Strategic Plan Design Team

I just spent two long days working on my District's Strategic Plan Design Team. It was enlightening, exhausting and more than I could have hoped for. How did we get to this point? In the last month our Deputy Superintendent, Suzie McWilliams, held public forums with all the different stakeholder groups. I personally found the student forum the most valuable. People from these forums volunteered to give up 2 days of their time to be on the Design Team. We had community members, parents, students, elementary teachers, secondary teachers and administrative people. 

My team consisted of a Bank President, a School Secretary, 2 parents, the Executive Director of Facilities, an Elementary Teacher and the most awesome student from North Forney High School. She is in all AP classes and works a job after school. She was a wealth of information about how school REALLY is. She talked about the pressure that AP students feel to pass the AP test, how teachers are so pressed to get everything covered that everyone feels rushed, and that there are a a lot of students who just don't care and make teaching and learning difficult. As a a member of the Curriculum and Instruction Department most of the discussion was not new to me, but it helped me clarify my thinking because I had to explain the education process to non-educators. 

Melody Paschall from Engage2Learn led us through all of the required stages; Belief Statements, Learner Outcomes, Learner Profile, and finally we arrived at setting district Goals.The six District Goals that were created are clear, concise and will definitely move the district forward. I'm looking forward to the next step: creating action plans to implement these goals. Even though I know change is education is a slow process I'm excited to get started. 

Wonderful Weekend Websites

http://www.bigmouthlocal.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Website-Design1.jpg

 Wonderful Weekend Websites

            3/21/14

#7

I have moved all of the previous Wonderful Weekend Websites to my blog, hopefully this will make the sites easier to find.  

This weeks sites are 

Mobento won't change the way that you use videos with your students, but it could be helpful in finding a good video to use in a flipped lesson. Once you find a video you might want to try a service like EduCanon to create a flipped lesson that requires students to answer questions while watching the video.

Literably.com is a web site that teachers can use this to track and monitor student progress in reading. Teachers create an account and then add their class list. Teachers can pick leveled readers for each student. Students login and record their reading of the passage selected for them by the teacher. Literably analyzes and scores the reading.

Storynory is an online treasure-trove of free audio stories. Here you will find a mixture of original stories, fairytales, and specially adapted myths and histories. We also provide a sprinkling of verse.

Check out these eight videos that explore the beauty of math, both in its simplicity and its complexity. There are practical applications of math theory, quick tricks to save you time and make you look like a genius and even a little history thrown in that shows how math is truly an awesome thing.

3/7/14

#6

 This is Google Training primarily for students but anyone can take it. The training consists of 5 different sections where the student can move from a White Belt Ninja  to a Master Ninja in each section! There is a leaderboard where students can track their progress compared to other students and schools within our district. The students will have to be logged into their edu Google account to access the training. Click here for information on how to login.   Click this link to access a short video that can be used to introduce the training to students.  There are several ways to access the training,

o   From the above link

o   through the Forney ISD Home webpage – Parents/Students – eBook & BYOD – Click the first link.

o    http://tinyurl.com/fisd-google-ninja

1/24/14

#5

For Everyone:   Google Custom Search Engine for education includes Lesson Plans & Curriculum, Videos, and Games.  

For Everyone:   Google for Education Learning Center, learn the tool and then apply it in the classroom.

For Everyone:     Wing Clips - Movie clips that illustrate and inspire. 

11/1/13

#4 

For Everyone:   20 questions that can guide student research at any stage.

For Everyone:   4 new ways to use Google Forms with your students.  

For ELA teachers:  A group of Pinterest boards to inspire and engage your students in Language Arts. 

For Art Teachers:   Here are some neat interactive websites that will allow your students to create pictures that simulate the works of famous artists.

 10/25/13

        #3 

For Everyone: Netclick.me Automatically make your existing slides and PDF documents interactive.  It also can give polls and surveys. It’s free for educators.

 For Everyone:  Forallrubrics The best rubric software around, can run on any device. Class rosters can be imported using a CSV file, click here for instructions. Search for Daily Rehearsal Rubric for a great rubric that can be used for any class.

 10/25/13

        #2 

For Social Studies Teachers:  10 Web Resources to Help Teach about Primary Sources

For Science Teachers: 10 Science YouTube Channels You Can’t Miss. (Click the link to access the specific channel.)

For PE/Athletics: The Flipped Coach – the original site for taking the flipped classroom model to athletics and physical education.

For Everyone: We are Teachers –Ideas, Information & Inspiration

 10/11/13

        #1 

·            For ELA or Social Studies Teachers: Rewordify.com is powerful, free, online reading comprehension and vocabulary development software. It helps people understand difficult English faster, helps them learn words in new ways, and helps teachers create high-interest learning materials from any English text passage.

            For Math Teachers: A useful virtual math geoboard to explore a range of shapes and sizes.

For Band/Music Teachers: OnlinePracticeRecord.com is a free music education resource that can be used by all instrumentalists and vocalists to keep track of daily practice.

