Photo Credit: Angie Harrison

One of the nice consequences of the move to my current school has been the drive to work has been extended by a few more minutes. Before we get to agitated about my carbon footprint, my previous commute was through mostly urban and suburban areas with lots of stopping and going in traffic. My new commute has me taking  a 30 minute trek on a lovely rural road with exactly 3 stop lights between my home and school with NO traffic (other than the odd farm tractor).

Rather than listen to the biased rants of talk radio hosts, or the overwrought, cliche-ridden ramblings of our local sports radio jocks about the fate of my beloved Toronto Maple Leafs; I’ve decided to make my mom proud and go to Harvard.Not in Cambridge but in the comforts of my shiny compact SUV.

Harvard has collected a great stash of education-related podcasts from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and has made them available through iTunes U. They are all about 15 minutes in length and address a wide range of topics, both in the North American and global context.  I find listening to a podcast twice during my morning drive is a great way to flow the juices, launch the day and make the drive a reflective experience.

Two things that I’m tossing about right now spring from recent talks I’ve listened to by Richard Elmore and Wynton Marsalis on leadership, creativity and change:

1) Investing in teachers involves  more than throwing resources and training in their general direction. Investing in people means I have to give some of myself; my time, my interest, my passion. People are looking for leaders who get that and show it through their actions (not just their action plans)

2) Change is both incremental and dynamic. When we connect creative people around a purpose the change process will take time, but can leap and evolve in almost magical ways~ as long as we understand that it is the trust and the relationships that lead to the growth and not mandates or external pressures.

I’m grateful to our colleagues at Harvard for investing in my learning, and for setting an example of one way that personalized, just in time learning can work. I’m also grateful for my time I have to drive my way to becoming a better person (and leader).

Recently I had the opportunity to go to the British Columbia School Superintendent’s Association Conference in Vancouver, BC.  At the conference, there were more than 450 District Superintendents, Principals, Vice Principals, Treasurers, and students in attendance to listen to presenters speak about personalizing learning for students in the 21st century in a British Columbia context.

Amongst the speakers was Charles Leadbeater, a renowned expert on innovation in various areas in the private and public sector.  He talked about a number of different things including the changing face of innovation with social media, the evolution of innovation from the contributions of few to the contributions of many, and the scaling up of innovation from small pockets here and there to large scale implementation of innovation throughout a particular sector.  He also described a series of thought provoking analogies;  while each was interesting, the one that piqued the attention of the large group on a Friday night after a long week was not difficult to pick out.

What education can learn from wine.

Dr. Leadbeater began to describe the French wine industry and the process of selecting a suitable bottle from a long list of French wines that one might experience were they to go to a posh and exclusive French restaurant.  He described the oft-intimidating process of the sommelier coming with a list that might have several dozen different varieties and brands to a person that might have little or no experience with wines.  Having gone through this experience on many occasions myself, I really identified with the strategy that he described:  “One doesn’t pick the top three for fear that one might be seen as cheap just as one tends not to pick the bottom three because they are far too expensive.  Instead, the typical person blindly picks something somewhere in the middle, with little knowledge or proffered advice as to whether that bottle would go well with their particular meal.”

I can identify with this.  I certainly have felt intimidated by what appears to be an expert who speaks in terms that I have little or know comprehension about.  Truth be known, I just hope that I get a nice wine that tastes palatable.

Leadbeater went on to describe what happens when the bottle shows up.   It is often non-descript, with a label in a different language and very little information about the contents.   I will admit (with a bit of a red face) that at times in the past, if the bottle was of a particularly dark color, that I have wondered whether I have actually ordered a red or a white wine right up to the point where I pour it in my glass!  He talked about how most people do not have the time to research and figure out whether a particular variety compliments their meal.  The French had the wine market cornered, the language of wine cornered, and did little to help their consumers because they didn’t have to.  France and good wine were synonymous, and if you wanted to know what variety went with your lamb, you needed to go do your research and find out.

With many people nodding in the crowd, Mr. Leadbeater then talked about the Australian wine industry, and how they had stormed on to the wine scene with a very different approach.  If one were to look at their typical wine bottles, one would find a simple description of the wine AND some useful tips about which meals that particular wine might go well with.  Having Chicken Korma? Try me!  As a result, he contended, Joe Q. Public in a hurry on their way home from work would rather read a label and grab a bottle of the grape from Oz rather than wander aimlessly up and down the multitude of aisles filled with French wine trying to determine what was going to go well with the salmon they purchased from Costco.  This really struck a chord with me.

He then related this to education.  He cautioned the group about the current system and methodologies around education might be considered to be analogous to French wine.  In BC, education might be considered by many to be a lexicon for quality, with a proven track record of success.  However, for many, it might be shrouded in a dark bottle without a description of what it might actually ‘go with’.  It might be considered to be described in terms that people outside of education are not familiar with, and understood only by educational sommeliers–district administrators, principals, and teachers.  And he also highlighted the fact that our consumers (our students and parents) right now may be looking for something that is more easily understood, that is in clear and transparent packaging, and that is more applicable to what they need to succeed.

This resonated with me.  I realize that oftentimes, I speak in ‘educationese’, in terms that are puzzling (and sometimes outright offensive) to people in business, industry, the trades, or to the general public (including our students).  In order to create positive partnerships with our ‘consumers’, we need them to be very knowledgeable and informed about what we do at schools and the value of this education for our students as contributors to society.  We need to be able to clearly articulate the skills that kids are learning in our buildings and how these will be transferable not just to something such as post-secondary education, but to business, industry, the trades, or whatever our students may choose to do.  And perhaps most importantly, we need to articulate this for our students in our buildings TODAY.

The answers to the question “Why are we doing this?” can no longer be “because you need to know this”, “because it is important”, “because it’s on the test”, “because you need this to go to university”, or “because I said so”.  To use the wine analogy,  if we don’t put our outcomes from our classes and our system into a transparent vessel with clear markings that everyone can understand, we run the risk of our students and parents looking to ‘consume’ their education from a ‘bottle’ (educational provider) that goes better with their chosen meal (career).  If we do personalize this ‘consumption’, we have a much greater chance of engaging our students in their learning at our schools.

A great presentation by Mr. Leadbeater, and if you have the chance to see him, I recommend you do.  He will stimulate your thinking about education, and perhaps about wine as well!

Cross posted at The Learning Nation

"fist bump" cc by Mark H. Anbinder on flickr

Many schools are beginning to use social media to send out information to parents. Examples include twitter feeds and facebook pages. These initial forays into social media are a first step. They provide parents and the community with greater access to information regarding the school and the learning happening within its walls.

A key facet of school leadership is developing relationships, both within staff and also with families and the community. This relationship building must include seeking feedback and listening. Most of this work is done face to face, through school events or outreach programs and even through informal conversations in the hallways or at drop off or pick up time.

We live in a time when top-down leadership and closed door meetings are no longer seen as the way to get things done. Stakeholders want to be involved in decision-making. They want to know what their school leader is thinking and what he or she values. They want, above all, to trust that their child is in the very best hands at school.

How can we use those same social media tools to engage in conversation, rather than simply pushing out information?

