always learning

It’s hard to believe we’ve already finished another year of thought-provoking discussions with elementary parents during our monthly Parent Technology Coffee Mornings!

Tara, Jeff and I host these sessions in the Learning Hub on the first Wednesday of every month in order to build parental understanding of the ways that technology is changing society, and therefore, changing education. Every month we watch a short video and then discuss the implications on education and learning, always with practical examples from classrooms here at ISB. Each of our sessions is re-capped in our community blog, Connect 2.0, for those parents that can’t attend face-to-face.

Thanks to a dedicated and engaged group of parents who attend our meetings on a regular basis, we’ve discussed everything from writing in the digital age (using tools like blogs and wikis), to social networking (using tools like Facebook and Ning), to digital storytelling (using tools like iMovie and VoiceThread), to information management, online safety and the changes and challenges facing education today.

Specifically, this year we’ve watched:

• Think Before You Post
• The Talent Show
• A Vision of Students Today
• Information R/evolution
• Introducing the Book
• Common Craft on Social Networking, RSS, Wikis, Blogs, and Podcasting
• Next 5000 Days of the Web, Kevin Kelly on TED
• The Sixth Sense Technology, Pattie Maes on TED

Each of these sessions gives us the opportunity to understand a parent’s perspective on technology, share exciting projects our students are engaged in, and help clear up any misconceptions about the use of technology in the classroom. We have been fortunate to build some lasting relationship with the parents who willingly spend one morning a month in the Hub.

Although our numbers fluctuate every month – usually depending on the topic and competing events at school – we are hoping that the positive experiences parents have had with us will spread throughout the elementary school.

In fact, the wonderful parents who regularly spend the first Wednesday of every month with us have shared some of their reasons for attending:

I want to thank Tara, Kim and Jeff for hosting us ES parents at the monthly Technology meetings this school year. WOW! It is so wonderful to be able to explore and discuss how technology is affecting us as parents, not to mention learning what our kids are doing on the IT front…or want to be doing…or shouldn’t be doing…or will be doing whether we want them to or not. I’ve learned that by understanding what is “out there” and being able to have open discussions with our children about these things (instead of ignoring it) is paramount on the parenting front! Plus it’s always great to gain insight that can help us with our daily lives…whether or not we are currently in the work force or plan to reenter it in the coming years. Thank you and I look forward to these opportunities again next year.

- D

These quick and friendly appointments have represented a valuable opportunity for me to

• get more familiar with the most recent technological updates, realizing how easy it could be just trying (podcasting – I did it and now we are getting addicted to it !)
• finally starting to use the various instruments we have at our disposal (Facebook – I do not hide my name anymore, just know how to use it protecting our privacy !)
• get a bit of understanding of the new world into which our kids are born and immersed and have a first clue about how different their learning experience is compared with ours

I also enjoyed the formula (monthly, about 1 hour long, right after kids enter their classes) and hope you will continue offering us these useful updates.

- R

I attend the Parent Technology Meetings for the light, non-filling, breakfast items that complement the coffee. Just kidding…

I attend the Parent Technology Meetings to learn what my children’s world looks like and what their future holds in the realm of technology. How can we, as parent’s, help guide our children, if we are not familiar with their world. Today’s classroom (libraries, household, businesses)…today’s world is completely unlike the one I grew up with. It is continually changing.

These meeting give me a chance to become educated about technology. I am learning what my children are doing in school, with technology. I am learning how the technology works so that I can use and understand it. I am learning the benefits of technology.

These sessions give me a place to express my lack of understanding, my apprehensions, my thoughts. I share what I feel, I ask questions and I learn from others. We come from different points along the technology timeline, depending on our age. I am able to hear differing viewpoints. This allows me to evaluate and form educated opinions about technology.

The sessions are invigorating. I may not grasp everything that I learn, but I am trying. It will make things easier, because not just their world is changing, my world is changing as well. I don’t want to be left behind.

I feel privileged to be given the opportunity to learn more about technology through these eye opening sessions.

- R

In order to continue to promote these sessions, we’ve already organized a great list of topics for our monthly sessions in the 2009-10 school year, for those parents that like to plan in advance:

September 2009: An Introduction to the Ways Education is Changing in a Digital World: an introduction to the major technological changes that are currently shaping society and changing education. We will also give an overview of all of the sessions for the rest of the year.

October 2009: An Introduction to Blogging: What is a blog? How and why do people blog? How can parents get connected to all the teacher and student blogs being authored at ISB?

November 2009: An Introduction to RSS: What is RSS? How can it help me stay connected to learning happening at ISB, as well as more personal interests (like gardening or travel)? Bring your own computer and we’ll help you set up your own RSS account!

