Thursday, January 31, 2013

Reflections from our Skype Call

A HUGE thank you to Ms. Jane Conboy from Pascack Hills High School for taking some time today to Skype with our group of Passaic Pilot Teachers.  

Pilot Teachers....Reflect on the conversation we just had with Ms. Conboy.
Respond to the following prompts in a comment below!
  • One takeaway from this experience is...
  • One thing that surprised me was...
  • I feel less anxious after hearing...

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Classroom Reset and Teacher Leaders


     What an awesome few weeks it has been.  +Joanna Antoniou and I along with 4 pilot teachers from the middle school and high school, had the awesome experience of seeing a 1:1 in action.  Pascack Hills High School has had a 1:1 for the past nine years and they shared with us many of the challenges and successes which they experienced. The team that attended took notes in a collaborative google doc so that we could capture the day's experiences in one place and to allow us to go back and reflect on the day with ease.  I will share with you some of the highlights captured in the google doc.
Pascack Hills student describes his Italian class
The day began with a keynote delivered by 3 Pascack Hills High School students who have experienced technology integration first hand and the ways in which it has enhanced their lives.  They filmed a video approximately 5 minutes in length highlighting technology integration at Pascack Hills. The video concluded with the students asking their peers to describe technology at PHHS in one word.  Some of those words were, "fantastic," "revolutionary," "overwhelming," "life-changing," "great."  They continued their keynote by describing their typical day and how technology has affected each of them in their classes personally.  Two of the three students described how their language teachers connected with foreign countries through skype and google maps, and how having a real time experiences in a different country made the class so engaging and relevant.  They also spoke about how teachers used blogging and VoiceThread and how those tools allowed students to respond to content both in and out of school.  With VoiceThread, the teacher would post a question or comment and students would listen to the question/comment and respond by either posting a video, a sound clip, or by typing a response.  One student explained how it was easy for students to respond to this format without the pressures of talking in class.  It gave all students the opportunity to participate, not just the talkative ones.  The students also described turnitin.com, ebooks, and easybib in their language arts classes.  Turnitin.com allows students to comment on each others works while teachers can determine whether any part of their students' works were plagiarized.  Easybib is an awesome tool which helps students create a bibliography for their research papers, which many would agree is a challenging, cumbersome task.  Finally, one student described the fact that he had to do at least one presentation a month, which explained the ease with which all three students were comfortable addressing an auditorium with nearly 100 education professionals including their superintendent of schools and their principal.

Kristina Kochan, an LMS pilot teacher, provided this reflection on Classroom Reset. "When thinking back on my visit to Pascack Hills High School, what sticks out in my mind the most is the presentation created by three students.  These students worked incredibly hard to create a presentation that explained how technology has impacted their education.  It was truly inspiring to not only hear their stories, but to see their confidence in presenting and in their technological abilities.  I am so excited for our students to be offered these same experiences!"   

     It was really nice to see, and as Joanna and I went from session to session throughout the day, we talked about how awesome it would be to host something like that at PHS and LMS in the future.  As it turns out, this week Gregg Festa from the group who organized classroom reset, reached out to Joanna and our team at Passaic Schools and asked if we were ready to host classroom reset in 2014.  In the words of Joanna Antoniou, "Bring it on!"

     The following week was highlighted by Stephanie Garcia and Michael Lauricella, two teachers at Passaic High School.  They requested a meeting to talk to administration about twitter, a social media tool that they felt very strongly about and something that has helped them connect with their students and other professionals in our field.  They expressed the importance of using twitter both in the way it has helped them grow professionally and how it has helped them to better reach their students during the course of the current school year.  They asked that administrators help to model exceptional technology integration by opening up their own twitter accounts and tweeting to connect with other administrators, teachers, community members, and students.  Almost every high school administrator attended the meeting and listened, asked questions, and genuinely wanted to know what twitter was all about.  It was a great experience both seeing the teachers express their feelings and seeing how open and receptive our administration was to our teachers.  The definition of collegiality.

     Finally, this week, 93 Chromebook Carts from Datamation arrived at the middle school and high school.  These carts were designed with the input of Jason Smith and myself and were specifically made to support our needs.  Jason did an exceptional job designing the graphic which is displayed on all 93 carts. AWESOME JOB Jason!  The ball continues to roll forward!  Exciting things to come.
Chromebook Cart with design by Jason Smith

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Passaic Lights!