This will be the crux of my discussion tonight, February 20th at 9:00 PM EST when I join Lorna Costantini, author of the ourschool.ca blog, for the Parents as Partners webcast. Please consider joining the discussion and sharing with your staff and your community. Here is a brief overview of key topics for discussion:

• Leadership 2.0: Leading through Listening and Learning
• What is twitter and how do I get started?
• How can parents and schools use social media to engage in meaningful conversations?
• What challenges do we face when we use social media and how can we overcome them?
• Open discussion: What are your burning questions/issues/concerns? What are your succes stories?

The session will be open to all who are interested. In order to make the most of the experience, consider using a headset with mic so that you can fully join the conversation. Hope to “see” you there!

from ourschool.ca:

Please join us:
DATE: Monday February 20, 2012
TIME: 9:00 PM EDT (GMT-5) Time Zone Converter
LOCATION: http://tinyurl.com/ETTpasp

You can join us in the elluminate room at http://tinyurl.com/ETTpasp The slides, websites and chat conversation will be held in this room. If you have a USB headset with microphone you can come to the mic to ask questions. The room will be open 15 min before the webinar for the orientation on how to participate in a BlackBoard Collaborate meeting room.

Link to Parents as Partners webcast: http://tinyurl.com/ETTpasp
Test your computer settings Test your settings

“Skepticism has many definitions, but generally refers to any questioning attitude towards knowledge, facts, or opinions/beliefs stated as facts, or doubt regarding claims that are taken for granted elsewhere.”

Source: Wikipedia

Yesterday in a conversation with an elementary principal colleague, I allowed myself to become irritated.

I wasn’t irritated with Bill. He seems to be a genuinely great person who works hard to bring the best learning opportunities to his school. I’ve never actually met him, although I imagine I will engage in a face-to-face conversation at some point in the future, since his school is in a neighboring county in Pennsylvania. P.S. Bill is working to develop his PLN, so visit his profile and say hello! 

Principal networking was the topic of our conversation. In our county, there are planned elementary principals’ meetings at our IU about once every two months or so. Turnout is low- maybe 12-15. Considering how many elementary principals there are in our county, it’s not an impressive gathering. They do their best to accommodate our schedules by beginning at 7:30 and striving to return us to our buildings by 9:30 to avoid interruptions to our day, which we all appreciate. They offer topics that are interesting and informative. There are robust conversations. We end up leaving with packets of paper. Not my favorite.

But I wonder – what about the two months between meetings? Surely we have topics to discuss, questions to ask, and may be in need of support during the “off” time? Why limit our network capabilities in this way? Resources are sometimes shared via a listserv (I didn’t even know to spell listserv), so needless to say there isn’t a lot of sharing and communication that is ongoing and/or powerful.

Bill shared that elementary principals in his county met for the first time using Elluminate. Wow! I was impressed to hear that they utilized that format to streamline the meeting process. Sadly, attendance was low. I believe he said there were about 2 or 3 participants.

2 or 3. Out of a county of 9 districts, one of which is a large urban district with 15 elementary schools. Imagine the power of bringing all of those principals together- each with unique skill sets, ideas, questions, concerns, and resources to share.

“If you build it, they will come.” Not always. Because, as we know, to delve into working with new technologies and interacting with social media in new ways requires a foundation of trust. In one another, in the systems, in the ideologies.

It takes courage and an open mind, too.

Here’s my irritation: A participant in Bill’s session voiced his concern about Twitter, in that you’re not able to trust who you follow online because they might not be who they say they are. Really? As building administrators, that’s the level of awareness we have about social media? I worry for our teachers and students in our schools if that is the case.

Could you possibly encounter someone online who is portraying themselves as an elementary principal but who really isn’t? I suppose. (And I could think of about a billion more glamorous personas to assume!) But a misconception that Twitter profiles are fluff comes from someone who has only encountered the portrayal of what social media could be. He has yet to experience this type of networking for himself. It comes from a need to learn more about digital literacies. And if he hasn’t experienced it, he surely isn’t modeling it for his school community.

So, as school leaders who find benefit in this type of networking, we need to do a better job of demonstrating how and why it makes a difference. Many of us share our ideas on our blogs, at conferences, in publications…. and I think we’re really getting somewhere with school administrators as a whole.

I know it is not the only way to network, and I appreciate face-to-face opportunities for learning. But I know the demands of this role become more incredible every day.  And I know that we all experience the strain and stress this job can bring, and that having a network I can turn to is sometimes my saving grace on the rare occasion when I steer towards my wit’s end. They always have answers, and they always provide support.

So what I’m looking for in the comments section below are ways that administrators who are new to social media and professional learning networks can get started. Help their fears subside… help them battle the skepticism and preconceived notions they may have about the tools and the connections made. By sharing one real example of how social media has added to your learning, and/or by listing resources such as Connected Principals where administrators can go to gain a sense of community, or book titles such as Communicating and Connecting with Social Media, we can help grow our collective.

Please add to the conversation! 

This post was originally shared on my blog on 1/19/2012.

CC licensed image shared by Flickr user heyjudegallery

One of the most uplifting, exciting, and celebratory conferences for educators and students is the National Jostens Renaissance Conference which takes place every July. I’ve had the privilege of attending the conference for 7 years and each year I leave feeling recharged, rejuvenated, and valued as an educator. Yes, it’s that great!

Jostens Renaissance is a philosophy that focuses on creating a positive school climate and culture by inspiring students and staff to celebrate educational performance.  Learning, risk taking, collaboration and play are celebrated throughout the entire conference. The energy comes from the participants including students of all ages, teachers, support staff, and administrators.

This year’s conference will take place July 13-15 in Orlando, FL and the theme is “Something to Believe In.” The line up of featured speakers is top notch: Todd Whitaker, Keith Nord, Emmy Award winning speaker, Mark Sharonbrauch, Jessica Weiner, Justin Patchin and Sameer Hinduja, Ruby Payne, and the “Red Rubber Ball” man himself, Kevin Carroll! While this line up is outstanding, the power lies in the hundreds of presentations by educators like you and me.

There will be a list of breakout sessions that highlight what schools from across North America are doing to increase student achievement, attendance, citizenship and service in connection with local communities.  To top it off, for three days, those of us in attendance are treated like royalty! There is no talk about what educators aren’t doing, only appreciation for our service and dedication to the young people we have been blessed to work with. Carve out some time in July to attend this awesome conference! Not convinced? Check out Jostens Renaissance on Facebook. If you believe in inspiration, creativity, collaboration, celebration, unity, and learning, I look forward to seeing you there!

Be Great,

Dwight

This is also posted on Mr. Carter’s Office

Courtesy of si.com

I have to admit it. I am still reeling from the Patriots’ Super Bowl loss. But there is a sports story rising up very quickly from the same city that spawned the Super Bowl champion New York Giants, fortunately distracting me from that fateful game. If you haven’t heard, Jeremy Lin is a 23 year basketball phenom for the New York Knicks who recently rose to prominence after living a brief NBA life in obscurity. Lin is unusual stock for the NBA as he is one of the league’s very few Chinese-Americans players and a rare NBA-playing graduate of an Ivy League School. This 6 foot 3 Harvard grad has been sleeping on his brother’s couch in the Big Apple but his digs are bound to be improving soon as he has now set a record for the most points scored by an NBA player in his first five starts.

What I find encouraging is how many lessons can be gleaned from the rise of Mr. Lin:

1. Persistence often pays off.

While there are no guarantees that hard work will always result in great success, a lack of effort ensures a lack of success. There are numerous examples in history of great stars who succeeded after failure…Lincoln’s ascension to the Presidency after so many losses, Einstein’s many debacles before his theory of relativity, even the enigmatic Richard Nixon who lost the California gubernatorial race before being elected to two terms as President.

