always learning

Over the last two years I’ve been fortunate to attend quite a few conferences (thanks to my wonderfully supportive admin at ISB). One of the things I’ve noticed at these conferences is that the attendees seem to be almost the same group of people over and over again, which I love, because it gives me a chance to connect with my virtual colleagues in person on a fairly regular basis. It feels like we are really building a community of learners among the various international schools in the Asia region, and I know the group is continuing to grow year by year.

However, as I realized last year, that group of techies is actually few and far between. We’re well connected online, but are often only a very small number in our own individual schools. And of course, it’s usually our job to help our colleagues learn with technology. So we come together, get new ideas, and then head back to our individual schools to spread the exciting news. It’s up to us to move our colleagues forward, to meet them where they’re at and help them take the next step.

What this usually means is that tech conferences tend to cater to those that are already knowledgeable about technology in education. Again, great for us, but not so great for our colleagues in our individual schools that may want to learn but don’t know where to start.

So, my lovely colleague, Tara and I, were brainstorming a few weeks ago about what we could do to help our teachers here at ISB (and elsewhere in the region) that might not be ready to attend a very tech-savvy conference.

We know that many schools in this region are making technology a priority. We know that there are plenty of teachers who want to learn, but might be intimidated by a big technology conference. We know that there are lots of teachers who would be willing to try something new if it were presented at their level. We know a tech-focused conference wouldn’t really be able to meet their needs as well as the needs of the educational technologists they work with.

And, thus, the idea of TechTrain 2010 was born! TechTrain 2010 is an EARCOS weekend workshop hosted at the Interantional School Bangkok, Thailand on January 30 – 31, 2010. The goal is to bring together beginning technology users to help build their understanding of digital tools and how they can be used to enhance the learning experience in the classroom. We are hoping a workshop at the beginning level will appeal to those teachers that want to get started using technology in their classroom, but don’t really know where to start. We want to make sure that the weekend is focused on actually producing something that can be used in the classroom on Monday, and that most of the sessions are hands on, allowing teachers to actually use these digital tools with support.

We’re just in the beginning planning stages, but we’re pretty excited. We really want to make the workshop a comfortable, safe and open environment where everyone can learn together and we can all walk away with something concrete and tangible to give participants a specific next step to take in the classroom.

Tara and I passionately believe that everyone can be successful using technology in the classroom. This is a place for those that consider themselves to be beginners with technology can start!

I know that pretty much everyone reading this blog is already tech savvy, but I’m hoping that you can pass on this post, and the workshop wiki, to anyone you think might be interested in attending. We have a short Google form for interested participants to complete so we can get an idea of what people would be interested in learning about in an effort to tailor the sessions to our participants needs. We know that the workshop is many months away, but we also know that sometimes PD expenditures need to be planned well in advance, so we wanted to get the word out early!

Of course, we’re open to any ideas and suggestions too! What do you think a beginner technology conference should include? Any thoughts or advice on how to organize and run a weekend workshop like this?

Original Image by Dan Kamminga, Creative Commons License

As I’m working through the required posts for our CoETaIL, course 2, I (happily) have realized that I’ve already written one of the posts (originally titled Social Networking and Responsiblity in February 2008). Lucky me, I’m always thinking one step ahead.

So here it is again, with a reflection about what (if anything) has changed since then:

After an excellent session with parents about cyberbullying and an equally excellent session with our staff discussing the Frontline documentary Growing Up Online, I’ve been thinking a lot about responsibility. As in:

• Whose responsibility is it to teach students about the dangers of social networking (not only physical danger from online predators, but the danger of getting college applications rejected or the danger of getting kicked out of school)?
• Whose responsibility is it to help parents stay informed about these new methods of communication?
• Whose responsibility is it to ensure that students learn how to have successful, productive, and educational online experiences?

