always learning

Tom Kelley got me thinking at the Hong Kong Summit: Where’s the innovation in our schools? Where’s the risk taking? Where’s the abundance of ideas? Who’s seeing things with fresh eyes? How are we taking the best ideas from other industries and applying them to education?

Generally speaking, schools are excruciatingly slow to change. Even when schools are making a concerned effort to be innovative and re-think traditional modes of learning, it often ends up being a variation of what’s already in place. I’ve been on countless curriculum review committees where one pre-packaged program was chosen over another in an effort to “modernize” the learning experience, but in the end all we ever seem to get is a new coat of paint on what we’re already doing. Sure, we’re moving forward, but it’s at a snail’s pace.

So how fast should schools be adapting and changing? What should the pace of innovation be?

Unfortunately, as Tom eloquently described, if we have any hope of staying ahead of the curve, we need to be moving even faster than the other innovators in our field. It’s not enough simply to be an innovator,  you need to stay ahead of everyone else who’s innovating - even if they appear to be outside your field.

Tom refers to this as the “Red Queen Effect” after a scene in Alice’s Adventures Through the Looking Glass, where Alice is shocked to be standing in the same place after running quite fast for an extended period of time and the Red Queen explains, “if you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.”

This isn’t a question of schools choosing to stand still or not innovating at all, because I do believe we’re all trying to move forward in one way or another. This is about the dangers of slowing your pace of innovation just enough for others to out-pace you - not necessarily other schools, but rather other modes of learning. Interestingly, Tom also mentioned that resting on your laurels is usually the time when others outpace you innovatively (something I think many good schools are very much in danger of doing all too often).

Another Hong Kong presenter, Stephen Heppell, was also careful to emphasize that the biggest challenge today is the pace of change: exponential. With this rapid pace of change there is no time for the “staircase mentality” (pilot, review etc). He reminded us that we didn’t value tech in the 80s - what are we mistakenly not valuing now?

Why does this happen?

Tom explained that innovation falls squarely in quadrant 2 of Steven Covey’s matrix: it’s “Important”, but “Not Urgent”. For example, we absolutely have to have a new math/science/reading/social studies program. The teachers can’t teach without one, so picking a new one is going to fall in quadrant 1, and ultimately, innovation gets put off until tomorrow. However, innovation has an urgency all its own and those that don’t place innovation as a priority will find themselves displaced.

As innovators, Stephen mentioned that we need to be critical about what’s convenient for us versus what’s good for learning, for example, our assumption that ringing a lunch bell means that a thousand students will suddenly be hungry at the same time, or that students are at the same stage in their learning (in same grade) because they happened to born between two Septembers, etc.

Another problem is that radical change is often thought of as expensive. On the contrary, as Stephen, observed: “It’s more expensive to make or maintain schools and add bits of exciting 21st century around than to just skip to a much cheaper 21st century model model of community learning.” This is a good example of the difficulty people face in conceptually realizing the advantages of bold innovation: we naturally assume that slow steady progress will be best (as we are taught from an early age, when the tortoise wins the race).

How do we make innovation a priority in our educational institutions?

Tom discussed the 10 Faces of Innovation from his recent book of the same name, explaining that we need 10 different types of people to bring all the facets of innovation to the forefront of our organization:

• The Hurdler: this is the person who says, “of course there will be obstacles - that’s my job, overcoming obstacles.”
• The Storyteller: data is not that powerful. Stories carry messages farther.
• The Anthropologist: this is the person who focuses on seeing with fresh eyes (or “vuja de”). People get immersed in their own environment and simply stop seeing it for what it is, it becomes “just the way things are,” for example the turnstiles at CDG airport, which are impossible to carry luggage through, despite the fact that they’re between the airport and the subway. Yet airport employees see them day in and day out and they haven’t been changed. We need to observe objects in use in their natural environment so that we can design with empathy
• The Experimenter: this person gives permission for failure, knowing that innovation involves risk. To innovate, we must to be able to fail in a safe environment by creating an idea-friendly organization where we have the ability to “squint” and see the “shape” of an idea.
• The Cross Pollinator: the ability to share ideas, to take inspiration from other cultures and enhance, thereby gaining in translation. Examine other ideas cross continents, cross countries, cross industry, cross age (”reverse mentors”) to be able to build upon other ideas and transform and improve them.
• The Experience Architect : The Experience Economy - book (commodity, product, service, experience)
• The Collaborator: brings people together to get things done.
• The Director: enabler of great creativity around them
• The Set Designer: approaches from people standpoint then looks at business & technology elements to create effective designs. Building engaging, seductive, delightful learning is also a design task.
• The Care Giver: have empathy and work to extend the relationship.

How do you structure for innovation?

Tom shared several criteria for successful innovation:

• A flat leadership model to enable anyone to have their idea heard by the “boss” no matter where you are in the organization. He also pointed out, however, that after many years of experimentation at IDEO, the company found that 100 people is the limit for a flat leadership model, and any larger organization will unfortunately need to have a “boss’s boss” and so on.
• Must have an abundance mentality, the goal is to share as many ideas as possible, knowing that only a very small percentage will work. He cites an example of a game-design company which had 1000 ideas but only 6 patents in one year.
• The need for good humor, an environment where it is OK to make fun of the boss.
• Workspace design must focus on building collaboration, for example, the stereotypical office design of cubicles actually look a lot like voting booths, which are specifically designed to prevent collaboration. What about our set-up of each teacher in their own classroom? I’m not sure you could design anything so physically non-collaborative if you tried!

What does this mean for education?

