staff during PD days.  From there, some teachers took and applied it to their classrooms and students engaged this tool for learning.

When I first introduced this tool, I had no idea it would spread in this manner.  I'm sure that others may have heard about it from other sources than just inside our community and my original introduction.  However, good educators share useful tools with each other.  I love it when students say they know what we did in professional development because their teachers all tried it out on them the following week.  It means the PD was useful and applicable.

If you are a technology leader (formal or informal), share useful tools with your colleagues.  And don't just share a link, share how you used it to enhance learning.  With many tools or technology integration activities, you can do this in a 5-10 minute casual conversation.  When other educators see how it impacts learning and your enthusiasm of the impact it had on your lesson, they are much more likely to implement it for themselves.    Be intentional in your leadership, regardless of your formal position.


Oh, and by the way, this applies to much more than just technology.  Be contagious.

No More Excuses

It may not be comfortable, but educators have to be savvy enough to quit buying the 2.0 version of the dog ate my homework.

A blog post by Alain Meyer entitled "A New Era of Homework Excuses" caught my attention.  He talks about how students take advantage of teachers and their ignorance when it comes to technology.  Technology becomes the excuse for whatever a student has failed to deliver.  I think he has a point.  We allow students to take advantage of us in our attempts to extend some grace.

CC Aaron Jacobs

I recently sat down at lunch with a student who had failed to give a presentation the previous day for the teacher sitting next to her.  She forgot her laptop that day.  Really?!?  We are 1:1 laptop school.  How do you forget your laptop?  I questioned her further.  I asked her if she really had the presentation done.  Of course, she said, yes.  I questioned her further about what the timestamps on her files might tell me.  She dodged the question and we had a laugh, moving on to other conversation.  I have no doubt that she took advantage of the extra time to work on her presentation to say the least...and probably didn't have it ready to begin with.

While in college, I've worked for hours on a paper and then lost a half day's work.  Did that change the due date?  Nope.  Work faster, stay up later, and make it better the second time around. The other day I was working on a document and lost it (due to my own user error).  That work did not suddenly go away. I had to redo it and still make my deadlines.  It's the real world and although grace is nice, we need to push students away from excuses and toward responsibility.  I suppose having them take responsibility for their own learning is a major goal here.  Life doesn't always wait for the planets to align.  Sometimes we get curveballs at the worst possible times.

As educators, we continue to integrate more technology in the classroom.  We need to hold students accountable.  I'm not advocating losing all understanding and graciousness with students. We just need to use it a little more sparingly and hold ourselves accountable for some learning in this area.  It may not be comfortable, but educators have to be savvy enough to quit buying the 2.0 version of the dog ate my homework.

Overwhelmed?

The more I know, the more I realize I don't know.  The world of technology resources is vast and seemingly endless.  I see many people just overwhelmed by the technology available and it comes out as frustration and a feeling that it's hopeless to even try getting up to speed.

Steven Anderson wrote a nice blog post focused on beginning teachers and those that feel overwhelmed.  He rightly points out that teaching the first few years is vastly different than having a few years of experience under your belt.  Can you imagine walking into many of our schools just out of college with no experience and encountering many of these technology resources for the first time, particularly coming from a teaching program that fails to prepare you for this reality in schools?  And first year teachers are not the only ones overwhelmed.  Experienced teachers can have these exact same feelings in technology.

Some teachers give in and do nothing, resigning themselves to irrelevancy and hopelessness.  I see some tech savvy teachers and professional developers reinforce this by overwhelming teachers with what's available.  It is important to get outside our limited perspectives but those responsible for professional development also need to know their audience.  Sometimes less is more.  For many teachers, focusing on 2-3 things that can powerfully impact their classroom is sufficient for a year of growth.  The depth of use by the teacher can really help students learn and benefit the classroom instead of a surface glaze of many different "cool" tools.

We have to exercise the same discretion and information literacy that we need to be teaching our students.  We need to filter out what is most important in a digital world and determine how to leverage it for learning.  As technology leaders, we also have to help others find balance so teachers are not overwhelmed.  In the midst of our push to move people forward in their journey, we need to do so responsibly so we don't undermine ourselves with a lack of depth.

