Wikis can help you FIP your school

Our school is a member of the OAC (Ohio Appalachian Collaborative). Thanks to Battelle4Kids, our staff has many resources to support our journey of formative instructional practices in the classroom.

    When I became a building principal 8 years ago, one of the first things I did was to launch a building wiki in order to establish a higher level of communication and collaboration. In hindsight, it was ahead of its time because we definitely had growing pains with technology use back then. At that time, staff was still grimacing about having to use a thing called "email."

The original wiki had 2 pages, one for office communication and one for staff communication. Today, we have added pages for  OTES, FIP, ALICE, and Gifted Resources. With the addition of Google Apps for Education, sharing opportunities have made giant leaps. These pages have links and documents for resources as well as a place for ongoing comments. I recommend that building leaders choose a platform that they can be comfortable with and then model what you expect from staff. With all of the new generation tools available, I sometimes feel our wiki is a bit dated, but it still fits the majority of our staff’s comfort level. I have included a couple of screenshots for reference.

"My child's school received a C on their grade card, Fantastic!" said no parent ever.

 The Ohio Department of Education has recently released the newly redesigned report cards for schools. They are using letter grades now instead of the descriptors such as Effective and Excellent. I don't mind the new letter grade system, except for the fact that the new letter grades don't exactly mean what parents, teachers, and students have been used to for all of their lives.
  Previously, if you saw a "C" on a grade card, it probably meant "average", or "room for improvement" or "not bad, but you can do better." Now, if you see a grade of "C" from the ODE on a school report card, you will have to shift what you think you know about what a "C" really means.
Let me explain the changes in a somewhat tongue-in-check example.

Dear Student,
      Today you will be receiving your grade card and we are making some changes that we think you will like. First off, there is no "overall" grade this year so do not confuse the first grade you see on your report card as your overall grade.  We may report an overall grade in 2015.
      The first item you were graded on was how well you mastered all of your learning targets for the quarter. Congratulations! Since you mastered all of your learning targets in the time frame that we expect students to do, you received a "C".  I am sure your parents will be proud of you!  You could have received an "A" or a "B" if only you would have mastered some of the learning targets that we will be covering in the next quarter, or even next year, and shown that you learned more than you were expected to.
      The next item we are grading you on is your work habits. This is not part of your learning grade. Since you turned in every assignment on time and did what was expected, again, you will receive another "C". Congratulations! Your parents will surely be proud of you. I suppose you could have received an "A" or a "B" by turning some of them in early.
     Another item that you received a grade on is for your attendance. Once again, you received a grade of "C". You attended school every day! We are not sure how you could receive an "A" or a "B" yet, except maybe to attend school on some Saturdays. No teachers would be present though to verify that so we would have to take your word that you actually attended. We will let you know on the 2015 report card if we figure that one out.
Keep up the great work!

Your teacher,
Mr. C. ISOK
   

I'm a school nursecustologist

  My kindergarten students don't really know what a school principal actually does at school.

On the first day of school, they saw me mopping the floor of the restroom because the urinal was overflowing and my custodian was outside mowing the yard. "Are you the janitor?"

Next they saw me comforting one of their friends crying and I was applying an ice pack to a big bump on her head. "Are you the nurse?"

And my favorite from the mouth of a five year old: I told her that people come to me and I try to help them solve their problems. "You're a psychologist!"

Take the long way...

        Today was the annual “welcome back to school” meeting for all district staff. For me, about a 30 minute drive from home to the administration campus. My blog followers may recall that I like to ride to and from work without the radio on in order to reflect on my day. I knew I had to introduce new staff and thank people who had been working hard all summer to get the buildings ready, but other than that I really didn’t have anything else planned to say. Short and sweet.

As I pulled into the parking lot filled with cars, my first realization of the year came to mind:

It may be time to update my vehicle. Pretty sure every car there was newer than my 2001 model with manual crank windows and standard shift transmission.