The time for innovation is now, as Stephen described (and Marco Torres’ slide below emphasizes), “learning is at a crossroads:” we’re looking at a choice between productivity and new approaches, those new approaches being:

• student portfolios;
• making huge leaps in our model of education, not tiny steps forward;
• working to produce ingenious, engaged, inspired, surprising, collegiate students;
• and developing learning experiences that are open-ended, project-focused, multidisciplinary.

By innovation, I don’t mean just adding more technology to the classroom, I mean thinking differently about learning in its entirety. For example, I still find it hard to believe that many schools have not fully implemented a project-based learning approach. This was all the rage when I was in teacher’s college 10 - 12 years ago, but even now it’s still marketed as something “new” (maybe that’s why I like the MYP so much). How is it possible that, 12 years after learning about a model of education being the best thing since sliced bread, only a few schools really excel at this approach?

It’s not technology alone that makes us innovative, it’s looking at learning with fresh eyes. It’s asking ourselves: if we could start from scratch, what would our schools look like today? I can’t remember who said this first but, “technology is just an amplifier” - technology doesn’t change the quality of teaching or learning, it will only amplify it, either in a positive or negative way. What we need to be looking at is changing our approaches to learning, not modifying our curriculum to a “newer” version of what we’ve already had for the past 20 years.

We could start by taking a step back and looking at the whole experience of teaching and learning, as if we  were aliens from another planet or anthropologists studying a remote tribe, as Tom described the role of the Anthropologist in his 10 Faces of Innovation. It’s only through observing learning in its natural environment today, wherever it’s taking place, that we can understand how to build schools that meet the needs of today’s learners. As Tom quipped, “I don’t know who discovered water, but it certainly wasn’t a fish!”

What do you think? Is your school innovative? What are you doing to encourage innovation? What can schools do to focus on innovation despite the daily urgencies of our profession?

If you were an alien who knew nothing about our education system and you arrived on our planet today, how would you design a learning community for today’s students?

Miguel Guhlin quote from Clarence Fisher, Literacy as Battleground, image source
Chris Lehmann quote image source: Flickr user Ali K.

I’ve been to a lot of conferences this year. So, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about conferences, mostly about how to make them a better experience for the participants. After the absolutely fantastic Apple Global Leadership Summit in Hong Kong last week, I had a bit of a brainwave.

Here’s how I think a really engaging, exciting, and community-building conference could be run (apologies if there’s already conferences out there like this, I just haven’t been to any):

Action

So many conferences follow the “sit ‘n git” model where participants sit in room after room (or if you’re incredibly unlucky, the same room all day) listening to “experts” tell you how things “should” be done.

There’s no time in the schedule for actually doing something with our new knowledge, and sadly, often no time for just talking and interacting with our fellow conference goers in a learning- or topic-focused environment (coffee breaks don’t count).

We need to make conferences more practical, not just hands on training with new tools, but a focus on the actual creation of something that bridges new learning with what you already know, and asks you to create something useful.

Although it was great to see so many hands on sessions at the Hong Kong summit, as a presenter, it seemed like the hands on training felt very isolated to the new content presented and there really wasn’t enough time (1 hour for a hands on session) to activate and engage participants’ prior knowledge within the workshop as a whole.

As the ADE Institute and the Flat Classroom Conference did very well, conferences should make the event about some sort of action or project that bridges the theory, content and tools, helps build your network, and requires you to leave with something tangible.

Grouping/Differentiation

I would love to see a conference where attendees were grouped the first day (by choice, ability, experience or interest, organized in advance with color-coded nametags), and spent the whole conference reconnecting in various formats with a group leader (during an Apple conference, this could be an ADE group leader) to create something together.

All groups could have an ongoing task that lead you through the conference, asking participants to put their new knowledge to work, building on each plenary and presentation session, and then culminating in the production of something practical and useful during a hands on workshop time. The hands on workshop time could be lead by the same group leader, and introduce group members to the all of the different tools they will need to create their final action project (from a presenter’s perspective, this could be the new role of the “presenter” or “ADE Workshop Leader” at a conference).

Between keynote sessions, these groups could come back together to digest and discuss the information presented and then begin to develop an action project that utilizes this new knowledge. If the groups regularly meet in the same classroom over the course of the conference materials could be kept & posted around the room.

In order to ensure that there was enough cross-pollination across all conference attendees, the group action projects could be structured in such a way that each group is required to interact with members from the other groups in order to complete their project.

In terms of practicalities, in a conference of around 500 people, you could create 17 groups of 30 people, or 20 groups of 25 people (that raises your number of “presenters”, and therefore the cost of travel and hotel, but it would be so worth it for everyone). Group leaders could have a meeting before the conference starts to discuss, plan, and network among themselves. (And by the way, why don’t we have sessions for the presenters to network at conferences either? They miss out on all the casual conversations because they’re so busy organizing and prepping for their own presentations!)

Diversity

Why, oh why do we still see the same presenters at every conference? I don’t mean the same individual people (although that can be a problem too). I mean the same older, white, males. Where’s the diversity? Gender, race, age, experience? How did we get trapped in this model where we think only older white men have something to offer?

There have been many posts about the need for diversity in conference speakers, but some things never seem to change. This needs to make it to the top of the list for conference organizers.

We need speakers that represent our society. It’s not a planet full of older, white, men, but our conferences make it seem that way.

Students

Along the lines of diversifying presenters, why is it that we have all these conferences about learning and how to meet our students needs, but we never actually have any student participants or presenters?

