People Don't Really Change, They Just Grow....

Guest blog written by Michelle Beitzel, K-1 Fusion teacher:

CHANGE ….

Change…

Do we want to change?

CAN we change?

If we can, how much can we change?

Education has once again shifted: integration of more technology and more “testing”. Many people (teachers and parents alike) are sick of it, and are pushing back with a resistance like no other.

“Technology in the classroom is ridiculous. Children spend too much time on devices at home, why bring it into the classroom? What is up with all this testing? Can’t I just teach my students instead of assessing them all the time? When is it going to end?” …....

   Secretly, are you one of those teachers who are excited about this change? Do you see technology as a tool to integrate more rigor into your lessons, and assessments to drive your instruction? You are not alone, but you have to step out of the shadows, and decide to take charge of the direction education is headed around you. Yes, you could continue to do this in your little world of your own classroom, but what happens when your children leave your class? Are they going to be getting the best education they can down the hall? Do we quit caring about their education once they walk out of our door? I don’t think so!

I too have been there; frustrated that others around me were not willing to embrace a new way of teaching and learning. It can be easier just to hide within the walls of our classrooms, and not worry about what is happening around us. When frustration has set in, you are no longer able to give your children your best. Instead, we are spending our energy on not being happy, and we should love what we do. This was me a few years ago. Due to Reduction in Force, I was moved from a position I did love to a different building with a whole new attitude - “We like what we do and the way we do it, so don’t ask us to do anything else.” This wasn’t what I wanted, who does? What is to be your message to the world, was this to be my message?

Then something began to happen on the corner of 199 State Street! It was transforming from a place in which I wanted to flee from, to a place in which I

I KNEW I BELONGED! This building had been held tight in it’s predecessors’ arms and protected from change and uncertainty, as was I. But gradually the shield began to come down for not only the building, but for myself as well. I was encouraged to reflect on my strengths and to refine my teaching and allowed to think outside of the box! I can’t pinpoint when it happened, or how it actually happened, but it happened! It happened because someone believed in me, pointed me in the right direction, and waited for me to change my mind and jump! As teaching has evolved, there are really only two things that we can do: 1- fight it forever and be miserable OR 2- JUMP! Jump in and make it yours! I chose to JUMP! Will you?

 

By jumping in, I had to find ways to critically analyze where we were heading, advocating for change, facilitating the change, and monitoring how we were doing. No longer was I the little wallflower cowering in the corner. I went from almost missing MY opportunity to being a part of something, to actually helping shape this little building on the corner of 199 State Street. I was inspired to blaze ahead, and thrived to be ME, whatever I decided to make of myself, and not let the FEAR of change and uncertainty hold me back!

Now it is your turn, decide today to change your mind: BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD, and be that someone to believe in others, point them in the right direction, and wait for them to change their mind and jump, too!

Follow Mrs. Beitzel on twitter: @beitzelmichelle
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/conesvillek1fusion?ref=hl
Blog: http://conesvillek1fusion.blogspot.com/
email: michelle.beitzel@rvbears.org

Beyond the Bricks: connecting your students with the rest of the world

      "The teacher makes meaningful and relevant connections between lesson content and other disciplines and real-world experiences and careers as well as prepares opportunities for students to apply learning from different content areas to solve problems." -  OTES Rubric, Prior Content Knowledge/Sequence/Connections

    Teachers who are formatively instructing in the classroom today recognize the benefits that come with peer feedback, student self-reflection, project-based learning, student motivation, and connecting their classrooms to a larger learning audience. They understand that others have the means to help grow the learning of their students. 

     Traditional field trips are always good, as long as they are within a reasonable driving distance and you have a little extra in the budget to finance it. Face to face with a local expert is really good, too. What to do though if you want to talk to an author? Or watch a family member enlisted in the air force refuel an airplane in mid-air? Or visit a missionary classroom in Africa? 

    If you have access to Google Hangouts (or Skype, or Facetime) you can begin to make in-roads into helping students make learning connections of high interest to help them think through problems presented in class. Relevance and real world have a way of keeping the attention of our students and making sense out of the abstract.