I’ve been noticing that many teachers are happy to be ignorant of what goes on online – that “out of sight, out of mind” mentality – which really worries me. I mentioned to Miguel in a twitter a few weeks ago that some really appalling student behavior has been going on for quite a while now, which actually made a little bit relieved to see that cell phone scandal hit the press in the US. On one hand, I can understand just how damaging that kind of press can be to a school trying to implement progressive learning practices, but on the other hand, aren’t these things we need to be talking about? Aren’t these issues that parents need to know about? And aren’t these issues that students should be learning how to stay away from?

I wonder how many schools are talking about this as a whole? Justin, Dennis and I were just discussing how great it would be to watch Growing Up Online as a whole faculty and then have some smaller break-out sessions to discuss what we saw. How many teachers are going to say: “our kids aren’t doing that kind of stuff!” And how many are going to say “that’s a parenting issue, not a school issue”? How many are going to say: “I need to embed authentic learning experiences into my curriculum which help students build their understanding about online safety and appropriate behavior”?

If learning has become increasingly social, and networked learning is on the horizon as the future of education, as so clearly described in the recent Educase article: Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0:

The most profound impact of the Internet, an impact that has yet to be fully realized, is its ability to support and expand the various aspects of social learning. What do we mean by “social learning”? Perhaps the simplest way to explain this concept is to note that social learning is based on the premise that our understanding of content is socially constructed through conversations about that content and through grounded interactions, especially with others, around problems or actions. The focus is not so much on what we are learning but on how we are learning….

This perspective shifts the focus of our attention from the content of a subject to the learning activities and human interactions around which that content is situated.

Then we need to be aware, actively involved, and responsible for teaching students and parents how to participate in these new communities – even if so much of their activity online has been for purely social purposes until now. Isn’t it our job to teach them how to take this social environment and use it for educational purposes? When I think about how powerful my PLN has been for my learning, I can’t imagine not including those experiences in my teaching. This is truly the Future of Learning in a Networked World, isn’t it?

At the beginning of this school year, when I was still adjusting to life in elementary school, I remember realizing just how lucky I am to have switched to elementary. This is the time when I can really make a difference. Students are excited about learning, they haven’t developed many bad habits, they still adore their teachers, they still enjoy having their parents watch over them while they play online, and they are still open to asking questions and discussing the possible outcomes. It is so essential to reach our students before they begin to pull away, to become more independent, to become more reluctant to share all aspects of their lives with the adults around them, in essence, to become teenagers.

This week I worked with a grade 3 class on our BlogPals project. We are using this project to develop our reading and writing skills – through the lens of connecting with others, creating a social learning environment. We are taking the time to teach them about online safety and appropriate behavior, and our third graders are responding with energy, excitement, enthusiasm, inquiry and understanding. This is the time to start developing appropriate behaviors, and I believe it’s our responsibility to teach them.

May 2009 Reflection

After reading through this post a little over a year later, I’m pleased to say that this class has really brought many of these issues to the forefront. I see my passionate colleagues speaking out about teaching online safety and how we can help students develop responsible behaviors and habits. I see more and more parents attending our Technology Coffee Mornings and making a sincere effort to understand their child’s digital world. I am meeting more and more teachers around the world that are ready to (or already) building in these essential skills into their classroom practice.

I still believe it’s our responsibility as educators to teach students how to be safe online. Ever so slowly, teachers are becoming better and better equipped to take over this task. Unfortunately, what I don’t see in many places, is schools, as institutions, acknowledging the need to fulfill this role. Why aren’t we offering PD about online safety? If it’s in our AUP (and it is in ISB’s) it’s ultimately seen as the parents’ responsibility. Therefore, it easy for school’s to say that if it’s the parent’s responsibility they don’t need to spend PD time training teachers. A dangerous game, isn’t it?

Every time I work with a teacher on a global project, we spend a few days working with the students to understand this online environment. We talk about safety and appropriate behavior, we make class guidelines, we sign a permission slip and we practice our safety skills in context. I believe this should be happening every time a teacher begins an online learning experience – even if it’s not something they need a technology facilitator’s support for. How do we get this to be common practice in classrooms if we don’t spend our PD time building those skills with teachers and placing online safety as a high priority?

