Schools: we are not the only shop in town. A lesson from DeadPool

It occurs to me that as leaders of schools we often forget that we do not have the monopoly on learning. This first hit we when my own two sons found Kerbal Space Program (KSP). It's game where you build space ships to complete missions. My boys loved this program and have returned to it several times over the years. Their eye lit up when they talk about connecting to a real astronaut on Reddit to ask questions about how to build their space ships better. But the real moment was a conversation we had about their learning in KSP. My boys were telling me all they build in this game, how they connected to real experts in the field, and with excited voices they said the statement that killed me as an educator.

"We've learned more about space in KSP than four year of science at our high school."

And my heart sank. They go to a good school. It's ranked top ten by US News and World Reports. They get good grades. The teacher there are great. But all that learning and resources were nothing compared to this game. KSP engaged them in a greater community. It connected them to real world experts. It allowed them to personalized their learning through choicing missions. It is project-based learning. It's got all the educational buzzwords.

So after I got over the shock and moved into the 21st century, I started to think "Is this so bad?" They are engaged. They are learning. Isn't that what we want for all our students?

That was a few years ago. Since then I have bumped into this outside of classroom learning often. I mentor robotics team after school. At first it was funny but now I am use to the time each season where a student suddenly says "Oh this is where I can use that math I learned in class."

I am ashamed to admit I play a sim game on my phone where you build a town with fields, animals, and factories all that produce things to meet goals in the game. It's probably time to feed my cows now. This would be a great tool for teaching Economics. Let the kids play this for two weeks, then introduce your terms, topics and problems. See what that added knowledge does for their game play.

DeadPool is a great movie in part because it breaks that fourth wall.  Our classrooms should do that to. Break that wall between the kids' learning outside the classroom and students' learning inside the classroom.

We can find ways to do this starting with the kids themselves. Ask them how they learned about a new game or improved their sports skills. Look for other successful places of learning. Today what sparked this for me was the articule at the end of this post. Think about museums, these are places of learning that are optional. They have to make it interesting enough that kids WANT to go there. Or at least parents are interested in taking their kids there. It's like a free market classroom. This is a great place to look for ideas! ( mic drop)


What Schools Can Learn From a Science Museum That Makes Learning Irresistible for Kids  

#iste17 reflections

Back in another lifetime, I was a LotusNotes gurl. I developed courses and taught NetWare and LotusNotes when the industry certifcations were just coming out. I have been to a few tech conferences in my day. I was at iNACOL last year.

But ISTE is a whole another level.

20,000 educators, footballs fields of vendors, sessions, playgrounds, and posters. I had no idea what playgrounds and posters were before I went there but I highly recommend them. ISTE is a huge event. Plan before you go, get there the day before and stay until the closing.

The first day was great. I was with my poeple. Not that I went there with anyone but all the people there - they're my people. They get it. They get the constant learning and comfortable shifting sands of technology.

The second day the vendor floor opened and I was off chasing shiny things. The free stuff otherwise know as trickets and trash. I cramped my hand writing raffle entries. I watched product demos I will never use for the tee-shirt. I got a dozen ribbons for my badge.

Then I hit a wall. Suddenly it all looked trendy and flashy. There were robots everywhere. I have been mentoring robotics on a team founded in 1999 but apparently it all just caught on. I ended the second day with a pretty good haul. At least four tee shirts. One is really soft. Another says "The Code is strong with this one" (star wars!). A great book ( Ditch that textbook). and about 30 pounds of flyers.

Time to regroup. What was I there for?

I work in a vaccum. I am the only person leading online learning and virtual program in my school. My mentor just retired. The position I report to have been vacant for sox month and my dep. supe. does not know what I do.

I'm not a ISTE for the trendy products. I am not here for the tools. I am here for the thought leadership.

So I started my third day planning to listen to Will Richardson. At the bus stop, I learned about a sketchnote meetup in the blogger cafe. I attended and got my start at sketchnoting. I met @SylviaDuckworth. I listened to Will Richardson remind us that technology should amplify the learning not drive it.

Overall ISTE was a great experience. I learned a lot. I connected with many people.  and I found my focus.

Digital Learning in reality for K-8: fighting to live the dream #k12online #edtech #digitallearing

This morning Digital Learning: Glimpse of the Future popped into a newsletter I read. Since I have been a virtual teaching for four year as part of the team that started one of the first K-5 100% online programs in Michigan, I can tell you I have been living "the dream" for years now. And it's not what you think.