We may never know how the world could have changed if particular men and women remained steadfast to their dreams and fought through failure. Lin could have easily given up after being cut by two NBA teams.

2. Know your strengths and be ready for the opportunity to implement them.

Success often occurs when there is a good match between our personal skills and our opportunities. In my field, educators have to find the right community match in order to find success. Jeremy Lin fell into a perfect situation with the Knicks. He was needed because of numerous injuries and he was ready to step right in. Good fortune is often a match between opportunity and preparation.

3. Be flexible

While setting goals and vision is imperative for success, successful people must be ready to take on different roles if necessary. Lin began his unbelievable entry with the Knicks as a scorer, shooting three pointers, making jump shots, and driving to the basket. As players come back from injuries and the rest of the NBA learns about Lin a bit, he is having to retreat to more of a traditional point guard, distributing the ball to others. His stats will shift from points to assists but in the long run, this will help his basketball team to win. I don’t think statistics are important to him whatsoever.

4. Be humble.

Lin is on the cover of Sports Illustrated this week, he is the darling of social media, television, and radio, and he is about to move from his brother’s apartment to earning the NBA league minimum of around $700,000 a year. It’s important that one’s personal values remain constant no matter the consequences swirling through our lives, positive or negative. Jeremy knows who he is and understands that fame and fortune is potentially fleeting.

Years ago basketball great Charles Barkley proclaimed that he should never be a role model and that mothers and fathers should take on that role. Obviously that would be ideal, but with the power of the media, I am happy when our celebrities espouse positive values. We could use more role models like Jeremy Lin.

_ _ _

Cross posted at Bill’s blog, Principal Reflections.

Cheating is a plague upon schools across our nation, and it appears to be on the rise.   During my time visiting schools, 21 in all, private and public, during my 2008 good high school blogging project, I saw often observed cheating– sometimes blatant, “public,” shameless cheating in front of me.     But as severe as this problem is, it is not impossible for us as educators to respond, redirect, and resolve the crisis of cheating.

Two recent articles have recently surfaced the issue.   First, in Edweek’s section “Focus on Student Behavior,” Sarah Sparks has a piece entitled Studies Shed Light on How Cheating Impedes Learning.   Second, the APA (American Psychological Association) published a piece by Amy Novotney last spring with the appealingly succinct title, “Beat the Cheat.”

The two pieces overlap in the research they site, the findings they report, and the recommendations they make.  Both are constructed with strong research  foundations; see their original pieces for the evidentary basis of the claims quoted below.

Both are compelling, emphatic, and appalling in their articulation of the epidemic that is cheating.

From Edweek:

Of a nationally representative sample of more than 40,000 public and private high school students responding to the survey, 59.4 percent admitted to having cheated on a test—including 55 percent of honors students.

It continues, even worsens, in college.

From the APA:

 researchers found that nearly 82 percent of a sample of college alumni admitted to engaging in some form of cheating as undergraduates.

Cheating is not only, obviously, indicative of a deeply disturbing lack of integrity, it can negatively impact the quality of learning for all, students who don’t and students who do cheat.

Edweek:

Emerging evidence suggests students who cheat on a test are more likely to deceive themselves into thinking they earned a high grade on their own merits, setting themselves up for future academic failure. “We see that the effect of cheating is, the more we engage in dishonest acts, the more we develop these cognitive distortions—ways in which we neutralize the act and almost forget how much we are doing it.”

What’s worse still, cheating doesn’t stop on graduation day; cheating in school can set patterns that can continue on into careers.

APA:

People who cheat on exams in high school are three times more likely to lie to a customer or inflate an insurance claim compared with those who never cheated. High school cheaters are also twice as likely to lie to or deceive their boss and one-and-a-half times more likely to lie to a significant other or cheat on their taxes.

Edweek:

Moreover, such self-deception can lead to a “death of a thousand cuts” for a student’s honesty, Mr. Stephens said.  “Kids start to disengage [from] responsibility habitually; cheating in high school does lead to dishonesty in the workplace as an adult,” he said.

For all of us who see ourselves as educating the future leaders, the future stewards, and the future innovators of our society and planet, the stakes are rising for the successful outcome of our efforts to end the cheating epidemic.

How can we advance academic integrity in our schools?  

Let me share five suggestions:

First, Promote healthy school culture and authentic learning.  We must recognize that the roots of cheating lie too often in the culture of the school and the perception by students of their academic enterprise.  If we convey to students that we think their job is exclusively to get good grades, if we frame their success as being defined by their GPA, if we demand or exact their compliance by issuing extrinsic rewards, our school cultures will become cheating cultures.

APA:

Ohio State University educational psychologist Eric Anderman found that how teachers present the goals of learning in class is key to reducing cheating. Anderman showed that students who reported the most cheating perceive their classrooms as being more focused on extrinsic goals, such as getting good grades, than on mastery goals associated with learning for its own sake and continuing improvement.  High school students cheat more when.. their motivation in the course is more focused on grades and less on learning and understanding.

Edweek:

Moreover, the more students learn to focus on grades for their own sake, rather than as a representation of what they have learned, the more comfortable they are withcheating.

Second,  Teachers matter enormously, and can have a huge influence over whether their students cheat by their pedagogical choices and styles.   Teachers who take time and make the commitment to develop trusting, strong, personal relationships with their students, view them as unique individuals worthy of respect, and treat them fairly will receive in return greater respect and less cheating.

APA:

High school students cheat more when they see the teacher as less fair and caring

But more than that, teachers who seek to genuinely engage students in their learning, and help students to find a personal stake in the work of studying, will also contribute to a decline in cheating culture.

Edweek:

 Studies by Mr. Stephens and others that show students are more likely to cheat when they are under pressure to get high grades, uncertain about their own ability, unengaged in the material, or some combination of the three. In addition, students are better able to justify cheating in classes where they feel the teacher is unfair or does not attempt to engage them in learning.

Third,  we can help make the learning goals transparent.  Why do we have to learn this? and when are we ever going to need to know this?  are familiar questions to everyone who has ever been in a classroom, but what clearly some educators do a better job than others actively seeking to answer these questions effectively, often without waiting to be asked.    When they do, when we go the extra distance to make abundantly clear to students why they should learn this and how they will use it, we will reduce cheating.

APA:

Teachers can also help diminish students’ impulse to cheat by explaining the purpose and relevance of every academic lesson and course assignment.

“When students feel like assignments are arbitrary, it’s really easy for them to talk themselves into not doing it by cheating,” Rettinger says. “You want to make it hard for them to neutralize by saying, ‘This is what you’ll learn and how it’s useful to you.’”

Fourth, make integrity expectations explicit.  It may seem hokey, and I know that I sometimes prefer the implicit approaches, but the research demonstrates that calling students attention to our expectations of respect, integrity, and honor do make a meaningful difference.

Edweek:

Making students more aware of the importance of academic integrity and learning, not just grades, can make them less likely to cheat.

In a previous study, Dan Ariely, a professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke and a co-author of the Harvard-Duke study, found test-takers became less likely to cheat when reminded of a school honor code, or if they saw someone they considered an outsider cheating.

Ms. Chance and Mr. Fremer said teachers and administrators should reduce opportunities for students to cheat, help them establish classwide and schoolwide codes for academic integrity, and then stress the importance of that code before every assignment.