If you are an overwhelmed teacher, model the goal-setting you ask your students to do.  Don't give up!  Make some manageable strides forward and seek a true learning community that enlists the help of your students!

GSIS21 Cohort

I have been trying to look for ways to build capacity and expand our knowledge base of "experts" at both our campuses. For GSIS, we have decided to take a small group and go deeper with content than we can with a larger group. In consultation with division leaders, we invited some faculty to participate in a series of PD sessions stretching from September to March 2011. We want to create a cohort of learners that can share a common experience and take their knowledge to the next level. We have so many teachers that are interested and desire this sort of training that is hard to select just a few.

Kathleen Ferenz's 2nd day of PD was spent with this group. We focused on what she called the visual and audio channels. We had a great day of understanding how to construct learning by starting with visuals. We spent a lot of time with iPhoto in the morning. Then we moved to podcasting with GarageBand in the afternoon. Like the previous day, we had fun and learned skills that had immediate applications to classrooms. We also embarked on a larger journey of transforming our perspective to create truly effective 1:1 classrooms. I'm looking forward to continuing our learning together!

Fun PD

GSIS was privileged to have Kathleen Ferenz come in for 2 days of professional development for faculty. She is an Apple Professional Developer that has worked extensively in many areas of technology integration including both the Apple, Google, and Library of Congress worlds. She was a great resource to have and a pleasure to learn from. For me, it was thrilling to see faculty engage in PD that was fun and brought smiles to their faces. Teachers walked out the door with something they could use in their classroom next week and apply to unit development in coming months to transform their classroom. Immediate engagement, short term applications, and long term impacts. I like this model for PD and have sought to implement it with sessions that I lead.

Transformation. It's about taking a classroom and making a vibrant learning environment that embraces the tools available as a 1:1 classroom. 1:1 classrooms are different. It's not just doing some tasks digital instead of on paper. I'm not sure the education community gets this point. I see many people think they are excellent tech integrationists because they do the best paper based tasks on laptops. It's so much more than that...

Thanks, Kathleen, for a great couple days of PD with our faculty!

Singapore APD Training 2010

I had the opportunity to attend Apple Professional Developer training in Singapore this weekend. As always, I am reminded that international educators in the Asia region are superb. My fellow APDs are excellent educators and a great reminder of why we have chosen to implement Apple at our school. In addition to the benefits of the equipment and software, we get access to a great network of educators that are willing and able to consult and support other schools. I look forward to working with these colleagues to continue growing the Asia region.

As with the Apple Distinguished Educator training that I went to last month, I feel that great things happen when the synergy of like-minded people come together. Although diversity was present in terms of schools and educational backgrounds, we shared the same goals and philosophy underpinning our work. During this weekend, we shared many tips, tricks, and dialogued about best practices and ideas. It was authentic, dynamic learning taking place, and I believe we all walked out with something to show for it. It's like the roads below converging to form a flow of traffic that benefits student learning. It's powerful and exciting to be a part of it.

I look forward to continuing work with my new colleagues.

Plugging Freetech4teachers Blog...and the Google Guide for Educators

I have found the Freetech4teachers Blog to be a bit overwhelming with the amount of content posted there regularly. However, I suppose information glut can be a good thing at times and the key is to skim and read sporadically rather than hitting every post. At least, that is my advice.

Richard Byrne has really done a good job of compiling resources. I particularly like his work to put together a guide to the Google tools available to teachers. With so many schools running Google Apps, this is a great resource for educators around the world.

I encourage you to peruse this blog. Tons of helpful resources are there. For example, Freeology offers printable resources like graphic orgnizers for teachers (see Byrne's blog post for more details). You can find virtual field trip resources and even links to tutorials like Mac for Beginners.

Make sure you are taking some time to explore the many tools available on the web to help students learn and make this type of professional reading part of your regular diet.

Inspiration from Joseph Linaschke

As we journey through life, we come in contact with phenomenal people from time to time. From my experience during the Apple Asia Distingushed Educator (ADE) training (#ade2010), I found Joseph Linaschke (@travel_junkie) to be one of those people. He is super-talented in a highly competitive and high skill field. During his time at Apple, he worked extensively with the development of Aperture, the professional grade of iPhoto, among his other projects. He currently runs Apertureexpert.com and appears regularly on the This Week in Photography (TWiP) podcast.