If you are thinking about connecting online, please consider the following:

Prior to connecting:

 Determine the experience level of everyone involved in regards to the technology to be used. Do they need some training beforehand? The technology should never get in the way of a good online interview/visit because someone is trying to figure it out at the last minute. Get the "novelty stage" out on a practice session. Try a test connection before the real one. Sometimes you have to "mirror image" connect if you are showing a document or book.  Discuss the connection protocols. Who is initiating the call, you or them? Establish a dialogue to test the audio and video and let everyone know that you will take a couple of minutes at the beginning to do that. Who has the job of turning the mic on and off if needed? If someone far from the mic needs to speak, where is the designated spot in the classroom to speak from? Planning ahead and practicing will ensure that your guest is respected and your classroom time is effective. Let everyone know the purpose and goal of the event and make sure you know if it is going to be recorded or it is a one time event. 

During the connection: 

If you are connecting with multiple guests, have everyone leave their microphones turned off and turned on only when needed. Background noise is very disruptive. 

Afterwards:

Ask for feedback on the experience and act on it. Provide everyone with a follow up time so they can process, ask questions, or make comments that you may not have had time to ask during the event. 

    I am encouraging and supporting our staff as they take the small steps towards reaching out to the college and career real world experiences that are out there. From whole classroom events that broaden student horizons, to one on one colleague collaboration, and eventually student group to student group, the world is definitely getting flatter at Conesville ES.

Congratulations, New Chromebooks for Everyone! But there's a catch....

  It's August. You come back to school where your classroom is clean and vibrant again. You're refreshed and excited to be back. You look around the room with an approving nod of your head as everything is back in  place exactly as you instructed. No surprises. It's been set up  this way for as long as you have been teaching. Nice orderly rows, maybe. Or, purposely arranged tables with seats ready to be assigned to students you think need to sit close to you. Your teacher desk is conveniently arranged so you can enter grades while still keeping a close eye on students working busily on their worksheets and assignments. It's going to be a great year.
     But wait! What's this??? A box full of shiny new Chromebooks? For me? We received a grant? Woohoo! I've been complaining about computer access for years. If only you could get me more lab time, I could really do all those wonderful tech things you and other teachers talk about. If you only gave me more netbooks, I could get all of those gifted kids on the Moodle. If you would give me more computers in my classroom I could have students take more AR tests and look up facts about Martin Luther King to copy and paste into their powerpoint presentations. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

     Hold on a minute. Slow down a second. Let's think about this. Although receiving a class set of Chromebooks  isn't a 1-1 deployment, this article states many of the concerns I have as an administrator overseeing the implementation of Chromebooks into our building.
http://hookedoninnovation.com/2013/10/07/why-your-11-deployment-will-fail/

    Imagine, it is the Fall of 1814, a school principal gives the teacher a box of shiny new pencils and shows her/him how students can now write neatly on paper and erase mistakes with no messy chalk dust. They could slip them in their shirt pockets and easily take them back and forth to school. It's the latest and greatest thing in schools.  But lo and behold, the principal checks in after a couple of months and sees the pencils are sitting on the teacher's desk being "protected." Afterall, those things are sharp! Someone could get hurt. And, they really don't work that well on all of the slate boards in the room.  It would be a shame to throw out perfectly good slates, because what if we ran out of paper someday and had to use them?  Students may forget how to properly clean one.


  listen and learn, eyes up front, turn the page now,  beep next slide, homework quiz test homework quiz test

 more over the shoulder, guiding, providing feedback, evaluating, balance of teacher time and student time, technology planned out and integrated for a purpose or as a tool

  I am not new to a Chromebook.  I have had one since they first came out and I am a big fan of them. That's why I am a bit nervous about rolling out Chromebooks to our 6th-12th grade classes next year. I am worried that we are putting technology designed for blended and pesonalized learning classrooms into traditional classrooms that are attempting to break out of the old school ways. Some say this will force them to. Some say if you rely on the technology to do it, it will fail because it is a major mindshift on behalf of teachers and teachers are individuals. Either way, it is going to happen. Meanwhile, I am going to do my best to help guide and assist them with the new opportunity.

