Do You See What I See?

"Said the night wind to the little lamb

Do you see what I see

Way up in the sky little lamb

Do you see what I see

A star, a star

Dancing in the night

With a tail as big as a kite

With a tail as big as a kite" 

- The Little Drummer Boy 

Perspective. Your reality is your perception of the truth. Interestingly, the same eye witness to an event, conversation, or day can have totally different perceptions of how things went down. Sometimes the most magnificent moments are totally missed because our mindsets are skewed. As we finish up a semester of education at our school I ask, do you see what I see? If you walk down the hallways of my school would you see:

Innovation. Educators looking for opportunities to broaden the audience of their students learning. Would you notice the QR Codes on the first grade hallways that link to videos our first graders have created in Seesaw to share their learning? 

Care. Would you notice not only a teacher stooping down to tie the shoe of a student that doesn't know how but also see a fellow student helping their friend that often needs a little extra help in the classroom and throughout her day? 

Collaboration. Would you notice the value we place on teaching our students collaboration skills for their future? Would you see students working together to solve problems and learning how to work with the personalities of others as they do so? 

Hard Work. Would you witness the beauty of seeing success? Would you see the smile on a spelling bee winner's face? A student that carries a dictionary around on a regular basis to learn how to spell new words. Would you see the first student that met a technology geography challenge start helping the rest of his class find the area on a Google map? Would you notice the pride that comes with academic success? 

 Engagement. Would you notice the teacher that works hard to engage his students in hands-on learning activities? Would you see students utilizing classroom tools to aid in the learning process? How would you interpret what you see? Would you see it the way I see it or would you be wary? How does your past and your view of the present intersect in your interpretation of the truth? How does mine impact me?

Risk Taking. Do you see the student that is allowed to tinker with no grade attached and how that causes a willingness to try? Do you see the value of unstructured learning opportunities that sparks the passion of the learner? Would you see, like I do, a culture that eradicates the fear of failure because it is creating a sense of failing forward? What about educators that are willing to take risks to try to better meet the needs of each student and create a culture of learning ownership? Would you see this as a good thing or a scary thing? What would it take for you to see it as a good thing? Can you agree that risk taking is something we should not only be modeling for our students but that we should be teaching as well? 

 Love. Do you see what I see everyday? A group of educators that are relational with our students? That teach our students what it means to love others and to share Christ's love? From the simple act of giving students opportunities to be campus caretakers, to creating Christmas trees to be delivered to the local children's hospital during the holidays, or by valuing family by having such events as Grandparent's Day, do you see how we focus on love at our school? Do you see how we are a school that is a place for students to grow as Lovers of God who seek Truth, serve others, and steward creation and culture.  

 Perspective. May I ever be mindful that my perspective isn't necessarily always the "right" one but also that it's important that I share my perspective with others as a way to encourage and share the good things happening in education day in and day out. #CCSlearns

Professional Development Excitement...is it possible?

As an instructional technologist I see many different personalities of educators when I’m introducing new technology ideas. With a broad generalizing paintbrush, I find personalities fall in one of 4 categories:

• “I’m In!”
• “Show Me what you mean?”
• “I’m not convinced!”
• “Not in My Classroom!”

It’s not always easy to meet the needs of all these types at the same time, so the way I introduce to large groups of teachers during professional development is often varied. It is my goal to meet a teacher where their comfort level is and take them to the next step. Recently, we have tried a few new approaches to professional development opportunities. When I know whole school PD days are on the horizon I start asking my teachers what they want to learn more about regarding educational technology. Our curriculum director and myself then sit down and map out a hybrid “edcamp” experience for our teachers that includes not only technology options but a variety of helpful authentic “take this back and make it work” ideas. Teachers are offered 3-4 choices of learning topics every 30 minutes. This format allows the teachers to quickly digest something they might want to learn more about but it also allows them some choice in their learning path. Let’s be honest, these are educated individuals, shouldn’t they know where they could use some help? When we set up the day, we often utilize teachers that are exceptional in different areas for sharing purposes as well. This makes them feel affirmed and it grows teacher leaders as resources as well. Our goal is to ask individual teachers to share only once during the day so that they can also benefit from the sessions as well. I’ve found that teachers are much more receptive to learning from each other than from me telling them how great an idea is and I don’t even have a classroom. I often enlist my early adopters to lead sessions so that teachers see it from their real world perspective. Also, anytime they can take an app/website/idea for a “test drive” it is less scary. Setting up those opportunities during professional development days is a plus. While this is a brief introduction time, it allows me to ascertain who sees value in the concepts and to follow up for more one to one with the teachers.