December 2009: An Introduction to Podcasting & iTunes: What is a podcast? How and why do people podcast? What are some great podcasts for students and parents to listen to and watch? Bring your own computer and we’ll help you subscribe (for free) to podcasts from ISB and around the world!

February 2010: An Introduction to Digital Literacy: What are the new literacies for the 21st Century? How is the understanding of literacy changing in education? How are ISB students learning and using 21st century literacy skills?

March 2010: An Introduction to Social Networking: What is social networking? How are your children using social networking both in school and outside of school? How can we use social networking strategies for learning?

April 2010: An Introduction to Wikis: What is a wiki? How and why do people use wikis? What is the controversy over Wikipedia? Plus, we’ll share some examples of wikis being used for learning at ISB.

May 2010: Summer Tech Activities With Your Kids! Some great tech-rich activities you can do with your children over the summer, like: starting a family travel blog, taking control of your summer vacation pictures, finding the top 10 kid-friendly podcasts for long car trips or plane rides, or making your own summer travel video for YouTube!

Final Thoughts

Overall, these sessions have been a big success! We’re actively spreading the word about new kinds of learning all students should be regularly experiencing in the classroom, we’re helping parents understand why this kind of learning is important, and we’re helping build a strong voice among our parents to share that feedback with our admin team.

One of the new things we started this year was having parents actually try some of these tools during our sessions. We had a hands-on Facebook training where parents were able to create their own Facebook account, which they really appreciated. As you can see, we’re planning a few more hands-on sessions for next year in order to help parents actively engage in these new media.

What are you doing to help your parents connect to the new ways of learning in your school?

Last week Jeff and I presented one of the final keynotes, entitled Moving A Community Forward, for the 2009 Webheads in Action Online Convergence. Not only was it a blast doing the presentation with Jeff, but it turned out to be a great reflection on what we’ve accomplished at ISB this year and what some of our next steps could be for the 2009-10 school year.

The goal of our presentation was to address the needs of the various stakeholders in a typical school community when attempting to effect change.

We covered 4 groups: Parents, Teachers, Students and Admin. As we looked at each group, we shared strategies we’ve been using here at ISB (both successful and unsuccessful) and also brainstormed some new initiatives we are thinking about for the next school year.

Although you can watch the whole presentation here (and below), I thought it would be worthwhile to post some of our key points here on the blog just in case you don’t want to watch the entire, hour-long, session. Hopefully this overview of what’s worked for us will also be helpful for others!

Moving a Community Forward Presentation Notes:

Parent Community:

Over the last two years, we’ve been working on building a strong home-school partnership around 21st century learning. We are making a concerted effort to involve more and more parents in both formal and informal events to support the exciting changes their children are experiencing in the classroom.

Parent Technology Coffee Mornings

We started with our Parent Technology Coffee Mornings early last school year. These are monthly meetings open to all elementary school parents, facilitated by me, Jeff and Tara. We usually show an engaging, short video about changes in society (I’ll put up a list of all the videos we’ve shown this year soon) and then spend about an hour discussing the impact on education. We have a group of dedicated parents who show up every month and we post the most interesting points of our discussion (along with a link to the video) on our Connect 2.0 blog.

Although these started out very informally last year, we’ve had requests to share the topics in advance and have started promoting the monthly sessions well in advance to encourage more parents to attend. We’ve already outlined all of our sessions for next year and have shared an overview with our parent community.

Inside.ISB Communication Portal

More and more of our teachers are choosing to share classroom events via a blog (instead of a Friday newsletter), and in order to make that communication as streamlined as possible, we’ve created a parent communication portal using WordPress MultiUser (WPMU). All of our teacher blogs can now be found on Inside.ISB for easy parent access.

Parent Trainings

Over this past school year, we’ve implemented PantherNet (our Moodle), PowerSchool, My.ISB (Elgg), and Inside.ISB. In order to help parents cope with the influx of digital environments that their students are regularly involved in, we’ve started running more formal parent trainings.

So far these have been scheduled during the school day with parents signing up in advance, but we’re hoping to also offer some in the evenings next school year. Considering that our school is in the suburbs, we’re also thinking of offering some sessions downtown so that parents don’t have to wrestle with Bangkok traffic in the evening.

Next Steps: Advisory Committee

During our Main Library External Audit visit by Doug Johnson and Ann Krembs, they recommended that we develop a Technology Advisory Committee comprised of several members of our ISB21 team, teachers, parents, students and administrators in order to ensure that all stakeholders have a say in the decision making process. There is no way we can truly meet the needs of our entire community without involving them at the ground level.

Student Community:

We’ve been working hard for the last few years to ensure that our students have the opportunity to interact with their peers both within school and around the world in a variety of authentic and engaging ways.