I’m not talking about handing out badges or directing people to the right room, I mean students leading sessions. Maybe sessions on how to use new tools or on what they’re doing with technology outside of school, or what they’d like to see in school (imagine that?). What about having students as experts on a panel discussion of what schools should be doing with technology? Or how technology has changed the way they receive, create and distribute information?

Time for Reflection

As much as I loved the Hong Kong Summit, there was simply not enough time for reflection and metacognition. No matter how much you know about a topic, there is always a need for discussion after an engaging session. After each session, a group leader could facilitate an unconference style discussion, with a focus question or Visible Thinking routine to get people processing the information. If participants are working within the groups outlined in the first paragraph, they would get to know each other well during these breakout unconference sessions, and knowledge could be built as a collaborative team towards the final action project.

Dialogue

Here’s one of the many things I have learned from the past two years working in the elementary division. Every single presentation must include room for dialogue, not always with the presenter but just with the people you’re sitting next to, even keynotes.

Just a simple opportunity to chat with the person you’ve never met (but had to crawl over to get to the only remaining seat in the middle of the row) based on the information you’re learning. We know we have to do this in the classroom, and the same applies in a conference - it’s just a big classroom, right?

Movement

Do not sit in the same room all day no matter how logistically convenient it is.

Final Thoughts

What have I missed? What would you like to see in a next generation conference format?

World Mosaic: A Tribute to Flickr Portraits by pardeshi

Last weekend I attended (and presented at) the East Asia Regional Council of Overseas Schools (EARCOS) Teacher’s Conference (ETC).  This is the second year in a row I’ve attended this conference and I absolutely love the opportunity to network with other teachers in the region. This time around the conference was in beautiful Malaysian Borneo - not exactly the most convenient location to get to, but quite relaxing once we arrived.

This year, I attended several workshops on the importance of effective teaming and collaboration.

As a technology facilitator, I often find myself working with a variety of teams across all grade levels and subject areas. I rarely do anything entirely alone and spend most of my time at work collaborating with at least one other colleague - whether it’s co-planning a project, supporting a team in developing a unit, or planning a faculty meeting - teaming is a huge part of my job. These sessions were a perfect opportunity for me to get a better picture of what makes teams work well (or not so well in the case of the “10 Symptoms of Dysfunctional Teams” session).

A few things that stood out for me during the sessions were:

• “As educators we overestimate the amount of change we can effect in one school year, and we underestimate the amount of change we can effect in three” - Larry Keeley
• If you don’t have a goal, you’re not a team.
• The primary goal of a team leader is to build trust. Actions speak louder than words and creating trust goes on for years, one action can destroy years of trust-building.
• Change must be thoughtful, deliberate and systematic, and planned with the end in mind, following the Understanding by Design process of curriculum planning.
• Teams must engage in healthy debate, dialogue, and professional discussion.
• One of the most important things a team can have to function properly is Essential Agreements that have been discussed, agreed upon, and revisited regularly. Examples of essential agreements that are currently working in other international schools: be fully present - don’t do anything else during the meeting; keep everything confidential (unless the group decides not to); start on time; minutes of the meeting will be within 24 hours; agendas will be given 24 hours before; monitor your own talk time; establish a shared vocabulary; it’s OK to disagree.

In all of the sessions, we talked a lot about different types of teams, and the fact that most people feel the best team they’ve experienced is usually a sports team - because they have such a clear, common goal. I wonder, how often do teams really define (and believe in) a common goal at work the way they would on a sports team?

Along the same lines, I’ve also just finished Disrupting Class by Clayton Christensen, which talks about two different dimensions of agreement that affects how successful an organization is:

1. agreement on what people want (the goal), and
2. agreement on the cause and effect (how to reach the goal)

So, even if we agree on what we want (improved student learning), but we don’t agree on how we can achieve that goal, we’re never going to get there.

The workshops and the book have really made me realize just how complex team building is - and how much of an impact individual teams can have on the success and movement of any organization.

There are so many elements, layers and personalities that need to be balanced in order to create an effective team. A team needs visionary people to create and advocate for goals, organized people to forge consensus on methods for achieving those goals, and thoughtful and sensitive people to make sure that everyone is heard and feels valued. Creating an effective team is much harder than I’d previously thought, and teamwork can be incredibly complex.

This all makes me appreciate just how lucky I am to be working on a team with Jeff and Tara here at ISB. We complement each other’s abilities and interests in a way that I think balances many of these elements. We have someone who’s good at envisioning the future (Jeff), someone who’s good at meeting individual needs and understanding people’s feelings and anxieties (Tara), and someone who’s good at organizing and managing steps toward progress (me). Between the three of us, I really believe we can tackle any task successfully.

It’s such a pleasure to work with Jeff and Tara not because we always agree on everything, but because we have an amazing dynamic that allows the group as a whole to take steps forward. It’s the three of us together that makes us so much more effective than even the brightest among us, which reminds me of another book I’m reading, The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki.

What successful teams have you worked on? Why do you think they were so successful? What elements need to be in place, or balanced? How can we work to create positive, productive environments in existing teams which for one reason or another don’t have this balance?

Human Pyramid by chooyutshing

After having the pleasure of teaching the first course in our 5-course SUNY Certificate of Educational Technology and Information Literacy, I’m now participating in the second course as a student. I’m really interested (and excited) to see what this course looks like from the “other side of the room.” I think it will give me a better understanding of what participants are looking for, and will hopefully open my eyes to improved teaching and learning strategies for adults.