Schools are quick to filter and block, to make attempts to stop students from seeing “innappropriate” things, but what we really need to do is teach students how to make those decisions for themselves. For the times when they’re online, unsupervised, at a friends house (without a filter), or a Starbucks, or in the public library. They need to know, individually, and deeply what is safe online behavior and what’s not.  Student’s need to be taught to use the “filter between their ears” in any and all online situations, and the best way to do that is to utilize authentic learning experiences within a safer environment, the classroom.

What do you think?

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 had the pleasure of attending, and presenting at, the Apple Global Leadership Summit in Hong Kong. I knew it was going to be great after presenting at the Think Ahead Roadshow here in Bangkok in February, but I don’t think I realized just how great it was going to be. Of course, there are some things I would have changed (more on that in my next post), but thinking back to all of the educational events I have attended this year (and I’ve been to quite a few), I think this one was the best! And I think I’ve figured out why.

Last month I attended the EARCOS Teacher’s Conference (ETC) and left feeling a little disappointed. It was great for networking (and relaxing, given the stunning location), but it wasn’t really what I was looking for in a conference, content-wise.

To be honest, I was starting to feel a little disillusioned with conferences in general this year. The effort it takes to get to the conference location, the costs involved, the exhaustion coming back to work after a full weekend of conferencing. It was starting to seem a little too much for me, considering how much I can learn relaxing on my couch, at home, in my PJs, thanks to my PLN.

But, last weekend changed my mind. While reflecting on my two very different conference experiences over the last month, I realized there are a few things conferences need to have in order to make the expense and the effort worth the trip:

Focused Content

Maybe this is just an international school thing, but I find so many conferences try to be everything to everyone (and so do schools, for that matter). They want to have sessions specifically for every discipline area, every educational trend, leadership, third culture kids, global issues, etc, etc.

In doing so, it can be hard for one person to fill up each day with directly relevant sessions – there are only so many presenters on in each given session, chances are there won’t be one directly related to my area of interest in every session. By stretching the topics so thin, in order to meet everyone’s needs, the conference often ends up meeting no-one’s needs. Sure, one presentation a day, maybe, but is that really worth the trip?

The Apple Leadership Summit was so clearly focused on the way that learning has changed, and the ways we need to prepare for the future, that I was engaged from the first moment until the last. All keynote speakers had specific experience that directly related to the changes we need to make in education – even though they all approached the topic from different perspectives, it was immediately clear how all of their expertise was directly related to the future of education. None of the sessions during the entire 3-day event strayed from the topic.

Stephen Heppell’s keynote during the (sumptuous) banquet set the tone for the weekend by sharing specific examples (and so many pictures) of schools that are changing with the times and embracing non-traditional school infrastructure (physical structure and well as curriculum design).

His emphasis on adaptability, flexibility, openness, and learning communities (instead of “schools”) brought the challenges of education in the 21st century to the forefront, along with visual, practical ideas for moving towards solutions.

His vision and passion for learning, in all forms and contexts, was an inspiring way to begin the conference. Having seen Learning to Change, Changing to Learn dozens of times, it was such a privilege to hear him speak directly about his experiences and to see the full range of his work and to begin to get a picture of what kinds of changes are next for education.

The following day, Tom Kelley brought his extensive experience with innovation to the field of education. His focus on risk-taking, seeing with new eyes (“vuja de,” in his words), prioritizing innovation, and recognizing the rate of change gave solid, real-world examples, which directly illuminated and enriched Stephen’s more philosophical presentation the day before.

Being able to see with such clarity the way innovation and different modes of thinking (from his new book The 10 Faces of Innovation) can impact pretty much every field (from advertising, to hospital care, to product design, to kids toothbrushes!) helped create more concrete understandings of how critical risk taking is for education. He made it so clear that we can spend forever improving what we’ve already got, but what we really need to do is look at the whole experience of learning with fresh eyes.

