Navigating Social Media as a Parent

E-parenting is not an easy task. In March of 2017 android users had the opportunity to choose from

2.8 million apps,  with the Apple app store coming in at a close second by offering  2.2 million apps to users (https://www.statista.com/statistics/.../number-of-apps-available-in-leading-app-stores/). 

How on earth can a parent manage what is out there and what is safe for their children? Recently 
I became aware of an article that warns parents of dangers associated with the apps Musical.ly and 

Amino. The concepts of each of these apps seem like a fun way to connect but with all things, 

deviant behavior can happen on these type of sites/apps. Spend a few minutes digging into these apps 

and you can find a plethora of things you wouldn't want your child to see or take part of...and for that

matter- yourself. We live in a world where the access to technology is virtually ubiquitous. This means 

that access to information, images, and relationships that can be both uplifting and demoralizing is 

at our fingertips as well. 

For adults, our frontal lobs are developed. There is an overriding belief that we have the ability to use 

self-control to make wise choices in where we navigate to consume information, personalities we 

choose to interact with, and images we choose to see. I believe we see proof in this world that it isn't 

as easy to balance as some think. For our children, curiosity is their strong-suit, not self-control and we, 

as adults, need to help them find their balance and develop their self-control. 

Recently I attended an e-parenting workshop at a local school here in Chattanooga and the speaker 

shared a great social media rating guide:

This can be found at www.safesmartsocial.com . I found the ranking of green, yellow, and red apps 

very helpful. The green apps are made by companies that are working to look at for underage users. 

If, heaven forbid, you had an issue on an app with your child that caused alarm these companies 

are willing to work with parents to get to the issue resolved. The yellow apps may or may not be 

willing to do the same thing. And the red apps will not be helpful and serve as potential safety 

concerns for your children. 

As you can see, the Amino Apps aren't even listed on here because that is the nature of the beast-ever 

changing and ever popular. If you still are only watching your child's Facebook usage, you are being

duped into thinking you are a vigilant parent! Did you know that many of today's young users have an

Instagram account AND a Finsta account? It might be using the app Finsta or it might be another 

Instagram account that they think isn't easily traced back to them. The truth of the matter is, teens 

want a virtual place they can be themselves but they know about the long reaching impact of their

digital footprint. A Finsta account or fake Insta gives them this sense of anonymity to share their "real

side" with the world. Want to know if your child has one? See who they are following on their 

Instagram account or look at the bio in their Instagram and see if it says something about where 

you can find their Finsta (or connect via snapchat, etc). 

So what do you do as a parent? Are you hands on to the point that your child isn't allowed any access 

to the chosen mode of communication in their world? Are you hands off and you have no idea what

they are doing and frankly don't care? Or are you trying to walk the line between enough and too 

much?

Here are a few resources that might help you in this navigation:

-Either be in control of what apps your child downloads on their devices or get notifications 

when your child your child downloads a new app. Use websites like www.safesmartsocial.com or www.commonsensemedia.org to make app decisions on what you think is best for your own

family.

-Follow your kids on social media. Look at their history. Have conversations that are meaningful

about positive and negative internet presence.

- Know that even the most innocent of concepts can be corrupted. Don't assume your child is

looking at sick skateboarding tricks all day long on Youtube. If you don't let them have free

reign on HBO, then set safeguards for Youtube. http://www.covenanteyes.com/2010/11/16/issue-2-6-ways-to-protect-your-kids-on-youtube/

- Consider something like Disney Circle (https://meetcircle.com/) or Our Pact (https://ourpact.com/)

- Be the parent. Don't be afraid to say no. Your child does not have to have access to ALL the social

media apps. And remember that frontal lobe thing I was talking about, many apps say a person has

to be 13 years old. Follow that, but also consider that 13 might be too young as well.

-Use the stepping stone method. When learning to drive, you have to be a certain age, you have to prove yourself worthy of being a lone driver, and if you fail miserably your license can be revoked.

Make a family plan for what that looks like regarding internet usage with your family. A family

contract isn't a bad idea.

-Research. Many apps of choice for teens are based out of foreign countries. Your rights as an

American citizen are null and void when you hit that "yes I agree with these rules" button. Keep that

in mind.

Lastly, don't allow the scariness of the internet to win. The awesomeness that today's world has in

connecting globally has never been available before. Empower your children to be good digital

citizens like you empower them to be good citizens. Show them examples of the power of social media for good and bad. Create opportunities for your children to showcase the positive. Model

the good and trend the positive!

When was the last time you learned something challenging, exciting and new?

I'm going to tell you a secret about me: I hate to fail- I don't do it with dignity. Because I hate to fail I often don't like to take chances either. As a child (birth to 18) I was fairly athletic and always loved to be active but place a new game in front of me or a concept I didn't know yet and I immediately became a wallflower. I would allow the fun to happen all around me while I watched because I was afraid I wouldn't be good at it. This is something that I have to be mindful about even today. I have to push myself out of this comfort zone and the older I get the more I find myself willing to fail, but it's still hard. My perfectionist and competitive tendencies sometimes overpower me.

In the past couple of weeks I've found myself truly pushed out of my comfort zone regarding learning. In one case circumstances caused the need for learning and in the other case passion to create caused it. I self taught myself the intricacies of 3D printing in the last couple of weeks due to a need my students had. I'll be honest, I haven't perfected this skill nor was I even 100% happy with the end results but I accomplished it. Next step: accomplish printing AND design.