It’s been around two years since I’ve taken a graduate course, and my last one was taught by two of my absolutely favorite instructors, Bill and Ochan Powell, so it will be very interesting to see how our style compares to classes I remember being so beneficial and productive (and by “our,” I mean all of the CoETaIL teachers, since we planned the 5-course certificate program together).

This second course is led by Jeff and Chad and focuses on issues and problems in 21st century learning (digital citizenship, digital footprints, safety, privacy, etc). In retrospect, it’s actually perfect that we have this course second, because these were the issues that were really coming to the forefront of our discussions at the end of the first course. It will be good to spend an entire 6 weeks discussing the challenges we all face with technology and learning.

Each week, course participants are asked to write one blog post about our essential question of the week. Since I’m late (as usual) with this post, it’s been fantastic to read some of the other participants’ thoughts on the topic and I’ve shared quite a few within Google Reader. This week’s prompt is:

When and where should we be teaching students about their digital footprint?

This quote from Seth Godin, perfectly and Zen-tastically represented here by Michael Marlatt, sums up my thoughts about digital footprints in general:

As Silvia stated in her presentation (about backchannel chats in the classroom), having a digital footprint is a good thing! You are in charge of your presence on the web - it’s up to you to make it what you want it to be. Presenting yourself as yourself, sharing your thoughts, developing deeper understandings about your professional learning, is what your digital footprint should (and can) be about. Learning and professionalism online is now viewed with the mindset of: you are what you share.

Your digital profile should be a representation of who you are, with the knowledge that you are responsible for that representation. If you choose to use rude language, post angry or consistently negative statements, continually share information that is a little too personal (I consider “too personal” to be anything I wouldn’t tell my employer), your digital footprint will represent that side of you.

It’s certainly worth your energy to think about the way you represent yourself - because your next employer will most likely start with a quick Google search to determine who you are… I know I want those search results to be something I expect, value, and would like to share with a larger audience (and specifically prospective employers).

All of our students must have the opportunity to truly understand this new digital landscape. The stories of students getting rejected from university due to their Facebook profiles, or people losing their jobs due to quick and thoughtless tweets are scary, sure, but do students really understand how this will directly impact their lives? I know at least one teacher in the international school circuit that was fired for posting inappropriate material on one of their web sites. I know I don’t want that to be me!

So, have you decided? Who do you want your “digital me” to be?

Once again, I must admit that I feel quite lucky to be working at the elementary level. As much as I enjoy working with middle school students and teachers, I am realizing more and more that elementary is the place to instill good habits with technology.

Students are much more open to advice and suggestions from their teachers, parents are much more involved in their child’s schooling, and the elementary classroom is usually the place where students are learning to learn with these new tools for the first time. This is the time to instill safe habits.

By middle and high school, it may be too late. Students have already formed their opinions, habits are already in place, and they definitely are a lot less interested in discussing their online life with their teachers (and parents) than they would be in elementary school.

With that in mind, it’s equally important that elementary teachers are comfortable and confident discussing these kinds of issues with their students. We’ve recently had an epidemic of inappropriate (student-produced) material (nothing too serious, but also nothing we can condone at the school) being housed on the server accounts of elementary students.

When my principal asked what we can do about this, my first piece of advice was to have our students physically sign our Elementary School Acceptable Use Policy (if they don’t sign it, there’s no guarantee that they - or their parents - have even seen it) along with an in-depth discussion about appropriate online behavior in every classroom in our elementary school at the beginning of the school year.

To actually do this, we need every teacher to understand the implications of the AUP and to feel comfortable enough discussing it with their class. This is no small task.

Hosting appropriate files on the school’s server is an excellent, somewhat safer, learning experience for students to truly understand the impact of their digital footprint. If they are creating and saving inappropriate material on their school account, what are they doing online? And who’s watching them there?

When do you begin talking with students about their digital footprint?

The Age of Candid Camera image courtesy of Michael Marlatt
Silvia Tolisano image courtesy of Teaching Sagittarian (but I believe, taken by me!)

Apparently I am embarking on a very modest consulting career.

Last year, Julie Lindsay invited me to spend 2 days at her school, Qatar Academy, working with the Primary School teachers on 21st century learning. Amazingly, that visit went so well that she invited me back again this year, this time to work with the Senior School (middle and high school) teachers on the same topic. I was truly flattered to be asked back and have really enjoyed the experience.

I never would have expected when I started teaching that anyone would invite me to their school to work with their teachers, but now that I’ve had the chance, I know I would like to continue building these skills.

One of the things I really enjoy about these visits is the opportunity to really consolidate my thinking. Every time I make a presentation I take the time to really clarify what I need to say, what background needs to be covered for it to make sense, and why it’s important to teaching and learning. This time around a few topics from the three presentations I gave jumped to the surface:

Using technology in the classroom is a mindset, not a skill-set.

This is something I’ve been saying for a long time, but I feel like it’s becoming more and more important as technology continues to change more and more rapidly. The feeling of being overwhelmed by new information, of not being able to catch up, of needing to know more than your students, can end up leading teachers down a path of avoidance instead of adoption. Focusing on the attitudes and mindset of a teacher who successfully uses technology in the classroom helps make the shift more approachable.

Teachers who use technology in the classroom are: flexible, willing to take risks and try new things, not afraid of failing, able to learn from their students, adaptable, and comfortable with the fact that they are not the smartest person in the room. Cultivating this kind of mindset is the first step to understanding how to use technology successfully in the classroom.

Unfortunately, this is also a paradigm shift for many teachers. What do you mean I’m not the smartest person in the room? Isn’t that why I’m the teacher and they’re the student? Which brings me to the next key point:

It’s not about the technology, it’s about the pedagogy.