After a presentation on developing a global mindset from Vivien Stewart (much of which is already happening in many international schools), we had a choice of 3 breakout sessions with each of the keynote speakers – a great way to go more in depth with the content presented in their first sessions.

Next, was a panel discussion from all keynote speakers plus a few special guests including Greg Whitby, John Couch, Daniel McCormak, Richard Swart, and John Wray (thanks to @mrdinhk for that final name!). This was a good time to ask those burning questions that came up during the keynotes and breakout sessions earlier that day. It was very interesting to get several perspectives on the same topic, especially because each panel speaker was coming from such different backgrounds. For me the highlight was hearing Richard Swart, principal of Nanjing International School, speak so passionately about the need international schools to move forward with the ideas presented at the Summit without delay, to stop wasting time worrying about the way we’ve always done it, but to envision the future and create it, now.

Finally, at the end of a long day of plenary sessions (by the way, most of my ideas for improvement spring from being seated the entire day in pretty much the same room, more to come in my next post), John Couch shared Apple’s vision for education in the 21st Century.

I had seen some of his slides before, but it amazed me, yet again, how ironic it is to be hearing from a vendor the most relevant, forward-thinking, pedagogically sound ideas for education. It hit home for me (again) that if these are the people making the computers, these are the computers we should be using in our schools. This vision for education, which I so passionately believe in, is so clearly wrapped up in the package that is Apple.

On the last day, we had one final keynote from Macro Torres, after all of the fantastic ADE-led break-out sessions. His extensive experience in the classroom, combined with his fresh perspective and boundless creative energy definitely ended the weekend on a high note.

Marco so clearly understands how important it is that our students become innovative, creative, creators of content, and how critcal it is to change the classroom environment from our traditional factory model to that of an engaging and empowering studio experience.

Conference Size

I guess because it is so difficult to actually run (and finance) a conference, the organizers prefer to have as many attendees as possible. Unfortunately, this only ends up watering down the event – trying to appeal to all interests, abilities, needs, and levels of understanding.

Having a limited number of participants (in the case of the HK Summit, it was 500 people), helped create a much more personal and intimate feel. With a few small changes in the agenda, I probably would have been able to meet and speak to pretty much every single person at the Summit. How often can you say that about a conference?

For example, Alex (my husband) and I had the pleasure of meeting Tom Kelley at the banquet dinner, and he was amazed at how close our community of learners is, given that we are spread out throughout the region. Personally, I was on a little bit of a geeked-out high because I knew someone (or a few someones) at almost every table. It was like a geeky international school teacher reunion for me!

Shared Vision

Limiting the number of participants, and sending out direct invitations, also helped create an environment where most (if not all) of the attendees shared the same vision for education. Therefore, the purpose of our coming together was not so much to learn what has changed, or decide what we think, but more what we can do about it.

We came approaching these ideas presented from the same perspective and the Summit was about how we can continue to move forward, not just about taking the first step. Talk about an important opportunity to network! These are clearly the people that will lead the charge in international schools to change our educational system.

Stimulating Content

Having focused content, with a smaller group of people who shared a similar vision for education, directly influenced the level of information shared. No need to focus on introducing the changes the 21st century has brought to society, time wasn’t wasted convincing the participants that technology is crucial to learning, no one needed to be convinced that education needs to change to meet the demands of today’s learner and today’s society. Not that I don’t enjoy hearing all those things explained, helping reinforce my own ideas and clarify my thinking. But, I much prefer to have my thinking pushed to a new level, to hear new ideas that build on my current understandings, and to interact with others who are at a similar place in their learning.

Location, Location, Location

One of the most subtle, yet powerful, ways that the Summit was successful was the choice of location: Canadian International School of Hong Kong. This school exemplifies everything that the Summit was about. From the staff training room, to the 1:1 Apple laptop program, to the prominent signage, to their Year of Information Literacy focus, CDNIS clearly demonstrated a school that shares and practices a 21st century vision for education.