Moments later, as I stood in front of the entire district staff and looked out over all of the familiar faces, realization #2 came to mind:

A lot of my inspiration and motivation for my job comes from them. The people I work with.

When I stay in my office too long, it is easy to forget the real purpose of my job. Then the stress gets to me and it is easy to get frustrated.  To remedy that problem, I step out of my office. It doesn’t matter if I go left, right, down, or up, I know that in just a few short steps, I can watch great teachers light the fires of little minds and watch little children inspire adults.                                                                             Magic.

So I made a recommendation to my staff. To all of the staff. Take the long way back this year, like I will.

If you are a teacher and you drop your students off to the specials teacher, don’t be in a hurry to get back to your classroom. Take the long way back. Briefly step into another grade level classroom and watch the magic happen. Walk out with inspiration and new found purpose.  Find yourself with 30 minutes of planning time? Push yourself away from your desk 5 minutes early. Take a long walk to the other end of the hallway. Step into another classroom and sit down beside a student. Get eye level with them. Ask them what they are learning. Ask them how their day is going.  Breathe in the magic.

Take the long way.

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?

Toll Booth Attendants and making a difference...

Traveling on a motorcycle can be quite an adventure.

My wife and I, recently made a ten-day road trip to the Carolinas and then down into Florida. Leaving from Ohio, we were just a few miles into West Virgina on I-77 when I was reminded by the prominent green highway signs that we would soon be paying $2.00 tolls for the privilege of crossing through their scenic state. Three of them on the way down, and three of them on the return trip. Great. Twelve bucks isn't usually a big deal, but it's the principle of the thing. I don't understand the politics about how they are able to do that, considering none of the other states along the same highway system charge a toll.

Since I had forgotten about the toll booths, we did not have the bills readily available like we usually do. It's not real easy to hold up a loaded bike, wrestle for your wallet, and keep the bike from rolling away while impatient cars are waiting behind you.  With all of the recent rain we were driving in, I wasn't in a good mood when the toll booth attendant gave me "the look" for holding up his line. I profusely apologized, handed him a large bill and received my change. No "thank you", no "have a nice day", no "thanks for visiting West Virginia." Just push the button and turn the light green.

I don't know of any other racket where you can just throw up a little shack and every single person who comes by throws money at you for no apparent reason. You don't even have to thank them, call them by name, or care whether you ever seem them again. Just collect the money and push the button.

As I pulled away and remembered that there would soon be another one coming up, I began to calculate how much money they must be collecting. $2.00 per vehicle, X number of cars per hour, open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week....my brain couldn't calculate the number so I just rounded it off to like a gazillion dollars. For that much money, they should at least pretend to like me as they take my money. Next toll, same thing. Take my money, push the green button. No words. Last toll booth, not much different although I did get a slight nod of the head as acknowledgement.

Maybe it's their job. People come, people go. No time to make a difference?

On the return trip, I decided to have a little fun with them. So, at the first one, I made it a point to take my time paying and I asked the attendant if they worked at the same booth every day? He gave me a surprised look like "Omg, this guy is actually asking me a question and I need to answer him."  I found out that toll  attendants actually rotate booths. Hmm, maybe I was onto something here.

At the second booth, I again took my time paying and joked to the attendant that the guy at the last booth said to tell him hi and that he could go home an hour early. That one got a laugh and a "have a nice day!" Okay, this was working.

Maybe they just needed to be treated like people instead of a road sign.

And then we pulled up to our final toll booth.  My wife had the exact change ready in hand, I had the timing in the correct line judged perfectly where we could have just coasted to an "almost stop", exchanged the money and not even put my feet down. If I wanted, we wouldn't even have to look at each other or say a word. The perfect toll booth system working flawlessly and efficient.

Except for one unexpected turn of events....this final toll booth attendant decided to make a difference. When my wife tried to hand him the bills, he smiled, waved her off and told us that our toll had been paid. Have a nice day, thank you, come again!

Another life lesson learned. There is always time to make a difference.