How can this image not make you smile!?!  This is a peek into an extremely dedicated and inspirational group of approximately 30 teachers, administrators and technicians at school this morning -working to transform education!  Wait!!  Did I mention this is a Saturday morning??  This is the enthusiasm education needs!  

Here at Passaic Public Schools, we have been working diligently to plan and prepare for our Chromebook roll out.  To echo my fellow blogger +Jason Smith, our Pilot Teacher team has completed Professional Development training covering various pedagogical shifts, digital citizenship discussions and deployment policies and procedures.  This morning we distributed the Chromebooks for the first time! As you can imagine this was a lot of fun!! As we all began to explore the devices the room was buzzing with excitement. Floating around and discovering the nuances, “Wait there is no right click? There has to be a right click?!?! Google That!" This type of challenge and accomplishment experience happened multiple times and will continue to happen. This exploration time re-energizes and reconnects us with the love of learning. I know this is the excitement that inspired me to become a teacher. As educators, we are challenged with the task of inspiring and encouraging life-long learning.

In the words of our fearless leader +Joshua Koen , “We are a part of a transformation. This is not a project, it is not an initiative." This is a transformation!

“A culture of change consists of great rapidity and non-linearity on the one hand and equally great potential for creative breakthroughs on the other. The paradox is that transformation would not be possible without accompanying messiness.”  

This is an excerpt from Michael Fullan’s Leading in a Culture of Change, an inspiring book that I turn to for a recharge.  The "messiness" as Fullan refers to it, is something we can all grow from as educators and professionals. Without it -we would never improve. So true in this process in which we continue to have trial, error, reflection and solution.  

 
We are creating a digital learning environment where the possibilities are endless. I keep looking forward to when our students are given the opportunity to explore and produce with their devices.  

To discover. To hope. To dream. To achieve.  

We are providing them with a window to the world that they may otherwise not have the opportunity to experience. Ultimately, we are encouraging students to publish globally, collaborate with their peers, find solutions to current issues and gain perspectives from people around the world! By providing students with tools that allow them to take ownership of how content is understood, transferred and re-distributed. The end vision of an empowered student working to reach his or her potential makes dealing with a little "messiness" totally worth it!  

Happy Transforming, everyone!  


Friday, January 4, 2013

Time to "Cut Loose"

image from danielgarber.wordpress.com
Image from danielgarber.wordpress.com
“Did you win!?”  

That was the first thing +Alan November said to me yesterday morning when we arrived for our monthly meeting with this visionary in the world of education.  We only have the pleasure of seeing Alan once a month, yet he remembered that I was in a heated Twitter competition with +Maritza Villanueva from the high school to see who would get the most followers.  Back in November, Alan began giving me hints on how to gain more meaningful Twitter followers and connect with people worldwide who share the same interests as me.  The fact that weeks later Alan remembered that I was in this competition and cared enough to ask about it shows that he made a personal connection with me.  This is such a necessary quality of a great teacher.

Incidentally, “qualities of great lessons/teachers” was the theme of yesterday’s meeting.  Another quality that we discussed was giving student autonomy in their education so that they will be self-motivated.  When I arrived home last night and turned on the TV, Footloose was on (I know most 80's movies are terribly awesome, but don’t tell me your feet aren’t tapping when Ren McCormack dances!) Watching the movie, I really realized how important self-motivation is for students.  

Think about it...a group of students who truly believe that they should be able to dance.  Sure, there are obstacles that stand in their way...obstacles that seem like they will be impossible to overcome.  But these students feel so strongly that dancing is what they want to do and it’s for the right reasons!  Now, let’s replace the word “dance” with “learn” or “create” or “collaborate”.  If our students feel as strongly about what they’re learning or creating as these students in the movie felt about dancing, then I think we’ve given them the freedom to create their own learning.  This is the time for Passaic’s students to have their Footloose moment.  

PS - In case you were wondering, I did not win the Twitter competition, but I learned some really valuable lessons from the experience.  I was inspired by my middle school students who refused to let me give up.  And all that hard work was not in vain...I still use Twitter every day to build my professional learning network, and for that, I feel like a winner! :)