always learning

Over the last two months I have been privileged to teach the first graduate-level course in ISB’s new 5-course SUNY Certificate of Educational Technology and Information Literacy along with Jeff Utecht. It has been an excellent experience and I am truly flattered to have been asked by the school to lead such an important program in our professional development offerings.

Building Our Network

Amazingly, we have 50 current ISB teachers in the course and 5 newly hired ISB teachers participating virtually! Considering we have a staff of about 200 teachers, this is a very impressive number of faculty to be spending their weekends and evenings learning together about the impact that technology can have in the classroom. It’s a little intimidating to be leading such a large group (thank goodness there are two of us) but it’s so inspiring to see so many of our teachers so committed to their own professional development, willing to try new things, to have challenging conversations and to reflect on their practice. I am truly fortunate to be working at this school with these teachers.

Expert Voices

One of the most fantastic things about this course has been our guest speakers. On our first full-day face-to-face session we spent an hour with Clarence Fisher and another hour with Chris Betcher. Both speakers were just the perfect way to introduce the class to this new model of learning. Clarence’s practical examples of how his students learn with technology at the middle school was exactly what teachers had been asking for. Chris’ engaging hands-on presentation about truth and bias far exceeded anything I would have done with our teachers.

Yesterday, for our final full day face-to-face session, we had a  presentation from the authors of one of the books we’re using: Reinventing Project Based Learning, Suzie Boss & Jane Krauss, as well as an eye-opening presentation from Julie Lindsay. Suzie and Jane were the absolute perfect example of the power of the network. Who would have thought we’d be talking to the authors of our textbook in class? And Julie’s presentation really helped our teachers understand how important globally collaborative projects are for teaching our students critical life skills.

In retrospect, I’m also really pleased to see that we have an a very nice balance of men and women sharing their expertise with the class. All too often we only see male speakers leading the way, this was a great way to model (at least gender) equality in our learning.

Always Learning

Considering that this is my first time teaching a graduate-level course, I’m not sure I knew exactly what to expect. Sure, I’ve taken quite a few in my day and even completed a similar certificate (of Educational Leadership) through the same university at ISKL while I was living in Malaysia. But being a teacher is definitely a very different experience than being a student. I’m so thankful to have had the experience and I know I have learned so much in the process.

Finding Conversations

For starters, it may sound basic, but planning this course and each individual lesson was a pretty much exactly like planning for my classes. I’m not sure I really thought about that before we started so I don’t think I really got the hang of it until our second face-to-face lesson (and after getting lots of feedback at the first session). Providing time for teachers to talk to one another, to digest what they’re reading and thinking about, to bounce ideas off each other, and to question and collaborate is so important. Breaking the class into small groups, specifically asking teachers to “turn and talk” like I do in the classroom, and rotating those groups or setting up jigsaws were by far the most popular ways to spend our face-to-face time according to our anonymous feedback surveys. Seems obvious now, but I don’t know that we initially planned to organize the class that way.

Finding Community

Given that the class is so big, we really do need to think about how to break up into smaller groups. It’s hard to discuss anything in a group of 55 and we all know teachers who know each other tend to flock together, unintentionally creating clusters of teachers who already know each other instead of getting to know new people (especially in a school as big as ours). A few teachers provided feedback in our last session yesterday with some good ideas to think about for the next course. I really like John’s idea of having groups of teachers contribute to a group blog (instead of each teacher authoring their own blog) – thus giving teachers less peer-reading to get through every week and also building in small communities of learners among this larger group. Although I feel strongly about the experience of building your own digital footprint and understanding this new medium of communication through practice, a group blog would be an easier entry into the world of blogging.

Finding Voice

It’s been so interesting to see how many of our teachers are reluctant bloggers. I totally understand that feeling. I can remember starting this blog and being panicked about other people possibly reading what I write. Fortunately for me, I didn’t actually know anyone at the time that had a blog that other people read. So I never really thought anyone would ever read mine. I knew they could, but it didn’t feel really real to me. I had plenty of time to find my voice here in this writing space without an audience, but our teachers can see the comments on this blog, Jeff’s and Chrissy’s – so they know people are reading. I wonder if this added another layer of pressure to the initial fear of publishing your thoughts to the world?

Finding Balance

Another conversation that comes up time and time again with both teachers and parents is the idea of balance. It’s something we all struggle with, but I think those of us that are already immersed in the web 2.0 world can forget how overwhelming everything was at first. We know we need to find balance, we know we need to use technology when it’s relevant, appropriate and authentic for our learning purpose. But sometimes we’re so zealous in our sales pitch of just how great things are, we forget to mention some of the drawbacks. Finding your own individual comfort level with technology is a process. There is no miracle one-size-fits-all answer, but we each need to learn what the right balance is for us. And we need to pass on that ability to our students.

Finding Communication

As we say to the parents that attend our Monthly Technology Coffee Mornings, finding balance and learning when and why and how to use technology appropriately is about conversations. Open and honest discussions between teachers and students, teachers and teachers, and parents are their children are the only way to find out exactly what will work for each individual. Sometimes adults are afraid to open the door to these kinds of conversations because they worry that their children will notice how much they don’t know, but that doesn’t matter. It’s life experience that teaches us how to find balance in our lives – not our skill level with technology.

Professor Cofino?

It has been such a pleasure to work with such a diverse group of teachers (and just to teach adults in general). The amazing life experiences we had in the room brought such an exciting dimension to our disucssions, their blog posts, and their completed work. Just listening to these various conversations and seeing the depth of thought and connections being made helped me realize that I would really love to do more of this level of teaching. It’s a different challenge than classroom teaching, with different rewards, and so far, I love it!

Yikes. How can it possibly be February 2009 already? What happened to January? And for that matter, what happened to 2008? I know “time flies” and all, but this is ridiculous!