APA:

 Professors are also encouraged to explain the importance of academic integrity in their syllabi and to take time during the first week of class to talk about the behaviors that constitute cheating in their courses, as well as the consequences for engaging in those behaviors.

There’s also evidence that focusing on honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility and promoting practices such as effective honor codes can make a significant difference in student behaviors, attitudes and beliefs, according to a 1999 study by the Center for Academic Integrity. Honor codes seem to be particularly salient when they engage students, however. In Shu’s study on the morality of cheating, for example, she found that participants who passively read a generic honor code before taking a test were less likely to cheat on the math problems, though this step did not completely curb cheating. Among those who signed their names attesting that they’d read and understood the honor code, however, no cheating occurred.

“It was impressive to us how exposing participants to an honor code and really making morality salient in that situation basically eliminated cheating altogether,” she says.

At our school, St. Gregory, we make a priority of this particular technique, posting in every room our academic integrity expectation and requiring students to put their signature on every test they take that they have honored the pledge.    It is good and wise that we do so, but in preparing this piece I realize both that it is time for us to review again the particular wording of our code, which strikes me as less than ideal, and to emphasize again our expectations that this pledge be referred to widely and often.

Fifth, Design less “cheat-able” assessments and assignments.   Remember the research above, cheating is a contagion, and the more opportunities kids have to do it, and the more often it occurs, the more it spreads.  If we reduce or eliminate the opportunity, even a little (and why not a lot), we slow or stop the spread.

Some tests and assignments are plainly easier to cheat on than others: multiple choice more so than essays; factual recall more so than rigorous analysis and application;  same-old, same-old assignments year after year rooted in textbook learning more so than original, authentic tasks rooted in real-world, contemporary issues.    What we can now see is that changing the tests to more authentic, analytic, creative tasks isn’t just an educational imperative for teaching for understanding, it is a moral imperative in battling the plague of cheating and promoting greater academic integrity.

“Open book testing” entails far less cheating than closed book; I think that open computer testing, (aka open internet testing or Open Network Testing) takes this practice to the next level of sophistication and further toward a cheating-proof experience, most of all because teachers are forced to ask richer, google-proof questions and force a higher level of thinking and analysis.

True, students on open networks can still communicate and collaborate with each other, inappropriately: at our school during open computer testing students sign pledge swearing they have not done so.  But what is next for us is to take it to the next level: how can you, how will we, design a test where it is ok for students to collaborate online, and embed that into the expectation, so as to reduce that much further the opportunity for cheating?  This is on our agenda at St. Gregory.

I have only scratched the surface here on the topic of designing assessments to be less “cheat-able.”   We all know that when we monitor student work closely, when we asked for multiple drafts as part of a writing process, when we assign students unique tasks and when we give them greater choice in what they will work upon, we will reduce the cheating temptation.

—

All five of these practices are great practices in their own right, not only because they will, research demonstrates, “beat the cheat.”  Teaching which is personal, engaging, authentic, and meaningful; teaching which facilitates lasting understanding and transferable application; goals for learning which are comprehensible, relevant, and motivating; integrity which is publicly celebrated and affirmed; tests which are rich and complex: all these are what we want for our schools and our students.  But that these same things are also what will best combat the scourge that is infecting our schools and potentially debilitating the future of our society makes them that much more compelling.

[Photo credit: Creative Commons:  Mr_Stein: http://www.flickr.com/photos/5tein/2347819903/]

As a principal, one of my favorite things to do is listen to success stories shared by the teachers. As a father, one of my favorite things to do is listen to success stories shared by other parents. When the two worlds collide, the moment is even more special.

One of our brilliant educators recently shared the following (names have been changed):

Last night, Tommy was excited to share something with me.  He began to explain how he recognized that his weakness is forgetting to write things in his agenda and acknowledged that he needs to be better organized. GASP!  Is he growing up?  The story continues…he pulled out his i-pod and showed me how, with the approval of his teachers, he is using his i-pod to either record his homework, or create a list of required materials and assignments that he needs to remember.  Now, we are only a few days into the “new system” but it seems to be working.  Eric and I could not be happier.  I had no idea that the i-pod could offer that to him and he figured it out on his own.
 
I’d like to assume to following: 
1. This generation is way more technologically savvy than we sometimes realize.
2. By providing the proper tools, this generation is capable of overcoming obstacles in
ways we sometimes don’t even consider.
3. Sometimes when we give a little, much is gained.

Hmm…”Sometimes when we give a little, much is gained.”

Enough said.

Cross-posted at A Principal’s Reflections.

New Milford High School proudly joined 37 states, 15,000 teachers, and over 2 million students on February 1 for the inaugural Digital Learning Day.  This day, however, was not really much different than any other day at NMHS as we have made a commitment to integrate digital learning into school culture for some time now.  As Principal I am proud to state that many of the pedagogical techniques, learning activities, and tools described in the rest of this post are consistently in use on a daily basis across all content areas.  The reason for this is that we have put a premium on creating a teaching and learning culture that better meets the needs of our learners while enhancing essential skills such as collaboration, communication, creativity, media literacy, and global awareness.  Below I have summarized some of the pre-planned activities that my teachers planned and had their students engaged in on Digital Learning Day.

In Ms. Levy’s U.S. History class, students learned about the rise of Jacksonian Democracy and had to determine if Jackson was a highly successful president or a corrupt leader.  Students were broken up into groups of 5-6 students.  Each student went on line and looked at one source from Ms. Levy’s website.  They then had to use their “Origin Perspective Value Limitation” handout to answer and dissect the source in classic IB format.  Once they had evaluated the source for these 4 elements, they wrote down their answers in a group created Google Doc.  Finally, they came together as a group to decide their perspective on Andrew Jackson’s presidency.  After students decided as a group, they voted individually as a class about their opinion on the source with “Poll Everywhere,” using their cell phones.

In Mrs. Morel’s art class, students embarked on a QR Code scavenger art hunt around the school. This activity began with an introduction to QR Codes: what they are, how they are used in the marketing world, how we are going to use them, and best of all, how they (students) could use them in their lives. Students also reviewed artists’ work and tried out a few QR codes in class. For the lesson, students were paired up with a partner and utilized their Smartphone, iPod, etc. to search for clues that led them to QR Codes. The QR Codes contained various artists’ work and clue information.  Mrs. Morel wrapped up the activity with a summary of the findings and then transitioned into having the students create their own QR codes with links to their artwork and websites.  These were then posted in school for our school community to scan.

Mrs. Vicari’s business classes utilized YouTube, a variety of video sites, and websites to preview Superbowl commercials as an introduction to the semester Marketing/Advertising course.  Students discussed the definitions of marketing and advertising and how they are different.  They used a series of thought-provoking questions, while viewing the various commercials, to identify different areas of marketing and advertising that will be discussed in this course throughout the semester.

Students in Mr. Tusa’s history class investigated the history of Europe through painting (1500-1800).  He challenged students to think of a painting as an essay – in the sense that it captures not in words, as an essay does, but through a visual image, some aspect(s) of the life, history, and culture of a particular historical period from the point of view not of a writer but of an artist.  Students were given a list of paintings/engravings produced in the period 1500-1800. Working with partners, they had to choose one painting from each category, study it by paying particular attention to the political, economic, religious, social, industrial, and/or artistic way in which it captures/criticizes some aspect(s) of the period 1500-1800, and record their impressions accordingly. He reminded students to “read” the painting as they would read an essay and record their view/impression of what historical themes, ideas, person or people, the painting is portraying/criticizing.  Using Mac Books:  one student recorded and shared their comments on a Google Doc while the other searched for and viewed the paintings. Links were also provided for students to locate and view paintings.