He spent several days with our group, giving us photography tips, Aperture tips, and just generally spoke about many of his experiences. He has had a camera on his shoulder as long as he could remember and his experience and expertise shows. As I watched him interact with members of our group, he was unassuming and easily engaged in conversation. He engaged in the experience with us and helped us meet some of our project goals during the week. Some people that are at the top of their field come off as in a way that makes their work seem untouchable--never attainable. Joseph made it reachable for us...he encouraged us to give it a shot. I love photography and it is a growing interest. My level is low and interacting with someone at this high level could have easily discouraged me. My experience this past week inspired my creativity and motivated me to remove any limits I may have placed on myself.

As educators and leaders, we want to do this daily. Whether it is our students or colleagues, it is not about us. We want to inspire others to dream bigger and be better as a result of their interaction with us. I would venture to say that many ADEs will take away thoughts and tips that Joseph never intended to impart to us. That is part of phenomenal people--one walks away from the interaction getting much more than intended and the impact of the interaction lasts much longer than the time frame in which it actually occurred. For me, the 5 days will continue to extend by my reflection on how my interactions will impact others on a daily basis and how I can inspire the creativity I desire in others. And the beauty of a 2.0 world means that this may be done in person or in tools such as this blog. How about you? Do you inspire those around you to greater things?

Joseph took some of us on an optional photowalk around our hotel near the Singapore Merlion. Although I didn't have my Nikon SLR with me, I did take these with my older Sony H2. Thanks, Joseph, for the tips and inspiration!

Simplifying Life - Part 2

Professional growth can come by a variety of paths. I stumbled across a blog entitled Zen Habits by Leo Babauta. I'm not sure where I got it but Time ranked it as one of the best 25 blogs in 2009. Zen Habits has some nice tips for everyday life and productivity. From this blog, I was referred to a relatively new blog that Babauta has started: mnmlist. I particularly like his post titled Clutter is Procrastination.

Read it. Seriously. I think he is right.

Clutter is often a result of my unwillingness to act now. Sometimes waiting and reflecting is a good thing. But more often than not, it postpones action which adds stress to our lives and mounts up into bigger projects than a simple effort to finish tasks.

Whether it is email, dirty clothes, or the kids toys, I'm trying to keep the clutter at bay. Put in the extra 15 seconds or 2 minutes to get the job done.

Leo's mnmlist blog references the fact we fill our lives with a lot of unnecessary things. We buy lots of stuff we don't need and sometimes never use. How much time and energy have we invested into "things" that are not important. So much of this comes back to priorities. I'm no zen guru and don't desire to be, but there is something to be said for simplifying life. Leo says,

It just takes the decision to live with less, and to be content with where you are and what you have and who you are.

Sounds like some advice worth considering...

Simplifying Life - Part 1

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

- Robert Frost

As I embarked on another school year this fall, I reflected on the past and considered how I wanted to go forward. And I wanted to travel a different road. I think my reflections were based on 2 realizations: 1) We fill our time no matter how much or how little we have; 2) We want to and have the opportunity to do more things than time allows. These 2 concepts are coupled together and I have known them, but I have not changed my actions to adjust -- until now.

Priorities are critical. When we have more than we can do, what do we choose to do? If we just let life happen, odds are good we'll work on trivial things but are we working on what is most important? Sure, I get stuff done, but is it the right stuff?

I've made a decision--I am not going to just let life happen. I'm going to do what I can to prioritize. Please note: I did not say control. That's God's job. But I can prioritize what does come my way. Prioritizing starts with knowing what we are doing and what we need to do. And it means some stuff may not get done today. And it may mean some stuff never gets done because it should not be a priority.

So, how am I doing this? First, I am working with a task list. My previous task list was my post-it note on my desk or my email inbox. If life was good, I had 25-30 messages in my inbox in each of my 2 work inboxes so a total of 50-60 messages. When life got hectic, I would double that. That is a pretty poor way to manage tasks yet I have a strong suspicion that I'm not the only one that does this. Anyone need to confess?