The last five weeks have been pretty much a blur especially because I’ve been stuck with a case of never-ending bronchitis, that seems to be finally, miraculously, slowly, ending just this week. I actually had that moment of suddenly feeling better on Friday. You know the one: you stand up, blink, swallow, and then realize you suddenly feel kind of good. In fact, you remember that this is what you used to feel like all the time before you got this illness. It’s a pretty good feeling.

At any rate, along with the coughing fits, sneezing, runny nose, and general malaise, I have also been extremely busy this past month, which explains where the time has gone (and why I haven’t been posting as often as I usually do). Here’s what I’ve been up to:

Teaching the first course in ISB’s new SUNY Certificate of Educational Technology and Information Literacy

Thankfully, Jeff and I are partnering up on this course, so although we’ve been super busy getting things going, two heads have certainly been better than one! We started out with a one-hour introductory session after school in late January and had our first full-day session on the last Saturday in Jan (watch the archived uStream footage here). Thanks to Clarence and Chris whose fabulous guest appearances definitely made our 7-hour Saturday session even more engaging and practical than Jeff & I could have done on our own!

So far, teaching the course has been an excellent experience. We have 50 ISB teachers participating on campus (plus 5 new ISB teachers joining us virtually) with the widest range of understanding and ability levels possible. Seeing as I’ve never taught a formal graduate-level course like this before, it has been such a steep learning curve for me. I’m so conscious of the fact that we have learners at all different levels, that we need to keep everyone engaged, but not stressed, and that we need to model best practice in all of our interactions throughout the course.

Of course the fact that all 55 participants are my colleagues makes this even more interesting… And not to mention adds quite a bit of reading to my Google Reader account.

Participating in the K12 Horizon Report Advisory Board

Along with Lucy, Judy, Julie, Westley, Alan, Karen (and quite a few other educators whose names I recognize) I have been participating in the process of creating the K12 version of the annual Horizon Report. After I got over the shock of being invited to be on the Advisory Board, I realized just how exciting (and challenging) this experience would be. As much as I love envisioning the future, I’m not sure I have a real grasp on the nitty-gritty of exactly how we’re going to get there. And that’s pretty much what this report is all about.

We started off with sharing our thoughts (via a wiki) on upcoming trends in technology and which of those would be applicable to education in the Horizon Report time-line structure.  I found myself much more easily able to envision 1 – 2 years out than the extended 5-years out, but I’m not sure why. I guess what happens in 5 years depends on what happens in the preceding 4 years… Either way, it was definitely the most authentic use of a wiki I’ve seen in a while, and it was absolutely fascinating to see what others on the Advisory Board see in our future.

Unfortunately I was not able to attend the face-to-face session in Dallas a few weeks ago (one of the few disadvantages of being an international school teacher), which sounds like it was a real highlight of the Advisory Board process. It certainly would have been interesting to meet all of those visionary educators in person. We’re now on to the voting stage, in order to select which trends will have the greatest effect on education in the next 5 years. I definitely don’t feel smart enough to continue hanging out with this bunch though!

Guest Speaker at Apple’s Think Ahead Roadshow in Bangkok

One of the perks of being an Apple Distinguished Educator is speaking at Apple events in your region. This will be my first time presenting at an official Apple event (aside from the ADE Institute) and I’m really looking forward to it. I attended a similar roadshow in KL a few years ago and remember being impressed with how many different international schools were represented in the audience.

I suppose you could say I’ve sipped the Apple Kool-Aid, but I have to say, I spent the first 5 years of my teaching experience in a Windows school, and the following 4 working with Macs. In comparison I would generally say I spent well over 50% of my teaching time troubleshooting those Windows machines – none of which I am doing in an all-Mac environment now. I can focus on the teaching and learning bit, without wasting so much time on the “making the computer do what we know it should be doing” bit. Yeah, that’s probably why they asked me to do the session next weekend…

Returning to Qatar Academy in Doha for a 3-day consultancy visit

Thanks to Julie and the administrative team at QA, I’ll be heading back to Doha next week for my second visit in two years. This time around I’ll be working with the Senior School (middle – high school) on building an understanding of 21st century learning. It looks like I’ll be delivering 3 plenary sessions to the full faculty (The 21st Century Learner, The 21st Century Educator, The 21st Century Classroom) and then working with individual departments to plan authentic units of inquiry which naturally embed technology. Thanks to all of Julie’s hard work, QA will be 1:1 next school year and this is the kick-off to the practicalities of working in a 1:1 environment.

Delivering the grade 4 Common Assessment on Influence

Last December, I worked with our grade 4 team to develop a common assessment for their first social studies unit of the year, Influence. We spent several afternoons designing an authentic assessment task that followed the Understanding by Design process and utilized technology tools (wikis and VoiceThread) that are developmentally appropriate and fit naturally into the assessment task.

After we returned from our semester break, I had the extremely stressful challenge of making sure that each class had access to the laptop carts for the duration of the final assessment (oh, how I dream of being 1:1). Juggling several classes, dealing with the bizarre slowness of our internet connection over the past month, and facilitating the delivery of this common assessment pretty much ensured that I was on fast-forward every single day.

In the end, I must admit, I’m quite happy with the assessment. The task was at the right level for the students, the technology was a natural fit for the task, and the students had a taste of a project based learning experience. I’m looking forward to getting some valuable feedback from the teachers so that we can revise and improve the assessment while the experience is still fresh in our minds.

Is that all?

Now I know that’s barely scratching the surface of what so many others manage to do on a regular basis (I’m not writing a book or earning a PhD… yet…) but it definitely kept me busy for the past few weeks.

How do you cope with being overwhelmed for an extended period of time and actually manage it all without shutting down?

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?