Be of Use

My wife is in Philadelphia right now at the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Annual Convention. Right away this morning she was texting about how inspired she felt right away in her morning workshop - seeing new things, sharing ideas with those around you in the room. A lot of goodwill all around. Education is tough. The day-to-day grind can grind people down. I commented on a message to someone on Twitter that I've seen way too many folks in my career that are checked out when they still likely have 30 years to go in their life. I wonder if those educators didn't do enough to revitalize their practice? Over the last few years I've been scoffing at conferences because first my Google Reader Feed fit my learning bill - long before I knew what a Personal Learning Network is - and now Twitter helps me to keep fresh ideas floating in. Those are the things we all need to make learning part of our everyday lives. Sure you can Email, Tweet or Post to sink y...

The following video was Tweeted by Jessica Johnson ( @ PrincipalJ , http://principalj.blogspot.com/ )   the other night. It had quite an impact on me. It's two minutes...take a look. "...and remember, we'll be watching" Only a vendor could get away with making a video like this. Not ASCD, ISTE, AWSA...because this video has the potential to scare the living daylights out of some teachers. I agree with everything said in it. It's what I want for every kid, especially our two boys. But maybe this is a sign I'm not as tough as I think I am. If I were considering this for an all-staff meeting or a training session I'd sit down at night, have a beer and think REALLY hard about whether or not to show this. My first reaction was that this would have been perfect to kick-off iPad training in my former district. But it might have completely shut some folks down. A friend of mine told me her principal said to the staff that "you can't leave your ...

When decision times come around I like to say - If you ask people their opinion, then do what you want to do they'll be mad. If you do what you want and don't ask people their opinion they'll be mad too. Such is life when you're trying to get a read on where people in your organization are at in terms of prospective initiatives. In my last district, leadership decided on 1:1, then had a teacher committee to help steer the direction of the project. I joked with my now former colleagues "they could pick any device they want, so long as it was an iPad." That group met a couple of times and helped make decisions...kind of. I'm not sure the people who were a part of that group felt like they were empowered to make decisions. Personally I don't think they ever in the position to make their own major decisions. I don't think that's a bad thing - leadership had a good vision. I'm trying to figure out in reality what's the best way to get people...

After 7 years I'm moving on from my job in the Sheboygan Area School District. The right fit came along two weeks ago when I was offered the new position of Data Coordinator and Instructional Technology Integrator for the Germantown School District. It's been a great experience in Sheboygan, and I wouldn't be moving on had it not been for the work we've done with mobile devices over the last three years. Good things have happened in the SASD and will continue to with the 1:1 initiative and digital conversion of curriculum. It's too bad I'm moving on during such an exciting time, but when opportunity knocks... I officially start Wednesday, but have a few loose ends still to tie up this week and next in Sheboygan. What a start to the school year. Our oldest son will start his first day of Pre-Kindergarten and I'll be at new staff inservice.

Our iPad/1:1 initiative is just a few days away. On Thursday we will be working with about 50 teachers (another 15 at the end of the month too) to get them started on what our bosses are calling a "digital transformation" of their curriculum. My role is to walk the teachers through the nuts-and-bolts (buttons, swiping, double tapping, pinching...) of the iPad after the Keynote Speaker. Then after lunch my session is on using the Evernote app. I get about 40 minutes to give an overview on tagging, sharing, emailing into Evernote. What sold me on taking charge of this app is when my wife came home from a professional development session at her school about it. I never saw her so excited about something technological. The organization piece, where you forward emails to Evernote with the @ symbol to designate what notebook to send it to and # to assign a tag (already created) really resonated with her. As a yearbook advisor she saw instantly how she could make her inbox less of ...

Will Richardson and Chris Lehman shined a light  on what I found to be horrifying statements. At the Education Innovation Summit Lehman reported defeated former Mayor of Washington DC Adrian Fenty said "if we fire more teachers, we'll have more money for technology."This happened a while ago - back in April, but this morning it came back to me as I contemplated the future of technology funding and support in schools in the face of ever-decreasing budgets. In my opinion, people are more important than machines for our kids. I can buy an iPad or laptop, but a personal teacher/mentor/advisor that's a little more pricey. Can we find ways to use technology to lighten the load for teachers - of course - but as a parent, a school flush with laptops and tablets, but devoid the necessary number of caring professionals to support learning is not a school I want my kids in. To contradict Mr. Fenty, "the more technology we don't buy, the more caring professionals we ...

On Doug Johnson's Blue Skunk Blog, he shared two excellent posts. One on mobile learning  from Mind/Shift, the other on change  in schools by Larry Cuban. The realist in me knows that big shifts in practice, no matter what the institution takes time. The visionary and parent in me wants change now. Others people's kids and my kids shouldn't have to wait. If we wait, we may just be behind again once we're"caught up"...always a few steps (or much more) behind. The realist in me knows that what some consider "real change" is more just rhetoric that faces an up hill battle no matter the philosophy - like over in Oconomowoc . Something hit me the other day while training on the basics of SMART Board software. I had a nice group of teachers who were trying very hard to improve, but I couldn't help but wonder "are they already too far behind?" Am I training them on decades old software that we should be moving beyond? Did we fail as a tech ...

The pitch has been made for a 1:1 initiative starting in 6th Grade. So now, the tough part of "how do we pay for this?" Thankfully, that's not what I have to figure out. Once that gets figured out (multi-million dollar project in the middle of a recession - no big deal...) we have a ton of work ahead of us. There is so much out there that has been shared about 1:1 initiatives. Not the least of which has been on  Dangerously Irrelevant of late with two wonderful guest posts on how they've done this. In our planning to plan I'm taking to heart a short post from Scott McLeod last week New technologies vs new behaviors Revolution doesn’t happen when society adopts new technologies - it happens when society adopts new behaviors. - Clay Shirky,  Here Comes Everybody , p. 160 I visit many schools that have 'new technologies,' but not enough of them also have 'new behaviors.' It's time for us educators to raise our game (leaders, I'...

Right now my bosses are pitching a 1:1 initiative to the BoE. The hope is to grow the media specialist and instructional technology department to support a roll out starting in 6th grade for the 2012-2013 school year. Each year they'll add a grade until it moves up to high school. Both job embedded professional development and summer workshops are a part of the plan. They've put a lot of work into the plan...just hope it pays off.