    I hope they realize that when they choose to accept Chromebooks in the Fall,  they are making a choice to teach in ways that they may never have thought about before. That by accepting these Chromebooks, they are committing themselves and their students to using the Google Apps for Education products, apps and extensions that they may not yet understand, new expectations and rules for their classrooms, and maybe even changing physical room arrangements. New partnerships will have to be formed and connections sought out with other teachers in the district and throughout the OAC network that can add value and advice as they enter a new chapter of their teaching career. Will they be up to the effort? It remains to be seen.

     If your school was a recipient of the Straight A fund, chances are, someone in your pod decided to purchase Chromebooks as a way to support the goals of the grant. If so, I recommend you spend your summer learning about three things: Google Chromebooks/Chrome browser apps and extensions, Classroom for Google, and Blended Learning. Don't wait until school starts and say "Well, I am still waiting for Superman to fly in and teach me all of this stuff." I checked my Diigo library and found 21 items that are tagged with "chromebook" and 8 items tagged "blended learning", so it seems I have been collecting information for some time now waiting for this year to come. 

 I can't wait! It's going to be AWESOME!

 The Two-Gear Construct Credit: CFY

2 gear construct for envisioning blended learning

 Student motivation in a blended classroom

Resources to get started with Chromebooks in the classroom

http://www.ccedtech.com/2013/06/chromebook-awesome-resources.html?spref=tw#.U6WeIn1X-uZ

http://www.hollyclark.org/2013/11/19/1172/

Resources for Google Classroom

Making Minutes Count

The following tweet gave me the inspiration for this post:

Jamie Wright @misswright06

you know you work in an awesome district when you have your post-conference via google hangouts. #rvlsd

Teacher evaluations take time. Lots and lots of time. Complaining about it doesn't help. Working harder doesn't help. Working longer and harder leads to even more complaining.

I have been out of the building this year more than at any other time in 17 years of education. I suppose it really can't be helped. So many initiatives are going on that mandate you attend meetings. So much is happening in curriculum and instruction that you need to attend workshops and trainings or risk being left in the dark on important educational topics that will have a big impact on students and staff.

By necessity I have been using every minute I can grab just to keep my head above water. For example, I had just finished an evaluation rubric of a teacher and when I recently went to work extra early I happened to find that teacher had also come into work extra early. He agreed to meet with me then and there and I was able to gain a valuable time slot in my busy calendar. Lesson learned? Don't be afraid to ask teachers to meet with you outside of contract time. They may be just as appreciative as you and it shows everyone just how much we value the coaching process.

I double dip. When in a classroom that uses a co-teacher, I observe and take walk-through notes on both of them.

I also have staff members who are very comfortable using technology and web2.0 tools. Sometimes when I revert to "the old ways" they will chide me and question my sanity. Having just completed an evaluation rubric on a Sunday afternoon, I took the chance of conducting a post-conference via Google hangout. A quick text to the teacher confirmed she was more than willing to do so. I scanned all of the evidence and documents she would need on her end and scheduled the hangout shortly after. Once we connected, we did a quick video and audio check and then followed the exact same procedures as if she were sitting right next to me. Lesson learned? Don't be afraid to think outside the box because someone may already be out there needing someone to collaborate with.

As a side note, the teacher thought the experience would have been "neat" if other teachers could sit in on a conference and learn from the dialogue. This tells me that this was a great coaching conference and less evaluative. NLHS principal Bobby Dodd blogs about a similar topic here.

 As my teacher was thinking that, I was thinking that it would be neat to have other administrators, especially new ones, join in the hangout to also learn from the exchange.

Everyone gets the same 60 minutes in an hour. How are you using yours?

Just Say "No" to Social Networking Sites in Schools

At this point in my life, I don’t have a lot of free time, so for some of my professional learning, I rely on my google communities, Twitter, and Diigo, to keep abreast of everything that is going on in my profession. I like that because I can get my learning at my convenience. I leave Facebook and Pinterest to my wife's care, which she uses to keep family and friends up to date on some of the more ridiculous things that occasionally happen in our personal lives and to find the next best recipe.

