Collaboration, Expertise, and Compromise

Anyone who knows me knows two things about me:

1. I am a team player. I like to bring people together, bat around ideas, present evidence, sometimes disagree vehemently, and then make decisions and plans based on facts.
2. I respect the fact that people have different backgrounds, education, and expertise, and I purposely search out the opinions of those who are experts on various topics and who have actually experienced various situations when formulating my own thoughts.

Watching Congress the past few weeks and then participating in a meeting recently, where people I consider experts were feeling completely disenfranchised, have brought the two beliefs I listed above to the forefront of my thinking today.

Our world has become too complicated for individuals to claim expertise and make decisions based on "what's best" for the rest of us. Therefore, we owe it to the world to do the following:

1. We must all speak up, even when it's uncomfortable.
2. We must all actively listen to one another, even when we'd rather argue or remain removed from the situation.
3. We must all be open to changing our minds, to the point of admitting when we're wrong.
4. And finally, we must all realize that compromising and reaching consensus is not only possible but necessary under many circumstances when we hold conflicting views. It's not giving up to compromise. It's the reality of living in a free society.

These are skills we must practice as adults and model for our students. These are skills our students must be taught, because they will need them in our complicated world.

Social Media Guidelines for Teachers

As education continues to progress in a globally connected 21st Century, I hear more and more questions and concerns about social media. In my view social media includes anything through the Internet that includes sharing and allows collaboration, give-and-take, or conversations. Facebook and Twitter certainly come to mind, but I also include blogging, Google Apps in general, and some websites. Here in the Storm Lake Community School District, we encourage our teachers to become socially connected. There are three main reasons for our teachers to do so:

1. To develop an online Professional Learning Community. Continuing to learn, sharing ideas with other teachers, interacting with experts, and planning for future collaborative events are just a few of the things teachers can do through social media to further their own learning and to become better teachers. Twitter is often the tool chosen for this.
2. To foster communication between our school and our stakeholders. Our stakeholders include students, parents, other family members, community members, and sometimes other schools. Tools for this include blogs, websites, and even Facebook.
3. To model the appropriate use of social media to students. We know our students are using social media everyday. We know that they are building an online resume of experiences, learning, and behaviors that can either serve them well in the future or can be destructive to their futures. It's our job as teachers to help students see the best ways to represent themselves online.

As we become more and more active on social media as representatives of the Storm Lake Community School District, it is important that we think through carefully the best way to represent ourselves and our school. I will be outlining some guidelines in future posts.

Summer Tech Accomplishments

It's that time of year again when we are scrambling like mad, realizing the first day of school is just around the corner.

Welcome to all the families registering their children with us today. It's so exciting to see students in the buildings again. We may get a lot of work done when most of the staff and students are gone in the summer, but we really miss them! This place loses its soul when our students aren't here.

Here's a sampling of what we either have done or will have done within the next couple of weeks:

• 190 more Chromebooks. These devices look like small laptops and access the Internet through the Chrome browser. We piloted a lab of these in the high school ELL room and ten more all around the district last school year, and our teachers and students love them! No waiting to authenticate to the network or update virus protection. No unneeded programs to load. The ability to work in Google collaboratively, to access your files away from the school, and long battery life are only some of the things we've heard raves about. Five of the new Chromebook labs will go in our high school English classrooms as a chance for us to pilot technology in the hands of students any time, any day, all day in English classes. Another of the Chromebook labs will go to the middle school for checkout by classrooms. And, ten of the Chromebooks will go to elementary Title students for their use.

• Guest wireless network at both the high school and the middle school. The same will be coming at the elementary school at some point this fall.
• New Internet filtering that is less onerous to implement when we bring new devices onboard.
• New virtualized servers.
• New switches at the high school and new routing between buildings.
• Doubled Internet bandwidth for the district.
• Expanded monitoring of network to keep abreast of possible issues quicker.
• Brand new computers in two high school labs and one elementary school lab.