Digital learning has a future in k-12 education, but we are shackled by the constraints of funding and software that handicap our ability to fully embrace this ( I was going to say future but it's really the reality of the present) reality.
We still must follow the pupil accounting rules of Count Day for STW ( seat time waiver) programs. Which I am not really sure MDE has figured out. It's really just forces the brick and mortar rules into something that is doable in the click world.
We are defined as a traditional school year program and the LMS shuts down to do a roll over in the summer so our calendar is locked in.
In our LMS course must have a start date so it's not on demand for the student.
I would love to just start students where ever they are in Math regardless of grade level. But for those that are behind, we don't have a path to catch up. And for those that go ahead, it cost money to get the next grade level. It's money well spend but there is a reality of the budget.

So we hold to the principals of digital learning. We fight against the ignorance and constraints. We look for innovations to make what should be a reality happen now. The world is changing. We have to change with it so better serve our students.

That's my big thought for the day. Now back to the daily todo list battle and boredom of operational duties.

Here's a link to the blog that started this musing:
Digital Learning: Glimpse of the Future - soloprenaut.com https://soloprenaut.com/teaching-online/digital-learning-glimpse-of-the-future/ via @thesoloprenaut

Writing an Awesome Application @edutopia #michEd #teachersspendtheirownmonytoomuch

Writing grants is something I have always wanted to learn more about. It's a great way to get funding for all those projects you know will impact your students but your district cannot fund. And lord knows we pay enough out of our pockets. There's a free online course that's on my summer list.

Below is pasted  part of a post from Edutopia. This will be on my summer do to reading list.

Writing an Awesome Application

• Grant Space Classroom From Foundation Center: Foundation Center's training center features tons of useful online grant-writing courses. Many of the courses are free and self-paced, and they're designed to help anyone write more effective proposals. Great, free courses for beginners include Introduction to Proposal Writing and Proposal Budgeting Basics.
• How to Write a Winning Grant Proposal: This GuideStar resource offers concrete tips for writing the best applications. From ideas for what to include, as well as formatting and style tips, there's a lot here to help you get started.
• 10 Key Ingredients of Winning Proposals: Looking for ways to make your application stand out? Author Mathilda Harris, the director of the Grant Training Center, provides tips and ideas of what to include in your grant proposal.

source:http://www.edutopia.org/blog/teacher-travel-grants-resources-matt-davis?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow 

Ninja Online Teacher Skills Detective

The Myth:

• When student go online they disappear and never come back.

Reality:

• The online teacher fights to keep that student alive on line like a life guard saving a drowning swimmer.

• Sometimes the problem is simple. 
• They forgot their password. 
• They lost the mentor teacher's number. 
• The device broke.
• Internet is down. 
• Sometimes it's a sign of trouble
• The student is not progressing. 
• The student needs help and is not asking for it. 

What the online Ninja Teacher knows:

• That if a student is not working- there's a reason. 
• It is nesscariy to  have what we have come to call Spidey Sense. 
• Look for problems before they happen. 
• You get a sense for what questions should be asked at what time. Not asking that question is a sign of trouble. 
• 
  

Reflection:

Being an online teacher requires a techie sense. You have to be able to trouble shot and problem solve across many systems. You have to 

Virtual school is not for everyone. Not every virtual school is the same. Our model is an outreadch to homeschooling families where parents engage in teacher planned direct instruction.  

The younger the student the more books and parents are needed. 

Ninja Strategies:

Build that relationship before you have to make a difficult call. It makes the difficult call easier.

• When in doubt, call. Ask more questions.
• Don't wait to respond to parents.
• Use all your tools to detect the answer. LMS reports. Communications logs. You cannot monitor their face so monitoring the data.
• Progress is a huge hurdle for online students. Communication can help.

What are the skills an online Ninja teacher has?

Ninja skill 1:Detective 

                   The myth is that we as online teachers are faceless.

                    The truth is as an online teacher I may not know their face but I know them better academically.
Strategies the Ninja Uses: 

We always have to be on the look out for things that make the spidey sense tingle. Is there a software problem? Is that tech working right? Has the student been online active enough this week? Is that really the student's writing?

Ninja Skills of Online Teaching: techie- ness#mlearning #k12online

Techie-ness 
Definition: the ability to navigate know and unknown websites, systems, apps, devices, and all "things" technology. 