Every time I turned a corner (or hiked up another flight of stairs), I saw evidence of inquiry-based learning, the IB PYP, MYP and DP in action, 1:1 learning, and most importantly: a clear, visible, tangible, achievable vision for the school being implemented every day. A vision that represents the most important aspects of the Hong Kong summit in action. This is what we need to see from a conference: what the ideas look like in practice.

Final Thoughts

So, once again, Apple hits a home run. (Oh, did I mention the conference itself was free?) I hope it becomes an annual event!

In your opinion, what are the factors that make a conference worth the effort, time and expense?

I love learning. I used to love professional conference too – mostly because they were a great place to learn. But, last weekend, at our regional teacher’s conference (ETC), I made a realization, well two, realizations:

1. I get more relevant, interesting, and informative information via my PLN than I could hope to get at even the best professional conference experience – and without having to leave the country or spend a cent.

Therefore:

2. For me, conferences are no longer primarily about learning, at least not in the traditional sense of attending lectures, doing activities and taking notes.

Yikes! I guess I probably could have seen this coming. I mean, you can’t get as much exciting and engaging material as I do from my PLN without raising your expectations for a professional learning experience a little bit. But, somehow, before I left for ETC, I was still in the mindset that this conference would be a place to push my thinking, to expose me to new ideas, to put my learning on hyper speed.

What I realized is that I often get better information through my RSS reader and Twitter than I do via more traditional, formalized educational experiences like a conference. While I learned something new from every session I attended, there were a few sessions where I was glad to be able to sit within range of the wifi and go through my reader, finding exactly what I needed at that moment. This wasn’t because the presentations were lacking, it’s just that I’m starting to realize that there’s a limit to what I can gain from a pre-constructed session, devised for a broad audience, about something that might only be indirectly related to my learning needs.

Now, this is not to say that this particular conference wasn’t useful (I did learn a lot about teaming – although I probably could have learned all of that from a book – and saw a fantastic session on developing a classroom community led by my new friends Sam and Chad), or that I don’t think conferences in general are useful. In fact, quite the opposite. Last weekend I realized that conferencing is all about people: connecting, building relationships, finding new paths and solidifying old (or virtual) friendships.

At this particular conference, I had the absolute pleasure to meet and spend some quality time with Keri-Lee, Ryan, Adrienne, Sam, and Chris; as well as see Steve, David, Kendra and Debbie again. I had some great conversations with my wonderful colleagues Jeff and Chrissy that we may not have had the time or the energy for at school. I discovered connections with Jeff and Eduardo, and I’m sure I crossed paths with quite a few more familiar “usernames” as well.

I might not have gotten something new from every single session, but I did meet at least a dozen people who were already in my personal learning network.

I may not have attended every session, but I participated in deep, thoughtful conversations with people I had just met, about ideas we found relevant and important to our learning.

I didn’t find myself in awe of any specific presentations or the information I learned from them, but I reveled in the power of my personal learning network to help me make connections, push my thinking, and expand my horizons.

So, I guess what I’m saying is that I’m looking at conferences differently now. Like Jeff, I don’t like learning alone. But, I think we can make our conferences all about learning together – we just might not want to follow the pre-determined program… I guess we’ll have to make our own.

Has your perception of conferences changed now that you’ve built a PLN? What about our students? Is this how they feel while they’re in school? As educators, should we expect that students can learn more from their PLN than they can from us?

Last week Tara, Jeff and I had our second opportunity of the year to organize and facilitate an elementary faculty meeting. We absolutely love having this dedicated time with our colleagues to help build a deeper understanding of 21st century literacy at ISB and to share practical examples of authentic use of technology here in our elementary classrooms.

As always, our goal was to continue building a collaborative community, to develop connections among faculty at different grade levels, and to allow teachers to have time to network and share ideas. Thanks to @FrznGuru (Rebecca), we had a great way to structure that experience: SpeedGeeking!

Basically, SpeedGeeking is just like Speed Dating – a way to quickly introduce people to a wide variety of new ideas in a short amount of time. Since we have a large faculty – over 70 teachers – we knew this would have to be a very organized and structured experience, otherwise it would drift into chaos.