Students in Mrs. Beiner’s Culinary Arts classes created a “how to” video for recipes.  They then posted them on her YouTube account and tracked how many hits they received over the Superbowl weekend. Her Early Childhood Development classes read a book to the pre-school children on an iPad and worked with a website to review the book.

In math, Mrs. Chellani began the lesson with mobile learning devices and Poll Everywhere to review prior learning. She then utilized a variety of virtual manipulatives (using the SMART tablet) from the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives.  These virtual games/math problems are a fantastic way to further embed the Smart tablet into daily instruction, help foster the students’ development of higher-order thinking skills, and make the learning experience more challenging and enjoyable.

History teacher Ms. Millan collaborated with Mrs. Keesing, our media specialist, on a QR code assignment. Students used their cellphones to download an app to both create and read QR codes.  To tie in with their study of the English monarchy in the Elizabethan-Stuart era, they researched websites to find quality information on selected, relevant topics.  They then created QR codes for those websites.  Students printed the codes and affixed them to some of the school library’s books — some of which greatly benefited from the updated information the students located.

Later in the day, Mrs. Keesing again collaborated with a colleague, this time in science.  With Ms. Chowdhury’s honors physics class, students used Edmodo as a means of collaborating on a new topic.  They shared their observations with their pre-set groups and uploaded images that they had created to further examine the concepts they were learning about and applying.

The students in Mrs. Westervelt’s Independent Living Skills course became familiar with, and completed an online job application to practice applying for a job in the 21st century.

In music, Mrs. Swarctz conducted a survey using Smartphones in all of her classes.  Those students who did not have one worked with those who did.  In addition, she used YouTube in each class to watch other schools that have performed the music they are currently performing.  During her second period class the students conducted research using YouTube to help with their solos.  Each lesson ended with students continuing to work in the Music lab on an on-line music theory program.

Students in Ms. Perna’s US History I class created Wordles to review information studied prior to their midterm.  In order to review prior learning, students worked in pairs to create Wordles related to the presidencies of Washington and Adams, up until the election of 1800.  This allowed students to work collaboratively using technology (computers) while reviewing prior learning.  As a class, they viewed and discussed the Wordles created in order for students to see what their peers had created while reviewing together as a large group before moving on with the curriculum.

Mr. Andolino had his Applied Music Theory students create a music commercial using software.  Finished products were posted to Pure Volume.  Prior to Digital Learning Day an original vocal rap and live performance was recorded with a portable recorder and uploaded online.

Ms. Millian’s math students utilized an Avermedia document camera to display work.  Poll Everywhere was used in class to express opinions and check for understanding by completing problems and texting answers in.

Using the Poll Everywhere, Mrs. Mackey’s English students used their cell phones to respond to questions based on what they knew about persuasive writing. The teacher gave out sample HSPA (High School Proficiency Assessment) rubrics specifically for persuasive essay writing. Then, using the Smart Board, the students read actual HSPA essay prompts and responses while using Poll Everywhere to answer, “What score do you think this essay received?” For closure, the students responded to an open ended polling question: “As of today, how do you feel you will do on the essay portion of the HSPA?”

Students in Ms. Ginter’s Biology class have been working on creating a travel brochure PowerPoint presentation using several websites that provided them with specific information on their assigned biomes. The assignment required them to include key information specific to the biome (ex. native animals, native plants, average temperature, and average precipitation), as well as interesting things for people to do or see there. They incorporated graphics in their presentation through the usage of charts, pictures, diagrams, and videos – where appropriate. The students were then responsible for rating the presentations and voting on the best one to present to a client using Poll Everywhere and their cell phones.

Here is a video we produced leading up to Digital Learning Day showcasing our Social Studies Department.

Click here to view the embedded video.

As you can see, NMHS has made a commitment to digital learning, not just on one day, but everyday.

Cross posted on Burlington High School Principal’s Blog

Please take the 5:31 to watch the short clip above from a Will Richardson talk at Proctor Academy.  I think it is imperative that all school communities spend some significant time reflecting upon their purpose and whether or not the things they are doing in their classrooms are still adequately preparing students for the world outside of their school’s walls.

We have certainly made some strides at Burlington High providing some of the technological resources that will assist us in this work, but we need to continue to assess our work againstmodern standards like the ones developed by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).  Do our students meet the criteria for what it means to literate in the year 2012?  (By the way the NCTE put out these revised standards in 2008)

How would you rate yourself or students you know in meeting the NCTE’s criteria (bulleted below)? And equally important is the question regarding how we should be redefining our role as “teachers.”

• Develop proficiency with the tools of technology
• Build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross-culturally
• Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes
• Manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information
• Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts
• Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments

For more on this, I encourage you to check out the following posts/articles from Will Richardson:

A Couple of Bold Ideas at Educon – WillRichardson.com

What Qualities Do Bold Schools Share? - WillRichardson.com

Are You an Old School or a Bold School? - District Administration – Dec. 2011

Getting ready for non-stop collaboration

“Some organizations incubate companies – we incubate people. The mission of the Sandbox Network is to accelerate young leaders and help them have a global impact before they become 30.” http://www.sandbox-network.com/

“Imagine if a country’s assessment system measured the growing impact a young person has had on sustainability, environmental responsibility, equity or social justice, rather than their ability to recall subject-based facts and content!” Stephen Harris

I had the outstanding opportunity recently of joining around 200 young entrepreneurs at the Sandbox Network Summit in Lisbon, Portugal. It was an at times challenging, but always interesting, experience to be one of only a handful of invited ‘senior mentors’ at this event.

Part of me was thinking – what if this had been around when I was in my twenties – would that have made a significant difference to my life, work and career. I suspect it would have accelerated the desire to ‘change the world’. The Sandboxers are an amazing group of energetic young people who seemingly hold no limits to their imagination and capacity. And I have no doubts that wherever they move, they will inspire, create, achieve, question and re-order their communities.

I came to the Sandbox Summit fresh from ten days in Rwanda – establishing an ‘open space’ summit for later May, 2012 (http://scil.com.au/rwanda), that will look to create fresh models for twenty first century learning in the rural regions of developing countries. It was the perfect segue to bridge the gap of my immediate experience from developing world to developed world, as the optimism of the Sandbox participants reminded me that the notion of creating a ‘collision of minds’ in Rwanda, as a means to generate change, was not only viable, but logical.

I loved every rich conversation at the Sandbox Summit; every observed interaction; every activity shoe-horned into the crammed 72 hours. (I left the late night nightclubbing to those more accustomed to 72 hours of being awake!)

But the Sandbox Summit has challenged me in new ways. What did these 200 young people look like ten years ago when they were in school? How did their schooling enhance and grow their entrepreneurial skills? Did the school system support them or fail them?Have they written off their latter school years in their minds as just a journey of tolerance, ultimately teaching them patience – and perhaps even winding an inner spring that would bounce into energy once released into post-schooling world?