The Myth: Learning online is easy. 
What ninja online teacher knows:

• The LMS or dreaded Lesson Management System is the website where the content, assignments, and assessments are stored ( BrainHoney, Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard, Connexus) 
• The SIS or Student Information System is the schools system for enrollment, grades and transcripts. (PowerSchool, Que, MiStar)
• There's an email system somewhere. Sometimes it's in the LMS, Sometimes it's district supplied emails address ( think student google accounts). 
• The online teacher must be fluent in all these systems plus video conferencing ( Hangouts or Adobe Connect) and all google products ( Google Docs, Google Slides. etc.) 

Reflections

• When I first starting teaching the ideal of a new system to learn was daunting. Thoughts like "where's my training?", "where's the manual?", " These kids will know this better than me!" filled my head. The uncomfortable feelings were paralyzing. 
• Then I learned to trust in myself and not expect to have all the answers. Your learning a new system with the students often. You don't have to have all the answers as long as you can find the answers. This is the difference between having knowledge and having the ability to learn. 
• In the future our students face, they will need the ability to learn more than the knowledge you can give them.

Ninja Strategies

• Google is your friend. Search for a topic with PDF if you need directions. 
• There's always a YouTube Video you can watch. 
• Learn from each other. Share your solutions and listen to the solutions of other teachers. They're in the same boat. 
•  Create "Lego" directions. These are my favorite versions of directions. A table with short directions in one column and screen shots in the other. 
• Learn to do screencasts. A quick screen cast of how to do common task will  save you answering many questions. 
• Build a toolkit of FAQ's. Weather it's documentation, videos, screencasts, or podcasts build up a library of commonly asked questions so you have already created resources. Reuse those resources. 

When NOT to teach #michEd #edleadership

This week I have been spending a lot of time ( just talk to my family) with my robotics team.  I am a mentor on the strategy team. Saturdays are our work days. What I was reminder this Saturday was that as teacher sometime the best thing we can do is not teach.

The students arranged a meeting when the robotics team room was open and staffed, But I could not be there. We planned our goals for that session and they went off to meet.

When I could show up, the teacher in me want to start teaching. Stop their conversation. Start talking myself. Have everyone listening and focused on me. Start giving directions/instruction.

But I took a deep breath and just stood there for awhile observing. The team was on task with a large part of their project for the day done. I asked some questions so they could bring me up to speed. Gave some targeted feedback on what was looking good and some areas they could improve on. Then let them know I was in there until five that day.

By not teaching those students guided their own project. They worked as a team giving feedback on the project. They learned skills they can apply to any group project and any problem. Some times the teacher just needs to sit back and watching the students learn. I am proud of them.

Stock image source https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/MapsAtWork.JPG

Ninja Skills of Online Teaching:The Written Word #mlearning #k12online

The Myth: You can say everything you need to say in one email.

What the Ninja online teacher knows:

• Student will only answer the last question you ask. 
  
• If they have to scroll, their eyes roll. 
• You cannot have difficult conversation in writing. 

Reflections:

• Tone is important. When writing you have to consider every tone the reader hear in that message. 
• The reader of your message hears it from their context - not yours. How will they understand your message. 

Ninja Strategies:

• Use the "Above the Fold" Rule if it could not be put on the front page of the student paper above the fold - don't put it in writing. 
• If it takes a page or 20 minutes to write an email- it should be a phone call. 
• Only ask one question per email. Only one topic per email. 
• Know when to call. For difficult conversations phone are better where you can heard the tone and the conversation can adapt better. 

What's your moon shoot? #moonshot #google #edleadership

"Moonshots live in the gray area between audacious projects and pure science fiction; instead of mere 10 percent gains, they aim for 10x improvements," according to Google. source http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2453259,00.asp

What's your moon shot? 
What are you doing to continuously improve your practice and stretch yourself?

I look for this in the teachers and staff I hire at our program. I also look for it in the mentors I  look up to. Personally I believe being highly effective is just being good at the status quo. Not something I aspire to. Beyond high effective is innovation and a growth mind set. That's where it really gets interesting! 

So with a little extra time on my hands this week here's some of my moon shots. Please join me in any ( or all) of them. 

• Apply to a PhD program 
• Apply to for award at MACUL yes! nominate yourself! 
• Get a Google certification  
• Apply to TedEd Innovative Educators due 1/29/16
• Apply to PBS Digital Innovators  due 2/8/16
• Write a guest blog post for anyone! 

Make sure you reach out to me on twitter at @julieAllThat and tell me what your moon shot was. 

Ninja Skills of Online Teaching: Organization #mlearning #k12online

The Myth:Online teachers stay in their PJ's all day and take naps.

Reality: Your still in your PJ's because you were too busy to get dressed today!
Teacher will quit online teaching because they cannot organize themselves.
Students reach out to you at all times. Sunday nights, Christmas day - because some are not Christians.