Recently, Michael Norkun, an educator in the "Ask a Google Education Guru" google plus community asked for help and posted this in a google form survey:

"I am trying to collect some data regarding social media in schools. Would anyone be willing to complete this short survey?"

It only had two questions. Short and sweet, the perfect survey.

Answer yes or no: Do you think social networking can be integrated into schools to enhance learning opportunities?  (my answer: yes) Which social networking site provides the greatest opportunities with education? (my answer: twitter) Then he asks: Describe the potential benefits of using these tools in school. (my answer: something about the power of using hashtags to find specific feedback and help, for example math students in a calculus math class)

He then provided this link http://goo.gl/7AbC8 so viewers could see the responses as they came in.  There were a lot of "yes" responses and brief descriptions of how and why they chose their favorite "social media" site.  

As I looked over the responses, my attention was drawn to the "no" responses and the reasons given why social media should not be used in school.

"Its purpose is social, not educational. The social aspect would serve to distract students. Less technology, more hands on"

I was dumbstruck. How could another educator who was obviously a connected educator in an educational google community claim social media sites such as google plus, edmodo, twitter, pinterest (add your favorite here) not see the value of a learning community for students?

I tried to rationalize how that could be. Maybe they were a lower elementary teacher and couldn't make the leap that little ones can blog and network, too? Maybe they were an upper high school teacher and had some bad experiences? Maybe they worked in a school that controls and squashes teacher creativity?

I could presume that Jack Dorsey (twitter) and Mark Zuckerburg (facebook) probably counted on the inate "social" nature of humans interacting to make their millions (or is it billions?).   But over time, educators have bent and shaped these platforms with a social twist into learning and educational platforms with endless possibilities for students.

Or maybe it is just a matter of semantics.

For those who are of the opinion that social media has no place in school, I think they may misinterpret and perceive it as purely "socializing media."

I suggest they change their mindset from the social(izing) media vocabulary to educational & personal learning media and then go back and answer the question again.

Do you think educational and personal learning networking can be integrated into schools to enhance learning opportunities?

Don't be a Schultz...

  I don't think Schultz was a reader. Maybe his mother didn't read to him very often when he was a little boy, or maybe his teachers didn't use best practice. I say that because he didn't seem to know much about the The War, or England, or Hitler, or the Jews, or even the covert operations of his own Stalag 13. And he worked and lived there everyday! He just existed.

    My mom was an avid reader. We always had a ton of books in the house. We lived in the country, but could order books from the local library and they would mail them to us for free. I couldn't wait to open those bulky brown envelopes every couple of weeks. Other than in first grade with "See Sally? See Sally run? Run, Sally, run" repetition, I don't really remember being taught HOW to read, I just did. I know that method probably didn't work for everyone, but fortunately, it worked for me. In second grade, I remember winning a reading contest that my teacher, Ms. Hill, announced right before Easter break. She must have been integrating science at the same time because the goal was to read books and move from one planet in the solar system to the next, starting from the Sun and ending at Pluto. I learned about the nine planets at the same time I was devouring books. I read everything I could get my hands on, at anytime of the day or night. My motivation and treasured prize for landing on Pluto first? One of those awesome blow up balloons shaped like a rabbit with cardboard feet! (insert your own dorky comment here)
     Now,  I still occasionally read for enjoyment, usually later in the evenings. I tend to stash picture rich history books near my couch that have been salvaged from my mother's cluttered attic, or a good science fiction book that I read years ago.  Lately though, it seems that my reading time has taken a drastic turn.
    To keep from becoming a Schultz in the world of education, I now zealously read twitter feeds and blog subscriptions whenever I can, literally hundreds of them. Collected and tag sorted into my Diigo library and fed into Google Reader, I find myself consorting with people I will most likely never meet in person. People from a variety of backgrounds and expertise, located practically everywhere on the planet, are helping me to think and grow every time I log on.
     I have slowly become a single thread on a giant internet spider web of connected educators who share similar experiences, problems, questions, and issues. ("Welcome to my parlor, said the spider to the fly" comes to mind)

Collectively, we move forward. Alone, we are just another Schultz.