It’s so easy to focus on the tools. Teachers are very comfortable being shown the power of a new tool and figuring out how they can make it work for their teaching style. It seems like the “how to” is what most teachers like to hear, see and test first. Unfortunately, it’s just too easy to make the tools fit the old paradigm. If we’re not talking about pedagogy, if we’re not talking about changing the classroom environment, if we’re not talking about students learning how to learn, there’s really no point to talking about the tools.

In the end we all want our students to be successful, but there are certain pedagogical approaches that will help them become independent learners, who can survive and thrive in the constantly changing, media rich, content saturated world we live in. Classrooms that are project based, inquiry driven, and student centered not only help us reach our goals as teachers, but they also very naturally lend themselves to successful technology integration. If a teacher is using the same worksheets s/he has used for 10 years, or teaching one individual lesson one day after the next, or leads an activity-based classroom, it’s going to be awfully hard to authentically embed technology into that environment. No matter how easy and quick it might be to look at the tools first, we have to start with the pedagogy and the “why.”

We need to learn with technology the way students live with technology.

In the end, this is about making school relevant. We may not like the changes in our society, we may not appreciate the constant media bombardment of our children that ends up in something like this (which, personally I find rather horrifying), but the reality is, this is our world. We made it this way. Now we have to find ways to ensure that our children learn how to live in this world, how to stay safe, how to lead balanced lives, how to use all of these many tools at their disposal for appropriate and authentic purposes. We can’t do that by ignoring technology. We also can’t do that by making those tools fit our preferred style of learning. We have to tap into the energy our students bring to class to find ways to learn with technology the way students live with technology.

This is not an all-or-nothing proposition. It’s about finding ways to authentically use the appropriate, relevant and pedagogically sound tools to enhance the learning experience for our students. It doesn’t mean all the time, but it does mean in different ways that we might be used to. I love Marc Prensky’s statement about doing new things in new ways. This is what we’re looking for. No need to retro-fit a new tool to an old project. How can we get to our curricular goals in a new way, in a way that engages our students? As Chrissy likes to say: we’re still going to the same place, we just might need to drive a different vehicle.

Conversation Starter

In the end, these visits are about starting conversations, promoting new thinking and questioning just about everything. Everything is not going to be resolved in a two- or three- or even ten-day visit. All we can hope to accomplish is to get people talking, to stir up the pot a bit, to snap some out of their comfort zones and to promote the work of others, to bring in relevant information from the “outside world” and to kick start the change process.

The absolute best thing about my visit this time around was having the chance to talk to some of the Primary School teachers I worked with last year. Every single one of them said to me: “You changed me.” Wow. I’ve never, ever had anyone say that to me before. To be able to come in for a short visit, share some new ideas, help inspire and empower people, and then to hear about your success from those very people only a year later. Yes, that is definitely something I would like to do more often.

Now, this is not to say that everything went perfectly during both visits. There are challenges, problems, disagreements and, to be honest, a little bit of anger and fear, all to be expected. But in the end it’s those conversations that get things started. And, as we all know, there’s always room to grow. A few things I want to think about well in advance next time around are:

• What has been the school’s history with technology (or any other) initiates?
• What is the general feeling of the staff? Are there members who are supportive? Those who will challenge anything?
• What success can we share from the school itself? How can we promote success internally?
• Where are the administrators? How visible will they be during the visit?
• What are the practical issues specifically relevant to the school, student body, parent population and culture?
• What is the culture of the school in general?

As usual, everything is a learning experience. Anyone have any other advice about consulting?

Seeing as it’s the end of the year, and the perfect time for reflection given that our three-week semester break started yesterday and our friends from Munich won’t arrive until Monday, I thought I would take some time to list my recent achievements at ISB.

There’s something about the act of writing things down that helps solidify them in my mind - it’s almost as if I don’t write them down, they didn’t happen (which definitely makes me wonder what I did before I started blogging two and a half years ago). And, even though I know I have all of these things already recorded in various posts here on this blog, it really helps organize my own thoughts by listing them all in one space.

In addition to keeping myself organized and up-to-date, I also love the idea of sharing successes. I am always inspired by all of the amazing things I read from my personal learning network, and I would love to see a similar list of achievements from other edubloggers (if you have the inclination and the time). Being able to follow up with a concise list of the fantastic work I know everyone is doing would be just perfect for a type-a personality, such as myself!

So, in the interests of sharing and reflecting, here’s my highlighted list of achievements over the past year and a half at ISB:

• Building productive and positive collaborative teaching relationships with staff, at both the individual level, and the team level, including teachers in “my” division (elementary), as well as the other two divisions of the school.
• Co-planning and co-teaching a wide variety of projects, using the Understanding by Design process, which authentically embed 21st century literacy skills with teachers at each grade level in the elementary school, as well as additional projects in the middle and high schools, on request.
• Bridging and merging the educational technology team and the library team to form a new, cross-school department focused on 21st century learning: the ISB21 Team.
• Collaboratively designing the future of 21st century learning at ISB: through curriculum planning, presenting to leadership team, and working within the tech and library departments.
• Continually striving for change within the school structure, focusing on 21st century learning.
• Helping teachers build their understanding of how 21st century tools can help students learn through collaboration on projects, the development of a Professional Learning Community, after school and weekend PD, leading faculty meetings, in-school presentations, sharing of resources and casual conversation.
• Planning, implementing and teaching a new graduate-level, 5-course SUNY Certificate of Educational Technology and Information Literacy.
• Building parental understanding of 21st century literacy tools in a positive, exciting and approachable manner.
• Publicly documenting ES student success through the use of 21st century communication tools, as well as traditional communication methods.
• Extensive professional development - learning as an attendee, receiving awards, presenting (at quite a few conferences), bringing in experts, and consulting.
• Learning to be a better teacher by working with elementary students and teachers.
• Focusing on curriculum development, specifically planning units of inquiry which authentically embed technology and 21st century literacy skills.
• Collaborating with teachers to plan and teach units that engage, motivate and excite students about their learning from kindergarten to grade five.
• Helping students and teachers build Personal Learning Networks - connecting people around learning and making meaningful connections
  