What the Ninja online teacher knows:

• The classes are there for the students 24/7. School is always open. 
• Many students are not working traditional school hours.
• Between welcome calls, weekly interactions, answering questions and live lesson, I feel like I am always behind in grading. 
• Many teachers struggling with the lack of structure. 

Reflections:

When I started teaching online it was hard to find a balance because all the student are in all different places all the time. One student might have the essay test from lesson 20 waiting for me to grade, while another is just starting composition and another is asking me to tutor them in fractions.

Grading papers during the day is great but it's often interrupted. It's hard to not to respond to every student instantly.

It was hard to find a rhythm. And that rhythm is something that changes every school year due to the students work habits. It's a balancing act between instantly responding to student, keeping up on grading, making sure weekly interaction happen, and keeping up on paper work.

Ninja Strategies:

• Make a list of what your duties are and build a schedule from that.
• When building your schedule, it's OK to have published grading time where you are not available.
• Know your busy times. The end of the semester you will be slammed. In the brick environment, I gave one test to get class at finals. In the click world those kids may submit many tests each or have retakes. Get ahead of the work in preparation for those slam times.

Ninja Skills of teaching online: Relationships #mlearning #k12online

Relationships:
The Myth: Kids online disappear. They go online and you never hear from them again.

What ninja online teacher knows:

• Those welcome phone calls began a relationship with the student that is personal. 
• Student will open up more on the phone than in front of 30 other peers. 
• Conversations between the online teacher and the student are 1:1 not 1:30. 
• There's always that kid in the back of the room that hid and did engage in the discussion. They used the herd to hid in. That's gone in the 1:1 conversations online. 

Reflections

• As an online teacher, I may not know each students' face as well but I know their brain better.
• Overall I know each student deeper because in the one on one relationship, you cannot hide in teh herd. 
• I know a greater number of my parents because they have a stronger role in their child's education when it happens at home.  
• Word of mouth and personal recommendations are the the strongest ways to increase enrollment. Teachers are the one that build those relationships. 
• Always remember your teachers are the greatest tech you have. 

Ninja Strategies

• Relationships are the key in online learning. Motivation and communication are personal. Discovery that students passions. Find that one thing about each student - their passion pr talent. Ask them about it again and again. 
• Make your avatar a picture of you. Encourage the students to do the same. 
• In your cell phone contacts, include a picture of the student, the phonetic pronunciation of their name, and their parents name. 
• Send random text or message just saying hi.
• Send message with good news. 

PD addressing the needs of your learners #michEd #edleadership

One of the interesting challenges of developing PD for teachers is meeting the needs of your leaners.

Let's remember back to when I was in a classroom. One year I taught second grade. While the learning styles of my students will vary all these students are about first to third grade developmentally. They are all being raised in the current year and in the same community. Planning lessons andlearning opportunities   for this group has a lot of commonalities. 

Now consider planning for a teaching staff. The staff I am thinking of has teachers born from 1960 to 1987. Their digital competencies vary greatly. They were raised in different states in different socioeconomic groups.

 Some of these teacher just need to be give a clue and they are off mastering the concept. These are the high flyers. Some teachers need step by step instructions that guide them through. They want a handout to refer to later. These are the lego learners. Some teachers are the elbow learners. They need you at their elbow giving them the information at their speed following their directions. 

All of these groups present challenges. The high flyers are ahead of the group, asking questions before the group gets there and sometimes misses important policy information. Often these high flyers get caught in their own gulf stream wind and land far off course. The lego group needs the directions emailed to them often. Putting them out on the Google Drive is not at hand enough for them. The elbow learner often try the hardest but are the most frustrated in the mixed group lelarning. 

All of these groups offer something to the team. The high flyers will often find new solutions to share with the group. The lego group asks for directions where the whole team is struggling. The elbow leaners are the detail catchers that will find ways to improve the instructions. 

Designing professional development for adult learners requires us to consider a greater range of learners' needs. A challenge I enjoy. 

how to force a copy of a google doc via a link. #gafe #edmch #google

I just followed a link to a google doc and got this:

Pretty Cool Huh?

Here's how make that happen:
Grab the link of the doc, sheet, slide or drawing–the one you see when you are editing. (Hint: this link has the word “edit” at the end.) Then simply replace the word EDIT with the word COPY! The user will then be prompted to make a copy of the file. Once they click the “Make a Copy,” button, it will make a copy of the file and add it to their Google Drive. AWESOME!
Source 

Links and treasure from #migooglefest 2015 #gafe #miched @macul

MiGooglefest was a great time learning. At the top of this post is a dump of all the links. My take-aways are listed at the bottom. Explore the links and make your own take-aways.