Now, I read my emails. I leave them there if they will be responded to later in the day. If they aren't a priority for the day, I copy and paste the relevant part of the email to my task list and schedule it when it fits as a priority. And it may get rescheduled multiple times as I adapt to changing tasks. Responding is important, but it may not be important immediately. Of all the emails I get, a small part is actionable. The actionable part goes on my to-do list. The rest can be saved or deleted. My goal is to get my inbox at 0 messages each night before I go home. The exception is something I plan to respond to first thing the next morning. However, never more than 1 or 2 messages remain. In an effort of full disclosure, I have been doing this for 2+ weeks--so far, so good. All tasks don't come through email but it is just one example of what I am talking about. Using a task list also keeps you focused on the priorities you have set...not new distractions coming into your inbox or across your desk.

Getting organized is just one step I have taken. I use Things to accomplish this. It allows me to schedule tasks and even drag shortcuts of files into my to do list. Whether you use Things or something else, get organized and prioritize.

More than just computers...

As we partner with Apple, it is a partnership. Unlike our Window vendors, we are getting more than just computers delivered to our door step. Apple supports our school with training and professional development for teachers and for the IT staff. The IT support includes on-site support for our students and staff as well.

Professional development for teachers has several different avenues to impact teachers in the classroom. Some involve attending conferences with other educators. Other options include having educators that specialize in effective technology integration visit our campus and work with teachers. I have attended Apple Professional Development (APD) training sessions and the facilitators are quality educators that can demonstrate classroom uses. Actually, these trainers are required to also be in the classroom at least part of the time with their full-time job assignments. By utilizing Apple training opportunities, we are able to screen out professional development opportunities and participate in high quality, strategic sessions that move our school forward. These training events do more than just focus on Apple applications. Training includes the use of many Web 2.0 tools that can be used with either platform.

In addition to specific professional development, we are connected with other Apple schools that are implementing similar 1:1 laptop programs. The connections to other schools is a powerful way to network with similar schools and build from each other. We are already connected through associations with Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI) and the East Asia Regional Council of Overseas Schools (EARCOS). Although Apple is not a specific association, the network and facilitation of Apple to share ideas between schools acts in similar ways. As a result of our exploration of Apple, we have already begun to build partnerships in other areas like IB with 2 others schools running similar programs.

Stumbleupon

I have been using StumbleUpon for about 2 months. It is a free web service and can also be a Firefox add-on so a toolbar appears in your browser. I use Firefox so I prefer the toolbar for ease of use.

How does it work?
When you sign up, you identify categories and interests that you have as well as contacts. Based on that information, the service takes you to random websites that other users have identified as good and applicable to your interests. It's pretty easy and straightforward. And yes, I have run across several sites that were quite good but I may never have found otherwise.

What are the benefits?
This is a great way to share bookmarks as it is easy to send links to specific friends in your contacts. I have used this as part of my PLN (personal learning network) to trade links on several occasions. It is also a great way to stumble across some good sites that could otherwise be lost in the exobytes of data on the web.

I see this is a tool for professional growth but can also lead you to some good classroom resources and tools. In addition to finding some resources, it can turn some leisure surfing into productive and applicable professional or personal learning. Who knows...maybe someone will Stumble across the Be Literate blog.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is a popular term but what is it? Well, the word social can be a little inaccurate in the strictest sense. It's not just social as in informal or in the personal realm. It refers to linking communities. The concept is relatively simple. I may like the same sites and topics as my friends. Additionally, I may like the same sites as my friends' friends, even though I may not know them. Social bookmarking leverages relationships to point you to things that may interest you. It can access bookmarks through relationships, categories, or interests.

I'm fairly new to social bookmarking. I don't particularly like to share all my bookmarks. And I don't always bookmark everything that is of interest to me. However, I have found some value to this concept. I have been able to leverage it to find new information on particular topics. Within my PLN of professional educational technology educators, I have run across many new sites that I see as valuable and helpful to my professional growth. It has become a way for me to expand my community and find new sites that expose me to new things.

Social bookmarking really steps into the beginning stages of the semantic web, or Web 3.0. It is "smart" and helps you find places that are of interest and value to you. Some social bookmarking applications learn and tailor themselves to your preferences on what you like and don't like. The concept is really not foreign. Do you use iTunes? The genius feature of iTunes recommends music to you according to what music you have in your library and the particular song. It is tailored to you. Social bookmarking is really just making the same types of recommendations, just in a different sense. iTunes is not the first to use this idea...Amazon has been doing it for years.