For Everyone: 25 Tricks to Improve A Boring Lesson for Improved Student Engagement.

And finally, some words of inspiration.

Edcamp Awesome

What can I say about #edcampawesome except that it was AWESOME!!! The facility was perfect, the swag was amazing, and the number of teachers and administrators that willingly gave up a Saturday was Awesome!!  To the large number of the participants had never attended an edcamp before, WAY TO GO. I spoke to one teacher who almost left because it was so far out of her comfort zone, but she hung in there and even set up a twitter account. Kudos to her for taking that first step, We have to celebrate those baby steps. 

As a confessed Twitterahloic,  I am constantly curating the content and building my LiveBinders with this content. I've added some links to the big topics of the day: gamification, Augmented Reality, Google in the classrooms. If you got the give-away from Picktochart and don't know what to do with it, here is a link to my Infographic binder. 

It was great to put faces to so many of the "twitters" that I follow. Thanks again for an AWESOME day of learning.

Google Training

Monday was a Professional Learning day in my District. As part of that we re-visited Google Apps for Education. We used the trainer of trainers model to deliver this training. The TOT teachers gave up a morning in their classrooms, to review the content of the Google Apps for Education training. All in all it was a success, or at least I haven't heard of any complaints. As a follow up to the training, I sent out my Tuesday Tech Tip email that was all Google. Here's copy of my TTT.

Did you know you could use Google spreadsheet to make Flashcards?

Did you know you could use Google search box as a timer?

Did you know you could use Chrome Extensions to save time?

Did you know you can use Google Docs for Learning?

Did you know all of the answers to these and many other Google questions can be found here?

TCEA

I just returned from the AMAZING TCEA (Texas Computer Education Association) Conference. It is a week of learning with the best of the best, the best classroom teachers, the best administrators, the best tech people. I always leave re-energized and re-focused. This year I was charged by my administrator to come back with some ideas on how to get our district moving in the right direction. For many years the district was the place to be, but we have slowly been losing that edge and for our students sake we need to get it back. In other words we have lost our MOJO. 

In Stephanie Cirihal's blog she states that one super way to jump start your mojo is to

DO SOMETHING ADVENTUROUS AND SPONTANEOUS.

Spontaneity and school administration don't usually go hand in hand so this idea might be a little difficult, but I am certainly going to work on it. 

As the lone Technology Integration Facilitator for the district, it is sometimes difficult to know where to focus my efforts, but I realized after watching The First Follower Video during my own presentation that I was not following the advice of embracing the first followers. These teachers are the ones I need to spend my time with, I need to help with their planning, teaching, and reflecting. They need my support.  

During a panel discussion with members of the Lamar Consolidated ISD Technology Integration team I heard about these innovative teachers being bullied. I was not a core teacher and I was the only teaching those subjects, I never experienced bullying, but it was made very clear that it happens and it is my job to protect them.

In Chris Nilsson's session on Structuring for Change he made several points that I can bring back to my administrative team. Point number one: we must have a clear and unwavering vision, and know exactly where we are taking people. Point number two: facilitators and teachers must be allowed to make decisions. They know what is best in their classrooms and "we" must stop giving teachers "stuff" they have not asked for. Point number three: what is the best use of facilitators face to face time? It is probably not in "how to" tutorials and all of those should be delivered via online. The final point: there is a difference between professional development and learning things that are part of a person's job.

If I am able to do these things, then the change will spread like a virus, one teacher at a time.

Thanks TCEA, can't wait until next year!!

Questions, Questions, Questions - Where are the Answers??

We have all heard it from almost everyone everywhere; Education must change. Our students have changed but many of our teaching strategies have not. Many of our teachers are still “Sages on the Stage” and not “Guides on the Side”. Why is that? Have they not heard all of the voices clamoring for change? Do they not want to change but don’t have the skills? Is there no motivation to change?

The mode of instruction needs to change to more student engagement, but what is the definition of student engagement? Does it look different in different grades and or different courses? Who decides this, the district, the teachers, the community?

I don’t have the answers to any of these questions, but I have suggestions, and ideas yet those are met with resistance and the Yea but’s.  And my frustration continues.

Professional Development

I am an admitted Twitter-aholic. There are so many amazing and informed professionals that share so much. My learning has expanded ten fold by this exposure. I heard on a podcast that professional development should become personal development. I love that idea. As the lone Instructional Technology Facilitator it is difficult to offer training's that are relevant to all teachers. Every teacher is at a different place in their technology use and I struggle with what to present to teachers. As a district we are moving to BYOD and Google this coming school year. I have offered sessions on both of these topics during the summer, but there is only so much one person can do. I am very concerned that I have not prepared the teachers enough. I need teachers to take charge of their own learning and therefore administrators to treat these teachers like the professionals they are. This district has a long standing habit of "Gotcha" and punitive measures. Teachers will only participate in training, or curriculum meetings if they are getting compensated. I heard Vicky Davis on a podcast recently that " to be in the top 10% you need to spend 1 hour a day reading in that subject", I wonder how many people in our district do that -- teachers, administrators, any one?