Bird walk of the day improves by blogg #edtech

So it's the day after Christmas and that's a take it easy day. So I was wandering/wondering around on the internet. My blog has long bothered me for a few reasons. First it's not organized. I blog for different purposes and they are all mashed up together. The side bars are boring.  The function is not what I would like it to be.
So today's bird walk led me to places that taught me how to add tabs, labels, and view by label to my blog.  Look at the great resources on my NEW Blogger Resource tab if you would like to add these to your blog.
Still on my to do list is:
social widget found here: http://myhelpblogger.blogspot.com/2014/06/blue-color-social-subscription-widget.html
I'd like dynamic views to work.
and updating me website.

I hope I have started you off on your own bird walk.

#admincamp 3 reflections

11/12/2014

What a great day of expanding my thinking. There were so many great thoughts that I wanted to capture to review later. I have so many things to reflection on:

From Paul Angelise

"Who is your every body?" 

A prepared mind understand your passion. 

Being a manger used to be educational leadership but now we are moving to instructional leaders but even that alone does not define what a good educational leader is. There's an important piece about service that must be included. 

"The best prize like has to offer is the chance to do the work worth doing" 

From Adam Hartely 

The oppisite of a hero is a bystander. 

The world is a dangerous place to live not because of those people who do evil but because of the people that do nothing about it. 

"like dang" is the call of a bystander

Adam walked us through a Heroic Journey 

"we are so focused on climbing that mountain we don't take the adventure to go around it." 

interesting people to connect with on twitter 

Lars Leafblad, Daily inspiration, Clocky @poweron

A hero is compassion, empathic, mindful and attenitve

Steps in the herois journey 

call to action 

connecting/assistance

thershold

main challenge/ trail 

mastery of both worlds. Trail blazer that impacts the staus quo 

Bystander leaders build through success which means they are destoryed through losses. Heroic leaders build throught the pain and exerience to fuel their passion to face the next challenge.  

#Colchat takeaways 7/29/2014

#Colchat takeaways 7/29/2014

It was so great to run into expected and unexpected tweeps at #COLchat2action. 

 There's an amazing type of learning that happens when you have a room full of a passionate professional that are doublingly  engaged. I say double egagned because I am listening to  and being inspired by great speakers such at @thenerdyteacher and at the same time my head is down engaged on my device in a back channel conversation. That head down device lit  face body language looks disrespectful on it's face value. But it's not. I am activity engaged in listening, inspiration and channeling that engagement into constructed my own learning. Is this learning our students would benefit from? Posssibly. Is this learning we would allow our students? Probably not. 

We say we go to these conferences on our own time own our own dime for connections. And #Colchat did not dissappoint. I ran into all the usual suspects. Geat to see them and hear what's going on in their life. 

But also I put faces to people I have talked to on Twitter. Another awkward face to face moment where I say so nice to meet you to someone I feel that I know well through twitter. 

But also I connected to new people. I spoke with new administrators. I learned about new groups in virtual education. 

And that's what a conference should be. 1. see those you know 2. meet those you know 3. meet new people. 

And then there was the learning. 

I learned about Voice Thread. We can have a read out with our homeschooling students. 

I missed the session on standards based grading - that will have to be home work for me. 

Someone mentioned Glide - some app. I want to figure out that is. 

I want to recommit to blogging. Not  because I want a following but to be reflective in my practice. 

 In Seth's session he challenged us to do some crappy writing. This is mine. I am a terrible speller and the iPad Blogger app does not have spell check - can you believe it!

the "why" in leadership #miched #edleadership inspired by @pauldsupt

why i notes

I am lucky to be part of the "why I" cohort in Birmingham Public Schools where we focus on the why in your leadership and empathy.  @pauldsupt leads us in reflecting on why we want to be leaders in public schools and what type of leader we are. Here are some notes from our earlier December meeting. These questions may guide you in your own reflection about your leadership. 

12/5/2014

The difference between effective and highly effective is intentional. When learning stops, how intentional is a teacher about moving them along. John Hattie Visible Learning. 

What is your greatest strength as teacher?

How intentional are you about that?

Think of a great teacher, what's their greatest strength?

What would others say about you? 

What's an area of growth that you are working on?

How intentional are you about that? 

Evaluation process is about intentional bettering practice. The greatest variable that we can impact in student achievment is teachers. 

Rick Duford:" are you looking out the window or looking in the mirror?" Out the window is things you cannot control. The evolution process is looking in the mirror. 

Circle of Trust approach 

clearness committee is  discussed in Park Palmer book on page 44 and 92 

Clearness committee is a protocol that asks questions of your decision without giving advice 

Touchstones of Circle of Trust

give and receive welcome; speak your truth in ways that respect other peoples' truth; 

Reflection: so often we response with advice or our own story. As we tell our own story we are building connections. This protocols allows us only to ask questions, not fix and give advice.  That's a hard thing to do. To be in service of others. 

What's your Why? 

I want to be an administrator to move my service to mentoring teachers from mentoring students. With the changes teachers are going through cataclysmic changes. There is a great need to support those people that in pinched between students and all the pressures from outside. 

Google Certified Trainer- what may be holding up your app? #gafe

Have you applied in the last round of applications? I did!  The deadline was in November with notifications going out the week of December 2nd.  Well that's come and gone and no words. Soooo I did some digging.

First you fill out an application here: https://googleedu.onlineapplications.net/app/main/ You will need a training resume, training style demonstration in the form of screen cast or video, and training case study.

The part I did not know is that you need three online references. Once you give their name and email, they get a message from grants@resources.com. Your application is submitted but not completed until one of them fills out the form. From what I can guess, it's only one. I gave work emails and the filter kills the reference request. After the deadline, I went and switch it to personal emails. Luckily one of my references is a great person and stopped everything to fill it out right then.

My application then became "completed". Since then I got another message from google-educaiton-trainer-program@google.com that says:

Thank you for submitting an application to the Google Education Trainer program. Due to the high volume of applications received this round, we are experiencing a significant delay in reviewing the applications. We expect to email you a decision by December 15, 2014. We appreciate the time and effort you put into completing your applications and are ensuring that they are thoroughly reviewed. Thank you again for your patience and understanding.

-The Google Education Trainer Program Team

So there's still hope for me ( and you too!) i know a lot of us were talking about this on Twitter so I thought I would give an update here. 

Embedded English breaking the subject silo #english #miched #innovation

As a special education teacher we have seen the trend from institution to least restrictive environment. Over the year inclusion has become a standard. Instructional support that is push in verses pull out. Special Education teachers have gone from being in the closet size class room now the hall to co-teaching in all subjects. 



What would it be like if we did this to English teachers?

What if we took writing instruction and embedded it into Science, History, Math and elective classes. Yes we still need literature classes where we read and discuss story, character, and other elements.  But what if an English teacher did a rotation as a co-teacher into other classes supporting the writing projects that happen in those subject. These project could be posters, brochures, website, blogs and of course the tradition research paper. As an English teacher, I can map what ever standard you are using to the assignment. I can support research, thinking, drafting and editing. Students could get two grades. One from the Science teacher for subject matter and one from the English teacher for writing. Students should be taught to write in context not isolation. I just wish someone would give me the chance to implement this!