Conference site  

Disclaimer: These are not my presentations. I am sharing links the presenters shared. They were all great. I learned a lot.

Editing, Commenting, Suggesting, Oh My!
Storytelling with Google Maps
Expeditions - Google
Google Forms Basic documentation and advanced add ons.
GoogleFest2015: Chrome Apps, Extensions, and Add-ons to Rev Up Learning
2015 - GoogleFEST - The Mysterious Parts of Google
ABC's of Google Sheets
Chromebook Tips Your Mother Never Taught You
Pimp your Chrome Browser
Lesser Known Google Treasures
Google Photos
Add-Ons For Google Docs
Kicking Your Drive into Overdrive
secret door
custom search engine want student to use only the link you curated? Use this. 

Creative Comics with Google Tools

Game of Forms 

Take Aways The key note was a challenge to teacher to listen to the students.

My storify of quotes from the Keynote
My storify of the conference in general
Create your own storify by looking at the hashtag #migooglefest

I learned about a lot of great add on to forms. You can eliminate choices, great custom notification, and create certificates using document templates.

Google photos has some nice features beyond the assistant that I already love. Just click in the search bar and see how Google sorts your photos. Google using the data from the pictures and facial recognition to allow you to search without tagging. This means you can search for the all the pictures of one of your kids without ever tagging a photo. It will also group photos according to what you take photos of. I have a search pre-built of bird pictures ( I have parrots).

Google Trends is a great tool for starting conversations. Want to want a visual display of what people are searching for all over the world? Use Google Trend Visualizer. The bottom allow search by region. The upper left waffle allows you to set the grid.

New Year Resolutions from a teacher #michEd

As teachers this is our New Year's Day. The school year starts tomorrow.  This is the first year in ten years, I will start without students. I am starting the year as an administrator but my position is blended so I maybe the mentor teacher for students as the year progresses. It's important to be intentional about our new starts so here are my resolutions.

1. Blog! Check that one off as started. The purpose of my blogging is to reflect on my leadership and growth. And micro blogging counts!!
2. Focus on language of leading a group through change. Our language frames our disposition towards the topic of conversation. Using language of growth mindset and culture of thinking can frame challenges as positive growth opportunities.
3. Take care of myself. Work cannot be the excuse not to exercise. Stress cannot be the excuse to eat poorly. You are entitled to take time out of work for your passions and your healthy habits.

Overall my resolution is self improvement, it my leadership, language, and personal health.

@Storify as a reflection tool from #OCEP15

Storify 
Is a great way to collect your thoughts from a conference - and others. The embed button has templates to allow choices on the display in your blog or website. Below is a sample of the options. The grid displays a long post so go to the bottom to see the story option.

Here are some storify resources:
How to Create a Storify Story

Storify Tutorial.pdf - ScholarSpace @ JCCC

Sharing options 

 Slideshow Template 

Grid Template 

Story Template 

Teaching the problem not the tools #michEd #edleadership

Elon Musk talks about a new type of school he created for his kids (2015) 

26:00 "It's important to teach to the problem not to the tools. A traditional approach to teaching about engines is here's a course on screwdrivers and a course on another tool. A much better approach is to start with here's an engine. Not let's take it apart and see how it works. A screwdriver is a tool for that. Start with the problem not the tools. The relevance of the tools is in how they solve the problem."

This is the clearest explanation of problem solving based teaching I have hear. What if we started math with the real life problems where you will USE the formulas they are teaching. This would eliminate the question "When am I ever going to use this?" by giving it the relevance up front. The older the student the more the important it is to connect the why to the learning. This is true for adults even more so.

Our students will face problems we cannot image in their careers. Teaching the tools is like teaching them the only way to write a paper is to use a typewriter. That tools, once a critical staple of education and professional life, is extinct. WPM or word per minute for you youngsters is a dead skill. However we are still writing. And WPM has evolved into keyboarding which is still a skill we need.

Teach the student to think. To solve. Foster that growth mindset.



Other important side notes
learning from mistakes 20:00
"There's going to be mistakes and it's important to recognize those mistakes acknowledge them and take corrective actions. A success company is very much more about how quick are you to fix the mistakes. You will make mistakes. All startup make mistakes successful ones fixes them quickly"

About the school he started. 25:00. There's aren't any grades. Students do not move through grades like a factory line.