As someone passionate about transforming the educative experience of schooling to something relevant and engaging, I started to analyze what an entrepreneur was – and through this, consider how entrepreneurship might be into integrated into school curriculum. Why? Quite clearly entrepreneurial thinking is an accelerant to changing societies and making inroads into some of the world’s current dilemmas. Perhaps teaching real life entrepreneurship could bring a real life relevance to learning. Imagine if a country’s assessment system measured the growing impact a young person has had on sustainability, environmental responsibility, equity or social justice, rather than their ability to recall subject-based facts and content! Perhaps we would get real change in communities.

I have a hunch that seriously teaching entrepreneurial skills at secondary school level would significantly assist lowering post-school high unemployment rates in a many contexts. This alone should create an imperative to explore the possibilities further.

I am left with a myriad of questions and a desire to connect the world of creative entrepreneurship with learning.

• What does it take to grow an entrepreneurial framework?
• What qualities most accurately describe entrepreneurial perspectives?
• Can we teach entrepreneurial skills?
• How might entrepreneurship be introduced?
• What might experience based entrepreneurship development look like?

Some early observations:

Entrepreneurial qualities are dynamic; entrepreneurial qualities are highly practical; entrepreneurial qualities lead to energetic outcomes. Entrepreneurship is about identifying and picking the ‘low hanging fruit’. Entrepreneurship is about creativity, risk, fear,
intuition and relentless endeavor. Entrepreneurship is about failing forward and not giving up.

Defining entrepreneurship (from first hand observation at the Sandbox Summit)

Where to from here?

1. I’d love to hear from Sandboxers
   and other entrepreneurs about their school experiences. Did their education
   help or hinder their entrepreneurial capacities? How and why?
2. I’d love to hear from
   Sandboxers and other entrepreneurs who may be interested in establishing a
   mentor/speaker/role model link with schools. We could start a database.
3. I’d love to establish a global
   school-aged group of young entrepreneurs who can share ideas via a web based
   community and encourage each other to initiate and implement ideas.
4. Why would we not want to teach
   these skills to and nurture the qualities identified above for every child? I’d
   love to work with a team who would be interested to create some
   project/challenge based learning modules in order to develop entrepreneurial
   capacity for high school students – modules that could be used anywhere in the
   world (developing world and developed world).
5. Schools should identify students
   with outstanding and evident entrepreneurial abilities and direct them to the
   Sandbox Network http://www.sandbox-network.com/

Is education's future getting brighter?

This interesting thought occurred during a conversation today.
Are we living through a process whereby social media is finally breaking down
some of the traditional divides that have kept education transformation
suppressed? I suspect we are.

What is twitter managing to do?

• Break down the barriers that have made it
  difficult for teachers from different sectors to meet , collaborate and talk
• Spawn new grassroots movements such as Teach
  Meets where teachers from any background can freely share ideas
• Enable quick transfer of outstanding ideas and
  practice to anyone interested
• Gather a new educational tribe, one that has
  education and vision ahead of administration, policy or politics
• Challenge people to accelerate the change
  process at their respective institutions
• Enable easy access to educational visionaries
  from all over the globe
• Highlight where government policy is hopelessly
  inadequate across the world
• Bring together people who share a common passion
  for seeing students fully engaged in their learning
• Enable thought leaders to bounce their ideas with
  a  speed and strength previously
  impossible
• Demonstrate that educational analysis can reflect
  current dialogue, not articles that surface a year after a conversation

I personally feel that the main blocker when it comes to changing practice is not the teacher, rather judgement and/or prejudice that has suggested that the education debate needs to be about public versus private, not passion and engagement. That debate has done enormous damage to the cause of education around the world. It has marginalized the passionate educators, thwarted productive conversation and allowed governments to be side-tracked into thinking that education is all about funding and budgets, rather than vision and opportunity.

I really hope that Twitter and other forms of social media will keep breaking down the walls of separation – and usher in a new educational era and tribe united around vision and hope.

Join the tribe. Be the change!

In the days of yore, the captain of a ship would have the Boatswain (or Bosun) use his pipe to make the “All Hands” call when he wanted the entire crew up on deck and ready for action. Everyone, no matter what their role, no matter when their last duty shift, no matter how busy on another project, were expected to stop what they were doing, assemble on deck and, presumably, focus on the crisis at hand.

Now you might think that I am going all naval again like last year’s post featuring the OODA Loop. I am not. Instead, I want to gloat. You see, I became principal at Wolcott Elementary School this year, and I noticed that the teachers here understand what it means when the principal (or other staff members) call “All Hands” on our proverbial Boatswain’s Pipe.

A number of times this year, one of us has come to the Educational Support Team (EST) with a student crisis. Sometimes it’s been very low achievement; other times we’ve had a student in personal crisis. In December, I called “All Hands” in order to prevent the total meltdown of several at-risk students (this was somewhat successful, but we plan to do much more next year).

Each time, the response from every staff member has been fantastic: what do we need to do? what can I do? I never had to ask “What are you going to do?”

The great thing is that this is the culture here! It’s embedded deeply in the staff. I could fill a whole separate blog post just listing all of the ways that Wolcott Elementary School staff get together on deck for the good of the students. I am lucky to work here.

If you want to hear the All Hands call on a Boatswain’s Call/Pipe, take a listen.

Image: CC 3.0 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bootsmannpfeife.jpg

Cross posted to Principals Point of View

Picture Courtesy of :reading.pppst.com

One of my pet peeves is when people think that Differentiation Instruction and 21st Century Skills are something new and that now teachers need to do something different.  I think if would ask most teachers if it is important that they meet the needs of their students or that their students can communicate, think critically, and be creative, I would think most teachers would say YES no matter if they taught 25 years ago or are teaching today. Therefore I claim that D.I. and 21st Century skills are just good teaching and learning practices. This will be the topic of my presentation at the upcoming Martin Institute Conference in June.

Last weekend I read this article by Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks “The Necessity of Asking Questions”

(http://chiefrabbi.org/UploadedFiles/Articals/Bo_5772.pdf)

In this Article Rabbi Sacks point out the importance of asking questions. He states that in the middle of the climax of the story of the Jews leaving Egypt the  Bible tells us the twice that our children will ask us questions

    “And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ then tell them, ‘It is the     Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.’” (Ex. 12: 26-27)
In days to come, when your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ say to him, ‘With a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. (Ex. 13: 14)”

Rabbi Sacks maintains that is more than just asking questions but that Teachers and Parents need to encourage their children and students to ask questions. He shares the following story:

“Isadore Rabi, winner of a Nobel Prize in physics, was once asked why he became a scientist. He replied, “My mother made me a scientist without ever knowing it. Every other child would come back from school and be asked, ‘What did you learn today?’ But my mother used to ask: ‘Izzy, did you ask a good question today?’ That made the difference. Asking good questions made me a scientist.”

He  goes on to say “Encourage your children to ask, question, probe, investigate, analyze, explore….The one essential, though, is to know and to teach this to our children, that not every question has an answer we can immediately understand.”

I don’t know about you but to me it would seem to me that the  Bible itself is teaching us the importance  of asking questions which by the way today would be described as a 21st Century Skill.