Social bookmarking works largely off of tags. Users "tag" keywords to sites so they can be searched or are associated as relevant to certain topics. Tagging is a common term and commonly used on many photo sites. It has many uses and makes accessing relevant information easier. Tagging is great when people work together. Instead of waiting for me to tag 1,000s of sites, I can leverage others to help me tag good sites and be able to search and categorize them effectively based on the wisdom the collective group. Tagging is often associated with images because the only way to search the content is through tags. However, it is also helpful in something like this blog to reference ideas. (This concept also links to Wesch's video of The Machine is Us/ing Us.)

Examples of social bookmarking sites might include del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Digg, Diigo, and Ma.gnolia.org just to name a few. I even noticed that Foxmarks, my Firefox add-on, is becoming a social bookmarking application. Wikipedia has a fair list of the many bookmarking tools available.

RSS Feeds - Bringing the Info to You

One issue many teachers face is how to keep up with information posted in many places. RSS, short for "really simple syndicates," is a great way to organize your life and potentially save time. To summarize, you sign up and subscribe to a website and any updates to that site will automatically be sent into your RSS reader. The video below gives a simple explanation in under 4 minutes.





I use Google Reader. Why?...Because I already use Google Apps and Gmail. If you have accounts with Yahoo or other services, they likely have an RSS reader that can be easily accessible. Consolidating your websites and software to one login is nice, regardless of who it is.

RSS feeds are also nice when you setup your own customized homepage. For reasons I previously mentioned, I use iGoogle. Others may use Yahoo or Netvibes among others to do the same thing. These services allow you to customize your homepage with relevant news, your email inbox, stock quotes, funny quotes, etc. in addition to your RSS feeds. Most services also give you the option of having multiple tabs on these customized pages so you can have several screens of customization.

If students are using blogs in class, editing Google Docs, or even working on Wikis, RSS feeds a great way for teachers to have all the student information in one place.

At the bottom of this blog, rather than the RSS feed, you will see an option to subscribe to "Posts (Atom)". Atom feeds work the same way and integrate the same way RSS feeds work, it just different coding so it has a different name. You will also see a drop down menu on the right side to subscribe this blog to the reader of your choice. Try it out...

Google Notebook

Google has lots of applications to peak educators' interests so I suppose it is no surprise this company makes one of the the early posts here. I recently ran across Google Notebook. Like many Google tools, it is entirely web-based although a browser plugin can be installed for most browsers which is a nice enhancement. (If you don't know what a plugin is, don't worry about it.)

What is it?
Google Notebook allows you to store websites and "clips" from anywhere while you are surfing. Sure, bookmarks can store web addresses, but Google Notebook allows you to classify them into folders and "clip" relevant parts. If you select a part of a website, it will store that clip with the web address. Later, I can go back and easily reference the part of the website I found useful and click on the link to see the whole page if I want. Additionally, I can also write comments about the site and whatever notes I care to make regarding my clip.

So why is this so great for myself or my students?
The cool part comes in because not only can I store things in my notebook with relevant material and notes, but I can also share notebooks.

To give a real life application, I am currently working with some colleagues to research and develop some resources on digital citizenship and what we should be teaching our students about online behaviors. We have created a shared notebook to store our research and resources. We will be able to go back later and coherently put the ideas together. Think of it as compiling research resources or a bit of research brainstorming.

If you have students working in groups on a project, perhaps they could use Google Notebook to collaborate together and even write notes to each other about the sources they find. For example, if ES students are preparing for their PYP Exhibition project, they could use it to collect resources and share them among the group and their teacher. A great benefit is that is stores the link automatically which is often needed for proper citing.

I can even publish these notebooks on the web. So not only can I collaborate and store up this information, but I can share it via a weblink to those that may want to access it.

Other resources such as Evernote are around and may offer some additional features. I can't comment on other programs because I haven't used them myself, but I found Google Notebook to be easy and intuitive with few bumps on the learning curve so far. It follows my principles of user-friendly and reliable. Check it out...