This year we also introduced some new required curriculum changes to the teachers and unfortunately it was during the back to school rush. In this situation I try to make these experiences as hands on as possible and with the goal of each teacher leaving a session with a lesson plan in hand. I often will introduce the concept with a hook that they can use in there classrooms as well. For instance, to introduce a day of project-based learning curriculum writing we used a breakoutEDU game to encourage rapid learning of the basic concepts. Not only did our teachers learn about PBLs but they also found out I had a breakoutEDU toolbox available that they could utilize for critical thinking opportunities. I am a firm believer that if you want teachers to try new things and teach using different methods, you have to model that in professional development opportunities! Look for ways to create small group, station rotation, flipped learning, inquiry-based, hands on, connecting concepts to tasks type things that aid teachers in thinking outside their norm. The words "professional development" often incites moans of despair, it doesn't have to. Find the pulse of your teachers, engage them, and then ask for reflection to grow these days forward!

    

What if Blobla DID look at us based on an algorithm?

So have you been on Facebook and seen the "Bill the Stickman" app by en.blobla.com? It keeps appearing over and over on my newsfeed. Occasionally I also see a little parody of it or frustration with it as well. BUT, I had to try it. Mainly because the edtech educator in me needed to see if it was algorithm driven. Was it really looking at my posts, friends, etc and deciding what to say about me? Obviously with the post on the right, I immediately thought it was a data driven algorithm. I found myself running it again, again, and again and finally realized it was just a random assigner of silliness. BUT, what if it actually ran on an algorithm? Before I realized it wasn't algorithm based, I would click and find myself looking hard at myself about the results. "I don't click like on friends photos just because they don't have many likes, do I?" "I don't just hate everyone, do I?" Forgive me as I chase this bunny down a trail but algorithms are so wonderfully interesting to me. In this case, what if it allowed me to take off the rose colored glasses in the way I see myself and truly see myself as others see me based on data? Would that be a good thing? Could I grow from that? Would it make me feel like sitting in a corner and sucking my thumb because I realize I am much more fake than I really want to admit? AND WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH AN EDTECH BLOG POST?

Ahhh...I'm getting there, I promise. "Big data" gets a bad rep at times. The educational industry is so enamored with data points from testing- and yes, I agree we are in an over testing culture right now, but what if these algorithms could lead us to personalize learning? I think it's the future of education. We are already seeing it happen within some software/app options, for instance Dreambox Learning and Mangahigh both have created intuitive environments that adjust to student learning. If a student gets one question right, he keeps being challenged with a progression of harder questions. If a student gets a question wrong, the student gets an easier question so as not to overwhelm the learner with a sense of failure but to keep them active and progressing just the same. At our school we are using a LMS called Edify and it has the ability to suggest to a student relevant learning aids (videos, etc) after taking an assessment. This is based on what that student is still struggling with. These examples are the beginning threshold of algorithms that help us with personalized learning.

See if you can wrap your head around this... 25 students in a class taking assessments that tell them and their teacher what their best learning styles are, what they still struggle with, who they best learn with (collaboration efforts), what days are harder for them to learn on, if they need to be challenged by a new modality, if the lesson will be a struggle or a challenge. The options could go on and on. The next day the teacher has looked at the data from the day before and knows where 8th grader Annika should sit, what modality she should be taught with, etc. Algorithms could do that. Could they replace the teacher? Not well. But what if it helped the teacher affirm they are doing everything in their power to meet the needs of that student? That's student-driven. Big data and the way we are seeing it being used to pour kids into boxes that place them into categories are scary but what if big data meant meeting an individual kid's needs better than ever before. I believe this is the not so distant future of edtech.

The question becomes how do we harness the power? How do we, as educators, use the ability without losing the relational aspects of school? As I look at our school's blended learning prototype this year I see so much potential. I see technology allowing teachers the ability to have more 1 on 1 and small group instruction time to build relationships with their students. I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt we are on the cusp of innovational educational change. Is it scary? Yes! Even for someone like me that is excited about it. I fear it being used wrongly, I fear it being depended on too deeply, I fear administrators thinking that relationships aren't that important and instead of it becoming a change agent for engagement between teachers/students it becomes another step towards "mill-based everyone looks the same, come in and get it done and graduate education." But I don't think educators will let that happen. I leave you with this Twitter post I saw today that makes me believe that teachers will choose to empower their students for lifelong learning as they begin to see the options and opportunities open up before their eyes.