• Collaborating with teams on developing, documenting and sharing an overarching vision for learning - looking at “the big picture“
• Building excitement and enthusiasm around technology and 21st century literacy - differentiating, connecting and collaborating - with students, teachers and parents
• Bringing new tools to our Learning Hub that will enable students, teachers, and parents to take full advantage of the multimedia resources we have to offer.
• Coordinating and leading professional development training on technology and 21st century tools
• Continually learning and reflecting with and using 21st century tools to share, connect and collaborate with others both within our school environment and among the global community of educators I am proud to call my Personal Learning Network
• Taking a leadership role on projects outside of the school environment to further enhance and build my understanding of 21st century learning.
• Reflecting and refining practices to ensure that I am learning from each experience.

Phew! I’m tired just looking at this list! It’s amazing how quickly you forget what you’ve done if you don’t take the time to reflect. And, of course the constant influx of amazing things streaming in via Twitter and Google Reader, is always inspiring to do more, to go further, to keep moving. Sometimes it’s nice to just take a moment to see how far we’ve come. There is always more to be done, always the next steps to take, but for right now, I think I’m pretty happy with what I see here.

What are your major accomplishments for the year? Please feel free to share a link to your own list in the comments here!

Oh my! I could not be more flattered or proud to have been nominated for an Edublog award by two of my personal blogging heros: Julie Lindsay and Silvia Tolisano. Both Julie and Silvia have pushed my thinking for years, supported me through some difficult times, and been inspirational in their contributions to the educational blogging world. Thank you!

Not only was this completely unexpected given my totally random bursts of blogging and often quiet spells, but I can’t believe I’m listed among so many amazing bloggers, check them out:

Mobile Technology in TAFE
Education Investigation
Learn Online
Teaching Learners with Multiple Special Needs
Bionic Teaching
SCC English
Nadstar’s Blog
Teachers at risk
John Connell
Doug - off the record
Mathemetics Learning
The Scholastic Scribe
Newly Ancient
Chrisina’s Classroom Early Childhood blog
Cliotech
ICTlogy
Theology in the Vineyard
Computer Science Teacher - thoughts and information from Alfred Thompson
Darcy’s blog
The Edublogger
Teaching and Learning Design
The Bamboo Project
All teachers are learners - All learners are teachers
Sarah’s Musings
Using Blogs in science Education
Learning with ‘e’s
What It’s Like on The Inside
EFL20.com
Generation YES Blog
Betty’s Blog
Teach42
Creating Lifelong Learners
Always Learning
The English Blog
David Truss: Pair-a-dimes for your Thoughts

Thank you again for this wonderful surprise ladies! And if any of my equally wonderful and thoughtful readers felt like heading over and voting for me, that would just be the icing on the cake!

One of the most interesting aspects of my job is figuring out how to best support teachers - everyone is at a different comfort and experience level with technology, and most are uncomfortable admitting what they don’t know. Building individual relationships with new colleagues, as well as getting to know team, department and faculty dynamics are a critical factor to my success as a 21st Century Literacy Specialist (or as a Technology Facilitator, for that matter).

Over the past few weeks, one thing has really stood out for me: Just like I believe I need to get to know a class and their teacher when working on a collaborative project, getting to know the team is essential to deeper, more authentic and appropriate support, for both the curricular needs and the needs of the individual teachers on the team.

Towards the end of last year I realized that I was able to make connections with a number of individual staff members, and therefore help shift those teachers through projects at every grade level. But, I realized I still wasn’t starting the shift with any groups of teachers.  Most of the teachers were at different grade levels and didn’t regularly cross paths with the other teachers I was working with. The momentum was with individuals only.

As powerful as that momentum had been, I started to realize that teachers truly appreciate support and common goals with their team. If they can try something new with their team members, they have a built-in support structure that fits easily into their daily practice of teaching and learning that also conveniently slots right into the existing infrastructure of the school. Plus the added benefits of a safety-net: everyone participates, everyone helps, everyone agrees that this is the path to take. Convenience, comfort and accessibility are all be strong benefits to working through the process as a team.

So, this year I started my quest to find a team at ISB that would allow me to be a mostly-silent, but always willing to help, member. Luckily the wonderful and welcoming grade 4 team allowed me to join, sit in on their weekly team meetings, and offer my two cents when appropriate. It has truly been a valuable learning experience.

Working with an entire team has helped me understand each individual member of the team better through their interactions with others. I also have a deeper understanding of their needs for curricular support, as well as the challenges they are facing in their classrooms. I hope that, by being there for them, they also see me as a productive and contributing member of their team. I try to offer ideas that will streamline their daily tasks, help engage their students, and add a digital literacy component to their units of study.

One of the most powerful experiences has been over the past week and a half while the team has been discussing their current social studies unit, Influence. The team had previously decided on their Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions, but were not sure how they wanted to assess student learning.