For a glimpse at the top 100 educational blogs that can help you from being a Schultz>>

https://www.google.com/reader/bundle/user%2F03613507553759664083%2Fbundle%2FTop%20100%20EduBlogs

When you get there, hit the blue +subscribe if you wish to add all of them to your reader. Otherwise, pick and choose from the bundle.

Yeh, we can do that.....

 Picture this, a typical day:

Principal slash science fair judge walks into a 6th grade classroom at 11:00 to investigate a bus report. But instead, Teacher asks principal/judge to take a student next door to do a mock practice interview for a soon to come science fair day. Principal is so excited to do science that he temporarily forgets why he was there.  Said principal/judge takes student next door to do so. Student receives good experience and advice. Student and judge return to class. Principal/judge realizes there are now 25 more students gazing at him with a questioning look because they could all benefit from the same experience. Hmmmm, principal/judge opens mouth before thinking. "Hey, I have an idea. We could use a teacher's iPad to record an interview and then show it to all of the remaining students!"  Teacher is excited. Kids are excited. 12:30 principal takes same student and grabs student's friend at the same time. Borrows iPad from a different teacher and heads to another room to re-create the experience, this time with the iPad recording. Hmmm, how DO you get the video from the iPad to be able to present it???  Principal begins to realize this may be a bigger project than intended and kicks himself because he has lots of things waiting on his desk. But remembers, "people are more important than papers."

1:00 Finish bus report investigating and return to office. Crosses fingers and hits the "Publish" button on the borrowed iPad to send it to the principal/judge's YouTube account (which is blocked at school), but it somehow still uploads to the site because Apple is sometimes magic and no one will understand how that really works. Use a "secret" browser on said principal's iPad to navigate to the YouTube site to check and see if it published. It is.  Making progress.  Copy the link and email it to myself so I can open it up on a desktop pc. Try to convert it to mp4 file using keepvid.com , but can't because site is blocked. Go do a couple of walk throughs and realize it is getting late and you need to return the teacher's iPad, but your project isn't complete.

2:00 Desperately track down the district tech coach via a Google hangout (which can find people practically anywhere in the world if they answer).  Beg her to receive the email with copied link and have her use keepvid. com to convert it to an .mp4 file. Watch her open it up, and try. It works! Then, have her put it in a google doc and share it back to me. Navigate to google docs, take the new mp4 file and link it on the school wiki to be readily available for the teacher's science classes tomorrow. Whew...that should work!

Then, get new idea...

2:30 Call tech coach back on another hangout and ask her if in her "spare time" in the evening after she gets home, to re-download the file back onto the one iPad in the district that probably has iMovie installed, add effects and movie trailer stuff to it to impress everyone and make the student actors feel good about themselves. Then upload it back up to me.

Then, get another idea!  Have tech coach also link it to the teacher's school website so students can also view it at home later.  She agrees! (remember to buy a thank-you bribe from Tim Horton's)

4:30 principal/judge finishes up bus report investigations, conferences with a teacher who is stressing the OAA, writes this blog (because it meets his IPDP goals), and heads for home.

Yeh, we can do that!