We decided to have 12 four-minute SpeedGeeking sessions split into 2 groups (one group has six sessions, the other group has the other six sessions). This way, we could make the most of our limited time, enable as many teachers to share their successful experiences as possible, keep the group sizes limited, and ensure that not every teacher saw the exact same sessions (so they are encouraged to keep talking about what they saw after the meeting).

We also made sure that we organized the SpeedGeeking groups in advance, so they could move from table to table together and were mixed between two different grade levels. This way we had half of one grade level viewing one set of SpeedGeeking sessions and the other half viewing the other set (to encourage further conversation). We were careful to match up the sessions on each side so that each group had a session on podcasting, portfolios, VoiceThread, SmartBoards, and 2 sessions on our ETC wrap-up.

As usual, we posted our agenda online (and e-mailed the link the day before) so that teachers could know what to expect before arriving, and so that all of the work that was shared in the sessions could be accessed at any point before or after the meeting (if available online).

In order to create a positive environment, we started the meeting off with this quote:

Unfortunately, we actually lost power due to a major storm right before the meeting so we weren’t able to project the image. Thankfully, everyone had their laptops, so they could follow along with us via the agenda.

Next we transitioned into our SpeedGeeking experience. We had two large rectangles made up of 6 tables each on either side of the room. Each table was numbered and had a specific group of teachers (linked on the agenda) selected to start there. Once one 4-minute SpeedGeeking session was finished, the group of teachers seated together at their first table moved together to the next numbered table in line.

Here’s what each SpeedGeeking session was about:

Circle One:
1. Chrissy: ePortfolios using VoiceThread
2. Siri: SmartBoards
3. EARCOS: Diane
4. EARCOS: Peach
5. Susi: Class Wiki
6. Robin & Ali: Robin’s Class Blog,Ali’s Class Blog, (planning document, Podcasting Power)

Circle Two:
1. Brian: SmartFolios
2. EARCOS: Mary
3. Vince: GarageBand
4. Rebecca: Sprouting Seeds VoiceThread
5. James: Class Wiki
6. EARCOS: Jim

We used Jeff’s iPhone timer to clock each session and had a cute cow-bell sound to signify the end of each session (found on Free Sound, my new favorite place for Creative Commons licensed sounds). Thankfully my laptop was fully charged and Jeff had his laptop-powered speakers so we basically did the whole 30 minute SpeedGeeking session in the dark!

Once we finished SpeedGeeking, we asked teachers to discuss at their tables anything that sparked their interest for about 3 minutes, and then had tables share back to the larger group (if they wanted to).

The buzz in the room was amazing! Teachers were visibly excited and energized by the discussion and it was obvious that everyone found at least one thing that sparked their interest in the 30-minute session.

Finally, we wanted to end on a light-hearted note, and thankfully the power came back on just in time, so we watched the video Everything is Amazing, Nobody’s Happy (sorry, embedding is disabled, you’ll have to click on the link to watch). Of course, the video was a hit.

When we ended the meeting, I was encouraged to see just how many teachers stayed afterward discussing the ideas they had heard, asked us for assistance in trying something new, or just stopped by to say how successful the meeting had been.

This is the second time we’ve organized a sharing meeting like this for our faculty, and although both have gone well, this one was the better by far! Here’s why I liked it:

• Because we had so many groups, we were able to highlight so many teachers – we made sure to have some specialists present, as well as some teachers who had never worked with technology in their classroom before this year.
• We enabled teachers to interact with others outside of their grade level. It’s amazing how rarely teachers get the opportunity to just talk with teachers outside of their team.
• We focused on the positive, on the commonalities among our colleagues, on the successes that we all have in our classrooms every day. Sure, we can all be doing things better, but that doesn’t mean that amazing things aren’t happening already.
• We empowered others who are not normally highlighted and we helped build networks and infrastructure for supporting teachers who may need assistance.
• We laughed, a lot, together. How often can you say that about a faculty meeting?