As a member of the team, I was part of all of the discussions about how the unit went last year, struggles and successes, ideas for improvement, concerns and how it all fits into the bigger picture of student learning in grade four. Because I had all of that background, I was able to share an idea for a final assessment that (hopefully) will meet the needs for this unit, adding in a 21st century-style approach, and also take into consideration time factors, other units of study that need to be completed, technical resources, and teacher and student comfort level with technology tools.

Without being a participant in all of those discussions I would have only had a one-sided view of the need at hand, and certainly would not have been able to put the curricular needs of the unit into the context of the entire grade level. Just stepping in to offer my ideas for a quick 10-minute discussion once in a while would not have prepared me to truly meet the needs of the team. I have also been able to spend dedicated time with some of the team members and our Curriculum Coordinator to fully flesh out this unit so that it meets the needs of the teachers and the students. Now this unit will be part of the grade 4 curriculum for years to come.

To truly collaborate with teachers, I am starting to believe that we, as resource people, need to be part of their team environment. I can certainly work individually with teachers to help them with their specific classroom needs, but to make any major shifts in the thinking of the school or to effect change in the curriculum, the collaboration needs to come at the team level.

What do you think? How are you best supporting your teams or departments at your school?

Move Over Clematis by neon.mamcita
Seedling from twenty-questions

Thanks to our wonderful and supportive Principal & Vice Principal, this past Tuesday, Tara, Jeff and I had the opportunity to present to the ES Faculty about the work that our ISB21 Team has been doing over the past few years. We were thrilled to be given the chance to present to the full staff (a total of around 70 classroom and specialist teachers) not only because we are so excited about what we’ve been doing, but also because we felt that a full-staff meeting is the best way to build excitement and ensure total transparency.

Considering our meetings are relatively short (45 minutes) we spent some time getting the planning and timing just right - not wasting anyone’s time and (attempting, at least) to keep it interesting. In order to model the use of essential web tools, we shared our agenda on a wiki and made sure to include lots of great links for staff.

We started our meeting off with a quick Think, Pair, Share focused on the question: How are students today different than when we were kids? This is always an interesting conversation starter, helping bring forward legitimate concerns about balance and social interaction, and also giving us a good picture of where the mindset of our ES faculty is on the topic. I also love the possibilities for facilitating a longer discussion on this topic, modeling open-mindedness and allowing all different perspectives to be heard. Of course, we only had about five minutes for this quick intro!

Next we watched a short video together, called A Vision of PK-12 Students Today by Barbara Nesbitt:

What a great discussion starter that video can be - for teachers and parents alike (we showed it at last month’s Parent Tech Coffee Morning and had a 45 minute discussion!) After watching the video, we asked the teachers to share their thoughts about the video at their table groupings, and then had a few share back to the group. It was interesting to see which parts of the conversation changed after watching the video and which areas were still a major concern (balance and social interaction again).

Once we had a basic common understanding of the needs of the 21st century learner, we shared our ISB21 vision along with a little bit of history about how we came to this understanding. It was fantastic to be able to say that we’ve shared this same vision with our leadership team as well as our board and that both have approved our work. This really helped give us a sense of legitimacy at the meeting, as well as enable us to emphasize that this type of learning is (will be, and should be) happening here at ISB.

The longest section of the meeting was spent showcasing teachers that have already implemented these values into their classroom. We had 10 different table groups, all with mixed groups of teachers from different grade levels and specialist departments. One teacher per table group was asked in advance to share some of the work they’re doing with their students. We had the following teachers lead a table discussion:

• Patty V: Ms. Patty’s Class Blog: How a Pre-K teacher uses her class blog to involve both the students and the parents in the learning experience.
  
• Sandy, Akiko & Heather: Kinder Kids Draw! How kindergarten uses VoiceThread and wikis to reflect on learning and collaborate globally.
  
• Erin & Jessica: Global eLearners: How grade 1 ESL uses VoiceThread and wikis to practice oral language fluency with global partners.
  
• Susan: Window to Our World, Bangkok Room With a View: How grade 2 uses a Ning and a wiki to connect and collaborate around classroom learning from intercultural understanding to weather.
  
• Sonja: Merrellzone Blog: How grade 4 uses a class blog to reflect on their learning and connect and collaborate with global partners.
  
• Mary: Bellone’s Learning Blog: How grade 4 uses Garage Band and iMovie to create digital storytelling based on Writer’s Workshop pieces.
  
• Louise: PantherNet: How grade 4 uses Moodle to increase school-home communication and go paperless.
• Chrissy: Room 202’s Blog: How grade 5 uses Skype, blogs, wikis, VoiceThread and other web 2.0 tools to engage and motivate students while connecting them to the world.
  
• Robin & Ali: Room 227, Room 229, Room 227: How grade 5 uses blogs and podcasts to share their learning about reading and writing with global partners.
  
• Diane: Grade 5 ESL Blog: How grade 5 ESL uses a blog to practice written language and connect with global partners.
  
• James: Student Portfolios: How grade 5 spanish uses a class blog as student ePortfolios.

After sharing all of these ideas at individual tables, Tara, Jeff and I explained our roles in the school and clarified how we can support our teachers based on differing expertise and passion (of course I also shared my Collaboration Cycle as the focus of my role).

Finally, we closed with a quick feedback form, asking teachers to respond to the following three questions:

What sparked your interest?

Overwhelmingly the feedback showed that teachers loved watching the video, that it gave them a new perspective on reaching our students. Many were inspired by the concept of enabling our students to make global connections, seeing this as a very powerful facet of learning in the 21st century. They also enjoyed being able to hear from practicing teachers exactly what this looks like in the classroom. Many responses also requested more time for showcasing current projects here at ISB.