Therefore lets not get caught up with names or titles but rather  just focus on helping our children and students learn so that they reach their potential and be productive and successful in the world in which we live in

My Thoughts

Akevy

cc licensed ( BY SD ) flickr photo shared by wadem

“Directions are instructions given to explain how. Direction is a vision offered to explain why.” Simon Sinek

As I am seeing a growing demand for schools to learn how to use social media tools in classrooms with students, staff, and parents, I have continuously tried to focus on this Simon Sinek video (which I have mentioned several times in this blog).  In the Ted Talk, Sinek continuously says the same phrase over and over again:

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

Although this can be taken as a very “business-driven” phrase, there is definitely a connection to the work that we are doing within our schools and especially with our students, staff, and stakeholders.  I have this huge belief that people want to be inspired and want purpose in their lives, they don’t want to just “show up” and do the work.

With that being said, I have seen the importance of defining the “why” in my own experience.  Often I have been asked to work with staff to either give a talk, and to follow up by doing a workshop on how to help educators get connected.  Sometimes however though, I have been asked to simply do the workshop portion.  Although doing the latter is much more time efficient for that day, in the long run, if we do not clearly articulate “why” we are doing what we are doing, the “what” and the “how” are lost.

Recently, I had the opportunity to work with a school staff and gave a presentation on some of the trends happening in our world, and how we can leverage technology in a way to connect with our students, school community, and the rest of the world.  After the presentation, we were meant to do a workshop on Google Apps, but questions came up about Twitter, and how they would use that tool to connect and learn with so many great educators around the world.  The questions were inspired and teachers were excited about moving forward and learning something new.  As I left to head off to my next meeting, the entire staff was still there working on what I had tried to teach them.  It was inspiring for me to see and I was reluctant to leave.

I am not certain if the discussion that I had with them that day will stick with them, but I do know that taking that hour before and sharing them “why” we are trying to move forward will definitely increase the percentage of success.  As educators (and as people in general), we are always stressed about the amount of time that we have in a day, but as I have been told often, “sometimes we have to go slow, to go fast”.  Taking that time to discuss the why was important and needed.  It is also a lesson that I can learn greatly from as I continue my own work.

I have embedded the Sinek video below…if you have not seen it, it is definitely worth the 19 minutes it takes to watch it.

Information is not knowledge,
Knowledge is not wisdom,
Wisdom is not truth

Frank Zappa

For most of the past few thousand years we have used a pyramid as the metaphor for our knowledge and social systems (including networks). The hierarchical structure is well established in our culture to the point where it is hegemonic. Scholars, thinkers and  theorists ranging from T.S. Eliot, Mortimer Adler, Russell Ackoff and, yes, Frank Zappa have all made some reference to what Ackoff called the DIKW Hierarchy or Wisdom Pyramid.  Ackoff explored the dynamic relationship between systems and human behavior, pointing out that, “Individual systems are purposive, knowledge and understanding of their aims can only be gained by taking into account the mechanisms of social, cultural, and psychological systems”

Think about most educational systems, schools and classrooms and you can see this hierarchical structure still in place. Students on the bottom, followed by a diminishing quantity of individuals as we climb. Or, inversely, a large number of students chasing the more scarce amount of knowledge that exists in the teacher’s toolbox of texts and tasks. This all  makes sense, the structure of pyramids are solid, they are built to last and do.

Two things though: we don’t really build them anymore these days and when we did, it was usually to store a dead regent or ruler.

Then,we had the internet come along and all of sudden (as David Weinberger so skillfully points out in Too Big to Know) the pyramids don’t really fit as a metaphor for systems or knowledge. The connections and dynamic, networked interplay that is the modern web has released knowledge from the constraints of paper and expertise and smashed the hierarchy as knowledge is now contained within the network, not at the top of it. The irony of the role that networked media played as a catalyst to the end of the Mubarak era (in Egypt) is just to tasty to resist.

Like a balloon, the knowledge within the net surges and flows within a structure that is pliable and malleable (and accessible to anyone who wishes to pump some air in to it). And now we wait for the inevitable shift to occur in our systems as we adapt to this reality…or rather than wait, shall we set out to challenge the status quo and push this change along?

Early during the 2010-2011 school year, my Principals Advisory Council came up with the idea to engage parents and community members by teaching technology classes once a month. We were cognizant of a potential gap that was occurring in terms of technology tools our students use, we use, and our parents use. If we were having difficulty keeping up, we figured our students’ parents and community members were too.

As we were planning what “Community University” would look like, I read a blog post written by Burlington High School Principal, Patrick Larkin, about the technology classes his school offered to parents. I knew we were on to something! To decide which classes to offer, I surveyed the staff to find out what classes they would be willing to teach and from there, created a schedule and class description for parents. The next step was to inform parents and make it happen!

We launched Community University in October, 2011 with a Facebook 101 class and it was a hit! Our orchestra teacher along with our district Chief Communications Officer facilitated the class for about two dozen parents. Parents were very appreciative of our efforts and left excited about the new information they learned. We saw it as opportunity for them to engage their students in a conversation about digital citizenship as well.

Community University classes are offered the first Monday of each month for an hour. We now offer two classes each month and since October,  we have held a resume writing class, understanding Google Docs class, Facebook 102, and a telescope class, which was faciltated by students. Some of the future classes are as follows: How to use your Smartphone, What is Digital Citizenship?, Twitter 101, Enhance Your Power Point Presentations, Understanding Movie Maker, iPad 101, and Understanding Prezi.

Each class is facilitated by a GLHS staff member who volunteers their time to connect with and engage our community. I encourage you to offer technology classes for your community as well. We see it as an opportunity to increase parents’ and community members’ confidence in using the technological tools that are increasingly becoming a part of our world.

Be Great,

Dwight

This is cross-posted on Mr. Carter’s Office

As I reflect on my third Educon experience, I feel the need to get a few things off my chest in regards to the conference put on by Mr. Lehmann and his crew at Science Leadership Academy.

1. The sessions – What’s up with so many great conversations in each time slot? I am used to attending conferences where I struggle to find one quality session in each time slot.
2. Between the sessions – The conversations between the sessions are better than the actual sessions at most conferences. As I speak with other conference goers about the sessions they attended, I hear one positive review after another which leads me too…
3. …The other conference attendees – What’s up with your focus on education? It’s the weekend for Pete’s sake! Why do you continue to engage me in these meaningful conversations and keep me thinking about how we can create more meaningful learning experiences for students? In the hall, on the walk back to my hotel, at breakfast, lunch, and dinner – C’mon get a life!
4. The Conference Staff – OK, it’s bad enough that I may be disorganized, but having a conference staff that can predict the future is a bit much me thinks.  I was polite when the young man gave me an extra boarding pass, but I decided to be polite since he was only a high school student. What a waste of paper I thought to myself…until my moment of anxiety in Terminal E. Nicely played Mr. Kessler!
5. The Brain Pain – By lunch on Sunday my mind was on overload. You have given me five conferences worth of ideas to bring back to my school community.  How do you expect me to go to work on Monday?

In all sincerity, thanks to Chris Lehmann and the staff, students, and parents for another great experience at SLA! You have a special place and we are fortunate that you share it with us annually.  I know that the energy and passion that so many felt this past weekend will be carried back to their respective schools as we all continue our efforts to provide more meaningful learning experiences for our students!

I am looking forward to Educon 2.5 already!

(caveat: I don’t like guns. my title does not endorse guns. or bullets. )
(another caveat: this is also not about a blender.)

One of the first conversations that my principal engaged me in was about the use of “workbooks”. While it wasn’t a practice that his mindset and philosophy embraced, he acknowledged that it was a means to an end. Scores were inevitably higher, skills were inevitable ingrained, and it seemed successful.