And, what I loved the most about this meeting is that I never, ever could have organized it by myself. It was the power of the team: Jeff, Tara and Kim, that made this meeting so successful. Without Tara, we could have forgotten how important it is to make people feel comfortable, supported and appreciated. Without Jeff, we could have forgotten about the fun and the levity and the big picture. Without me, it might not have been quite so organized and smooth. Man, I love my team!

How have you helped share successes in your school? What should we do for our next faculty meeting (assuming we’ll be asked to organize another one in the future)?

Teaching is Not Rocket Science by shareski

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!)

Waaay back in September, I read the book Presentation Zen, thanks to Jeff (who insisted I read it before designing my presentations for Learning 2.008). Since then I’ve created and delivered six presentations.

After each one, I received compliments about the style and lots of questions about how I found the right pictures. So, I thought I’d share my steps here (apologies to Garr Reynolds for any misinterpretation of his work – this is only meant to be a reflection of how I’ve used his ideas).

Finding Great Pictures: Kim’s Secrets

OK, here’s the deal. It’s not really a secret. I spend a long time looking for pictures.

First, I flesh out my presentation ideas on paper, following Garr’s suggestions. I start with the big picture, then break it down into 3 sections, then each section gets broken down into individual slides that tell a story.

Each image needs to represent an important aspect of this story. So I start thinking about exactly what type (or types) of images will creatively represent each idea and leave a lasting memory for the audience. Something that might resonate with a bigger concept and not just directly represent the words on the screen. Usually I have a few ideas to fall back on if I can’t find one that works within a reasonable amount of time.

Once I have my picture ideas (one for each slide, I seem to usually have around 40 slides), I head to Creative Commons Search to find pictures that have been licensed for sharing (there are tons of other options for searching CC photos, but I like this one the best). If you haven’t heard of Creative Commons, check this out!

On the search bar, I always make sure to check off “Search for works I can modify, adapt or build upon” to ensure that I’m following the licensing for the images I use.

Next, I click on the Flickr tab, and once the pictures have loaded, I click on the “most interesting” link under the number of results found. This will find me the pictures that have been favorited by flickr viewers the most.

And, that’s when the fun begins. I almost always have to look through several pages. I’m looking for images that:

• represent my idea clearly and interestingly
• are creatively shot
• fill the shot so the image can fill the slide
• are properly in or out of focus, depending on what I’m looking for
• provide enough space to write the words I’m planning to show on screen (usually this means a solid background or appropriate depth of field)
• are unique

Once I find the picture I like, I head straight over to that Flickr image page, download the photo and copy and paste the source URL for proper citation at the end of my presentation.

A Few Little Extras

Along with finding the right pictures, I have also found a few other extras that have improved my presentations:

I almost always include at least one video, usually two. Videos are great conversation starters and can give the presentation relevance in the wider world. They’re also a great way to get background information across without having to cover everything yourself. Feel free to check out my video bookmarks too!

I try to provide ample amount for participants to talk to each other. I add a little stop sign image at the bottom of the screen when I plan to ask participants to “turn and talk” so I don’t forget. I always start with one of these talking breaks at the begining of my presentation, usually inspired by an image or short video. I hope this is helping the audience engage with the content instead of just passively watching.

I always provide a wiki with the full presentation, all resources I used to create the presentation, and recommended resources for the teachers to utilize the information presented. I make sure to share this at the very begining of each presentation so that no one feels like they must take notes. I would much rather have people engaged in a dialogue than writing down what I’m saying.

Thanks to (I think) Scott McLeod Dean Shareski (thanks for the correction, Scott), I’ve started using quotes from the Flickr pool: Great Quotes About Learning and Change. What an amazing and powerful resource – talk about inspiring conversation starters!

Update: Thanks to Andrew Churches, I have just discovered another excellent pool of thought provoking images in Will Lion’s photostream on Flickr. Definitely one to bookmark!

And that’s about it! What other strategies or advice do you have for creating eye-popping presentations?

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?