Developing a Global Audience

At almost every grade level (PK-12), our students are involved in projects that connect them with the wider world. Although both Jeff and I work at the elementary level, innovative teachers at all grade levels are incorporating global projects into their classroom curriculum.

Student Authored Blogs

Beginning with fifth grade, all students at ISB will be part of our student-blogging portal through Inside.ISB. With our new grade 5 Digital Literacy unit of study, blogging will become an integral part of our language arts curriculum. We’re hoping to use these student blogs as learning portfolios that can be continued from one grade to the next, as well as a forum to share, reflect, and communicate with a global audience.

YouTube Channel & Facebook Alumni Group

In order to take advantage of two of the most popular social media platforms, we have created both a YouTube channel and collaborated with the creators of the FB Alumni group.

Next Steps: Student Tech Team

Along with our parent community, we are looking to involve students more directly in our decision making process. We would also love to develop a student tech team to help support the entire school community in their technology needs.

Teacher Community:

LAN Parties

Earlier this year, Chrissy and I started hosting Local Area Network parties around the K12Online08 presentations. We held several of these sessions in various teacher’s homes throughout the city, watching one or two presentations each time, along with hosting a special guest via Skype for each session. At each session we had about 10 – 12 ISB teachers excited to learn something new about technology.

Early Adopter Group & Elgg Network

After seeing the sucess of the LAN parties, we decided to create an Early Adopter Group for our super “techie” teachers at ISB. We wanted to provide a place for those teachers to collaborate and communicate across divisions (somewhat difficult at a school as big as ISB), and offer them the support they need to continue to innovate and assist their colleagues in each division. As part of this team, we created an Elgg group to encourage the networked learning to continue beyond school hours.

Regular PD

As part of our professional development opportunities for all teachers at ISB, we offer informal tech support sessions 2 – 3 days a week, after school. We’ve tried a number of formats, from discussion-based Wired Wednesday, to walk-in/walk-out Personal Tech Support, and are always willing to adapt to the needs of our teachers. We have also worked hard to ensure that each of our grade level teams (in the elementary) includes a member of the ISB21 team.

Faculty Meetings

We’ve been extremely lucky to facilitate 2 ES faculty meetings this school year. One of our main goals at each meeting was to highlight and showcase the fantastic work of our amazing ES teachers. Both meetings featured a structured rotation, including Speed Geeking, for teachers to experience a sneak peak into some of the exciting projects our teachers and students are working on. Although these meetings are short (around an hour), they’ve been a great way to promote success and to spread new ideas throughout the faculty in a viral way.

SUNY Course

In another amazing stroke of luck, we have been able to offer a 15-credit, 5-course Certificate in Educational Technology and Information Literacy (CoETaIL) to our faculty as part of a longer (30-credit) Master’s degree through SUNY Buffalo. We have over 40 teachers involved in the certificate program, including 4 teachers newly recruited to ISB in January. Considering the extensive time commitment, we are so proud to have such a large percentage of our faculty dedicated to learning together.

Next Steps: IETPs for Teachers

In order to build on the groundswell that we have started in the last few years, and to formalize the changes we’re implementing, our next step is to develop Individual Educational Technology Plans for our teachers. We will start with all of our new teachers, as well as a group of volunteers (as part of the final course in our CoETaIL program) in the next school year.

Admin Community:

Present at Leadership Team (LT) Meetings

Over the past two years, we have been invited to present formally at the ISB Leadership Team meetings. These presentations are our change to share our learning and recommendations with the higher school administration.

Continued Conversations

Outside of formal meeting times, we make an effort to continue the process of relationship building through casual and frequent conversation with our school leaders.

Sharing Resources

We regularly share blog posts, articles, websites, videos, and a whole host of resources with our admin team. Often these items prompt further discussion in meetings or casual conversation. The goal is always to keep learning.

Present to School Board

As a result of our successful LT meeting presentations, we were asked to present to the school board this year, which ended up in a decision to modify our school vision to reflect our ISB21 philosophy.

Next Steps: Tie Parent Community to Admin Community

In order to continue moving forward we know that we will need more than just teacher voices promoting change. We would like to work closely with our parent community to enlist their help in pushing our school community forward. It is the voices of the parents that most often and most successfully bring about change in schools.

Final Thoughts

Of course, not everything we’ve done has gone perfectly, or according to plan. We are always revising, re-thinking, and reflecting as the year progresses. These are just a few of our favorite initiatives in order to give us something to think about as we begin to plan for the 2009-10 school year.

What has worked well in your school in your efforts to move your community forward?

Full Presentation:

Moving a Community Forward by jutecht on Flickr