While in technology, we worked a lot with test prep programs. No names needed, you know which ones I’m talking about. I embrace these programs, I do. I’ve even done some consulting for them. That being said, I don’t feel that they replace authentic teaching and learning. Nor do I think a workbook does.

What I do think is that they resemble a candy bar. A snickers, if you will. It serves its purpose in the short term. Your belly is sated, your brain thinks you’re full, and it seems successful. In about an hour though…you’re hungry again. This was the analogy we used when talking about test prep, whether it be a program or a workbook. Short term memory is great…in the short term. When we’re talking about authentic learning, long lasting learning…applicational learning that can be drawn on for the years to come…we’re not talking about a snickers bar.

Which brings me to the magic bullet. I mentioned on Twitter that I was really resistant to using ANY of our limited budget monies for workbooks, even as a reference tool. Had a teacher in my PLN (@JamieVanderG) tweet me that “we use them because anything but top notch test scores mean we get told we don’t do enough and have to do better”, that “on paper kids feel the pressure too”, which made me SO sad. I really hope none of my LL’s feel that the only way they can be effective, that their “silver bullet” is to use a workbook. Another tweep, @ScottElias, said, which I thought was genius, “Why are we always looking for the silver bullet? We have time & instruction directly in our control. There’s your silver bullet”.

YOU are the silver magic bullet. YOU are the difference in a child’s learning. YOU can manipulate the time in your day to make SURE a student sees the lesson objective and grasps them. Teachers are the masters of invention. Utilize every minute of your instructional time. I saw a class on Friday reviewing vocabulary words while lining up in the hall on Thursday. Every single minute counts.

Todd Whitaker, on a previous post here left a comment that “One of the best things about teaching is that it matters. One of the greatest challenges about teaching is that it matters every day.” That’s never been more true!

Minute manager,
Amber

Students in our Space Technology class at Gahanna Lincoln High School just completed a space simulation in which they were asked to design a rover that would complete specific tasks. In years past, they would do a space shuttle simulation. But this year, science teacher, Fred Donelson (@mrdglhs) changed things up a bit to simulate the landing on and mining of materials from an asteroid.  According to Mr. Donelson, “students will be simulating a landing by using bounce technology to drop a robot down the stairway.  They are also building a rover, remotely controlled via the internet, to remove a debris field from a mine and then collect/mine some minerals.  And a PR team will communicate all of this to visitors.”

Each year, I am simply amazed by what the students do! I wanted a student to share his experience of participating in the simulation so I invited Gahanna Lincoln High School senior, Jonathan Harrison to be a guest blogger. I’ve had the pleasure of being Jonathan’s principal since he was in the sixth grade and I couldn’t be more proud of him!

Project Vesta Reflection

               There is too much to be said for a project my group and I spent over a month on completing. One of the reasons I took Space Technology was because of the teacher, Mr. Donelson. He is one of the most interactive teachers I have ever had and I feel like he really wants his kids to succeed. Yes, I do understand that every teacher, for the most part, wants their kids to succeed in their class, but Mr. D does so much more. He uses inventive ways to teach such as social networks: always posting on Facebook and Twitter to keep his students updated on certain things going on in the class. It really helps not having to jump through hoops to find out what is due the next day. He also makes sure all of his students understand the material he is presenting, which is the most important. Students who needed the extra help could always find it, no matter if it was during the school week, on the weekends or even over holiday breaks. We had put in many hours to our project, but it was nothing compared to the hours Mr. D put in.

               With that being said, my group wanted to put in just as much work towards our project as Mr. D had put into us. We wanted to go above and beyond our expectations and really knock the socks off not only our competition, but our whole community. Personally I feel like we exceeded our goals and really showed people what teenagers are capable of producing. It also showed people how social networking can really effect a student’s education. We were able to contact teachers, administrators and other educators not only from all over the country, but across the globe. It was really eye-opening to see something we use for leisure everyday open up a lot of opportunities to further your education. That was really cool and something I enjoyed doing.

               The objective was to land your egg rover on the asteroid Vesta. Once there you had to clear debris and mine minerals that would act as important substances we need here on Earth. Each 6 person team was split up in 3 teams of two. The three teams were the Rover team, Lander team and the Public Relations team.

               Personally, I was on the Public Relations team. We had a lot of things to complete while this project went on. We had to develop a teaching video on space colonization, which will be a factor in our lives. The catch was that it had to be suitable for middle school students, who cannot read nearly as fast as high school seniors. We had to edit multiple times, which was extremely frustrating. But we finished it and it turned out very nicely. Next we had to make a documentary video. This basically outlined everything we did throughout the whole project. We had to keep record of everything that happened with videos and photos. We also had to “get our name out there.” I thought that what we were doing was very cool and interesting and I wanted other people to know also. I made a website, Facebook group and a Twitter account for everyone to communicate back and forth. In a few days we had educators from all over the world commenting on our progress and they were really interested in what Team Chronos, (our team name, @TeamChronos), was doing that day. They would ask for information on everything we had knowledge on, which was pretty cool. It’s not every day that an adult comes to a teenager and asks them for information so that they can teach their kids what we found out. Lastly we had to make a team brochure, which had to include each team’s mission, a small bio on each Team Chronos member and the whole team’s objective. We had a lot of fun with this, because we had made two different brochures. One was funny and the other was professional. It was awesome coming up with fake bio’s that made someone laugh.

               As a group, I could not have asked for a better group of guys to work with. We all had the same mindset and goals to accomplish during this project. Dedication, hard work and good work ethic benefitted our group unlike it did for others. We split up the work equally, and the only arguments we had was who was going to finish the projects at their homes. Eagerness to get your work done is a quick way to ensure it actually does get completed. Our group’s outlook and attitude was really positive too. When we had an idea we would share it with one another, get their opinions and find a way to improve it. We were not settled with being “good enough,” we wanted to simply be the best space tech team to ever pass through Gahanna. With that attitude, our best work came as the result.

               If I were a teacher I would definitely do a project similar to this. It brings out the best in every single student, regardless of GPA, clique or grade. This project would not work if you did not teach like Mr. Donelson however. You have to be interactive and really show the kids that you believe they can achieve great things. If you struggle with showed your students your dedication, you would still have the same kids not caring about their grades and turning in mediocre work at best. That is not helping anybody. What we’re doing here is something BIG. Rovers, space stations, alternative energy and time travel are all going to be something our generation deals with, so why not learn about them now? It is helping out our future and possibly getting kids interested in robotics and space which can open up to more career opportunities. I would definitely recommend this project to any teacher willing to dedicate time to a child’s learning. They have to want a better future for us and for their grandchildren.

               Overall I am very grateful for the opportunity to take this class. It teaches you a lot about your surroundings as well as a little bit about yourself. Also the information we learn today will benefit us tomorrow. These kinds of jobs will be the positions that pay the most and are the most available, especially to Americans. America is slowly declining in the science race and a large part of the blame goes to not educating our children at a young age. It spikes their interest and gives them options for a wide range of careers. This is what the world’s leading competitors do, such as China, Japan and many more. They teach their kids engineering and robotics at a very young age, which is benefitting them now. This project helps us with future projects that can really impact our lives. This information we gain is irreplaceable and I can never thank Mr. Donelson and Gahanna Lincoln High School enough for allowing me to take such a wonderful class.

This is also posted at Mr. Carter’s Office