What concerns do you have?

As we expected, concerns focused around time - time to learn, time to experiment and time to implement in the already rushed school day. Interestingly, another concern was that Tara, Jeff and I couldn’t possibly have enough time in the day to help all of our 70 ES teachers (so true!). There were mentions of balance, research to show how beneficial this kind of learning is, as well as questions about how developmentally appropriate it is for the primary years.

How can we best support you?

The biggest support needed is in the area of professional development, not only how to use new tools, but actual classroom support (modeling, and practical implementation). Teachers were also looking for project ideas already planned out that could be readily implemented in the classroom. Concerns were raised about whose responsibility it is to embed these new skills into the curriculum and the obvious need for continued training for our classroom Instructional Assistants.

Contact Me?

We also added a little note on the survey for teachers who would like to be contacted by us on a specific topic and actually had around 15 teachers leave their names! Considering we are already working closely with at least 15 other teachers, that was an excellent response!

And that was it! An overview and introduction to 21st century learning in 45 minutes! Judging from the feedback we heard, it went over pretty well. Personally, I feel so excited and energized by being able to share all the thinking that we’ve done as a team over the last few years. This feels like a crucial starting point for really beginning interesting conversations with teachers and for spreading new ideas throughout our division.

It was such a pleasure to be able to showcase all of the amazing work that so many of our teachers are doing, and I hope we have the opportunity to continue to do so over the course of the year. I love that taking a risk is seen in a positive light, and discomfort or failures along the way are merely steps in the learning process.

As a quick follow-up to our meeting, I sent out an e-mail with the recent MacArthur Foundation report,  Living and Learning with New Media. I’ve already had a few teachers asking me questions about the report and wanting to sit down and have a conversation about what they’ve learned (in addition to the teachers who left their name on the survey).

So, what do we do next? Does anyone have an advice about how to keep the ball rolling without overwhelming teachers? This really feels like the start of something powerful to me, and I want to make sure I keep up the pace juuust right!

Bowling 1250 by trimmer741

One of my favorite things about working in international schools is the consistent, quality professional development on offer. Because we are, in many ways, isolated from the wealth of PD offerings available in our home country, we get to pick and choose exactly what we want and bring it to us!

This year ISB is offering a very exciting Certificate of Educational Technology and Information Literacy course through Buffalo State, State University of New York (SUNY). Not only is this course a direct reflection of the work we have been doing on our ISB21 Team, but we get to teach it as well!

The course will be a direct reflection of our vision of the 21st century learner:

Here’s the general outline of the 5-course certificate program:

Course 1: Information Literacy and Ourselves as Learners:

A foundation course, introducing learners to the methods of information literacy in the 21st century. Independent learning requires that students and teachers are able to evaluate the authenticity, relevance and bias of information that inundates us. Tools and strategies for teachers and students for accessing, filtering, evaluating and applying information will be addressed. This course will address meta-cognition and an awareness of how we learn in a digital landscape. Students will be provided with strategies for reflective practice and using prior knowledge to build understanding and deal with new technology will be incorporated in the course.

Course 2: 21st Century Literacy Ideas, Questions, and Issues:

The 21st Century learner has been bombarded with new technology, access to wide ranging global communication, and a plethora of information. Accompanying this new world of learning are ethical, moral, social, and emotional considerations that are changing the way in which our students are interfacing with the world. This course will explore current issues inherent in our technological world.

Course 3: Visual Literacy: Effective Communicators and Creators:

The curriculum of design and attention to aesthetics has always been the property of the visual arts, however as so much our media is now consumed and created electronically a new set of visual literacies have emerged. Awareness of how an audience interacts with that medium and how to take advantage of this to strengthen their message or purpose for communication will be addressed.

Course 4: Technology: A Catalyst for Learning

Research based best practice for the embedded use of technology for learning will be shared and practiced. The focus will be on the habits that provide students with the ability to use technology for its greatest learning advantage. The best use of laptop computers, Smart boards, etc will be addressed as embedded tools to foster optimum learning of the curriculum. The optimal use of communication tools such as podcasts, blogs, nings, wikis, and voice threads will be addressed with tips for management and strategies to promote maximum learning in classrooms.

Course 5: Alive in the Classroom: Applied Web 2.0 Technology for Learning

The course will be about the classroom application, and reflection on the use of web 2.0 technology in the classroom. Participants will be asked to create a plan for the embedded use of technology to foster learning, share with the group and offer feedback on their cohorts’ embedded use of technology for learning. Did the use of technology lead to deeper learning?

Each course will focus on specific ISTE NETS For Teachers as they relate to our Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions for the 21st century learner.

Jeff and I will be teaching the first course starting in January 2009 (more details here). We’re looking at running 3 face-to-face Saturday sessions between late January and the end of February, and also offering several evening sessions via Elluminate to bring in some experts in the field and to make authentic use of online professional development tools.

Dennis and Chad will be teaching the second course from March - April 2009, and then we’ll most likely pick up again with the third course in the fall of 2009, with the goal of finishing the full certificate program by the end of the 2009-2010 school year.

We had our first introductory meeting with staff last week to see how many teachers would be interested in participating and the room was packed! It’s exciting and inspiring to see how many of our teachers are ready to jump into this kind of course. It will be very interesting to see how this course further develops our growing grassroots professional learning community. I can’t wait to get started!

Have you ever taught or taken a course like this? What advice do you have for us?