• Two new Smartboards, one at East and one at the elementary school.
• Several new document cameras and projectors for classrooms at all our buildings.
• Google Apps for our staff and our middle school and high school students, complete with email, has been updated. This is such a fabulous way for our students and staff to communicate, to collaborate, and to create their own learning.
• e2020 alternative high school and credit recovery software updated.
• Academy of Math for high school student interventions updated.
• Rosetta Stone software for the whole district updated.
• Middle School Family and Consumer Science software updated.
• Expansion of wireless coverage and density at the elementary school.

Those are the things that immediately come to mind. We are so excited at the potential for our students to learn with technology even more than they have in the past.

I'd better get back to it. The first day of school is staring me down!

Lifelong Learning

I am a lifelong-learner. I believe certain things are required of our students once they leave school that are very difficult to test but are of the utmost importance for us to teach. Here are the Albemarle County Public Schools' list of Lifelong Learning Standards copied from their website (http://www2.k12albemarle.org/acps/division/Pages/Lifelong-Learner-Competencies.aspx):

Lifelong-Learner Competencies

Lifelong learning places emphasis on results. To develop the skills and habits associated with lifelong learning, students must: learn beyond the simple recall of facts; understand the connections to and implications of what they learn; retain what they learn; and be able to apply what they learn in new contexts.

• Plan and conduct research.
• Gather, organize, and analyze data, evaluate processes and products; and draw conclusions.
• Think analytically, critically, and creatively to pursue new ideas, acquire new knowledge, and make decisions.
• Understand and apply principles of logic and reasoning; develop, evaluate, and defend arguments.
• Seek, recognize and understand systems, patterns, themes, and interactions.
• Apply and adapt a variety of appropriate strategies to solve new and increasingly complex problems.
• Acquire and use precise language to clearly communicate ideas, knowledge, and processes.
• Explore and express ideas and opinions using multiple media, the arts, and technology.
• Demonstrate ethical behavior and respect for diversity through daily actions and decision making.
• Participate fully in civic life, and act on democratic ideals within the context of community and global interdependence.
• Understand and follow a physically active lifestyle that promotes good health and wellness.
• Apply habits of mind and metacognitive strategies to plan, monitor, and evaluate one's own work.

I was lucky enough to participate in a workshop with Dr. Pam Moran who is the superintendent of the Albemarle County Public Schools, and these standards totally reinforced my belief in the fact that it's no longer facts that should be the emphasis of education. It's the process that we must be teaching.

SLCSD, how do you get your students ready to be lifelong learners?

Saw this from Bill Ferriter on Twitter yesterday and then on George Couros' blog today, and it blew me away:

This is exactly what I've been trying to say for years. What do you think?

ISTE Crowds

Went to get in line over an hour early for the first ISTE keynote speaker, Jane McGonigal, and found it quite seriously miles long. Decided to move to the Bloggers' Cafe where the keynotes are simulcast. Oh, my. Familiar faces talking at the top of their voices to be heard over all the others talking at the top of their voices. Iowans I know. Bloggers and Tweeters I know of. What a group of EdTech leaders. I hope the passion and the expertise wears off on me. So pleased to be here in this moment!

Will continue to skim McGonigal's book "Reality is Broken" in preparation for her speech. More later.

Graduation

I attended high school graduation this weekend, and it brought to mind how extremely important schools are, not only for the future of our country and our world, but also for our students' lives individually. How wonderful that we see the individual talents in our students and encourage them to develop those talents, whether it's art or athletics or music or business or construction or academic excellence. How inspiring it is to watch seniors cross the stage for diplomas who are the first high school graduates or the first future college students from their families. How moving to see a class come together and cheer the accomplishments of a fellow student. How loving to see the students offer their empathy to a family who lost their senior this year. How exciting to see the gym full of families, some with very young children who will one day grace this very stage, celebrating the success of their family members and friends who are graduating.

It is with pride as an educator and with the love of a mother that I salute the Storm Lake Class of 2013. We come from all different backgrounds with so many interesting stories to tell. However, it's clear that when we gather as a community, we will always think first of the Tornado green and white that we share and wish the very best for each other.