http://goo.gl/RhlCW science fair video

http://goo.gl/bYW3o  movie trailer

"Tech My School" in 3 easy steps

  Some fellow educators have inquired of me and want to know about how our school uses iPads and other mobile devices and how we have "arrived". In brief, I would describe it this way:
     Step 1, Cross your fingers and sign a purchase order: 2 1/2 years ago I unwittingly made an administrative decision  to purchase two iPads for my school. I didn't know of any other local schools using them but I was intrigued by the possibilities my building tech leader was beginning to rant about more and more often. It turned out to be a lot bigger decision than I could have imagined at the time. I eventually signed myself and my begging, pleading tech leader up for an iPad training class, which included the iPad in the registration fee. At the time, I shuddered at the cost of such expensive training, but the budget allowed for it and in the second half of our school year, we traveled to Columbus. Not knowing what we were really in for, we began with one iPad for my tech leader to explore their potential in a 4th grade language arts inclusion classroom, and one for myself to see if it had any value to improving productivity of a building principal who valued the use of technology.
      Honestly, I was lukewarm with the classroom potential and I was doubting if it was going to be of any benefit at all for me as a school principal. (Especially, since a desktop PC and Windows software grounded me in my office most of the time.) But, by chance or perhaps fate, the iPad purchase decision happened to coincide at a time when I had begun using my android smartphone more effectively for school work, and I had begun to learn and use something new to me, known as cloud computing via Google docs. Long story short, it didn't take us long to realize what the power of tablets, apps, and cloud computing had on students, staff, and yes, even my administrative tasks. I had drunk the Kool-Aid and there was no going back.
   Step 2, Have Christmas in July: Now that we were convinced and excited about the use of these new devices, we wanted to expand it by putting more of these devices in the hands of our staff and students. With a combination of local AEP vision grants and federal Title funds, I purchased enough iPads for all of my grade level teachers and intervention specialists. This time, I was not lacking in confidence of the decision and was excited for my staff to be "early adopters" and to experience some of the productivity curve I was experiencing. With a crazy plan, I invited all of my staff to a training in the middle of the summer. "Come to the training, receive an iPad."  Everyone attended the week after the 4th of July. I realize everyone has a different learning curve, but I rarely see a staff member in the building today without their iPad close by. (It is not my purpose to expound in this blog on all of the ways staff and students are currently using them as that would fill too many pages. I would encourage you to follow their own blog posts or google+ pages for that.)
   Step 3,  write a grant, receive $10,000 from eTech: We added several more iPads to the 4th grade inclusion classroom and I am exploring the potential of a chromebook at the same time thanks to winning a grant. The projects and learning scenarios have been more than satisfactory this year because of it. Combined with a proliferation of students bringing their own iPads and tablets, our school is experiencing a mini explosion of devices. Our tech director has scrambled to keep the wi-fi infrastructure up to par and we have survived the "bumps in the road." The challenge now is to continue to increase number of devices throughout all grade levels and provide professional development to staff so they can continue to exploit student learning styles and to stay one step ahead of the next wave of tech.
What's next? First, I need to help and support our sister schools as they begin traveling the same paths that we have traveled these past couple of years. Second, I see step 4 for us involving several iPads in a classroom, connected with AppleTV devices to whiteboards or large screen televisions, and probably more chromebooks in classrooms.
    It's an exciting time, but with our school district in deficit spending now, it looks like I had better start looking for the next big grant....   Keep calm, carry on!
   

Tech+School=Cheese?

  I read a blog today about the top 3 things for 2013 that will impact education. Good article and the last sentence speaks volumes:

"Predictions are always dicey, of course. But no matter what 2013 may bring, one thing is certain: education’s reputation as a sleepy, slow-to-change sector of society is gone. Keep your eyes on education and learning over the coming year, because a lot of exciting and disruptive change is on its way."

The "disruptive" word makes me remember reading a book a few years ago with staff "Who Moved My Cheese?." 

http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/01/here-comes-2013-the-big-themes-in-learning/

Clogs, Glogs, and Blogs...

  I made the mistake of letting my self-proclaimed geeky friend facilitate a training for my staff today. She has a habit of using and modeling the newest technology gadgets or applications in the education world. I guess she is doing just what I asked, "walk the talk and use what you sell" kind of thing. Today, she used glogster to present her topic of internet safety curriculum for our students. I have seen blogs and articles about glogster before, but like so many times, it has been "click, skim read, click and move on." But, today when I saw her glogster page/poster with a video, pictures, wordle info graphic and so on, it really struck me how visually powerful it was and the implications it had for me as a facilitator during professional development and also for teachers in the classroom. So.....of course I had to experiment and make one of my own. I see blogging and glogging becoming a way of doing business in my little corner of the street. Now, can anyone teach me clogging?