The next thing I accomplished was creating my very first skill for an Amazon Echo. Alexa can now read my blog to all the millions of people interested (humor me) by adding the skill "All Things EduTechie Oriented" from the skill store. I was actually shook when I realized I had accomplished this task. My skill set was 100% lacking in trying this. The instructions often looked like greek to me. When I finished, just like a toddler that would run to mom and ask her to put their crayon artwork on the fridge, I started texting coworkers and family with the results! I'll be honest, I took the path of least resistance to create it. There are things about it that I wish worked differently, it isn't perfect. But I did it. 

I often like to think I'm a growth mindset kind of girl. I have no problem reading material that is contradictory to what I currently think and growing from it but it took these last couple of weeks to realize I do tend to shy away from truly learning the HOW TO of really new things. So as I look at what spurred me I also can't help but see correlations in ways we can spur our students as well:

• Time. Both of these new skills took time. For one I actually put some things on hold and worked after school to get it done. For the other, the flu gave me the chance to just focus on it. We need time, uninterrupted time to think through things that are challenging. Adults and students need time to devote to learning and using that time intentionally is important for the learner to persevere.
• Reason. Tell me they why. Before 2 weeks ago I didn't really even have a desire to do either of those tasks but now I'm pleased as punch that I have accomplished them. What happened to cause this? I had a WHY- whether intrinsically motivated or extrinsically motivated knowing why you are learning something gives you the guts to keep going when it gets rough.
• Resources. To learn new things we need the access to the tools to get us through the learning goal. Whether it be the wide world web, an expert, or a 3D printer or Amazon Echo...you can't accomplish the learning if the right tools aren't available. 
• Validation. This may sound vain but learners need validation. There was this moment when I accomplished the task of creating an Alexa Skill and someone ask "are you going to create it for Google Assistant as well?" I felt diminished in that moment. I said, "Wait a minute, can we just glow in the moment in the fact I did something I didn't think I could do?" How often do we push our students to the next thing after an accomplishment instead of truly celebrating the current accomplishment? For some of our students every math problem, essay, or summative assessment has that same sense of "Oh my goodness! Look what I just did!" as I felt this week. I want to be more mindful in celebrating growth in my students and not just seeing it as a check mark and herding them forward to the next thing. 

I love weeks when you learn something about yourself that you might actually even see as a flaw. I'm going to work harder in examining myself more frequently for things I might be shying away from due to fear. What I really learned from something that is challenging, exciting and new is that it feels marvelous (even if it isn't perfected) to accomplish that which you thought was hard to do. 

Educators as Empowered Citizens (Unpacking the ISTE Standards for Educators)

Empowered Professional
3. Citizen- Educators inspire students to positively contribute to and responsibly participate in the digital world.
   
Educators:

• Create experiences for learners to make positive, socially responsible contributions and exhibit empathetic behavior online that build relationships and community.
• Establish a learning culture that promotes curiosity and critical examination of online resources and fosters digital literacy and media fluency.
• Mentor students in safe, legal, and ethical practices with digital tools ad the protection of intellectual rights and property.
• Model and promote management of personal data and digital identity and protect student data privacy. (ISTE Standards for Educators 2017)

Part of using technology in the classroom is both modeling and creating opportunities for ourselves and our students to be a productive part of the digital landscape. For me, this means talking about digital citizenship on a regular basis with students and holding them accountable for appropriate actions as well. It means using myself as an example. The following bold titles are the subcomponents found under this section of Empowered Citizens in the ISTE Standards for educators. The explanations below are ways I model being an empowered professional digital citizen as an educator:

1. Make positive, socially responsible contributions. I am an avid edtech blogger. As much as it helps me gather my thoughts and think through things, I also see it as a way to model and show positive professional digital behavior. While the free online community of the internet gives us rights to so much information, also contributing to the digital landscape should be a responsibility of an educator. 
2. Exhibit empathetic behavior. As an active member of various Twitter chats, sharing my views on different topics is part of that community. While my views may vary from others, being respectful and open to the views of others online is an important part of being a productive digital citizen. For me, I often friend or follow people that have different views than myself to grow my mindset.
3. Building relationships and community.  Through the use of the Google Suites apps I am able to collaborate online with fellow educators both in my system and outside. Google Hangouts, Google Docs, and my Google Calendars are used on a regular basis to stay connected to my community. Becoming a moderator of #TNEdChat twitter chat on Tuesday nights at 8pm ET has also help me grow my community and build relationships with other educators both near and far. Modeling this active use of technology to grow myself is important to me. Twitter has become my "go to" whenever I find myself stuck with an educational issue. I can tweet a question out and because I have an educational learning relationship with many of my followers, I often get immediate suggestions and ideas to move forward. 
4. Establish a learning culture. Our school has recently created a "philosophy of technology" to guide our learning. After creating that, we then created a graduate profile in terms of technology skills we want our students to have when they graduate from our school. We are currently in the process of breaking that graduate profile into true technology standards by grade level that we want to make sure our students are reaching. As an educator, I think it is important for parents and students to see that we are diligently working towards a framework that shows both value in using technology for education and the limitations we think that are needed in regards to good stewardship of technology. 
5. Curiosity. Access to technology allows myself and my students to see a myriad of viewpoints on any topic of interest. For myself, when questions come up in class that have pricked someone's curiosity, we use digital tools to learn more about subjects. I do the same every day. Creating a culture of lifelong learning with digital tools helps students to see the importance of how quickly they can learn with the right keyword search. I also model this for other teachers when they ask me how to do  something digitally and I find a resource online through Youtube or a blogpost and share it with them. We are in a world where the smartest person in the room might actually be the computer. To access the information and turn it into knowledge is contingent on our own curiosity.
6. Critical examination of online resources. Learning how to critically look for resources on the internet is a valuable tool. It is important for teachers to learn how to discern good resources for our students. Learning where to look for the owner of a website and doing comparisons with multiple websites helps us to share and learn non-biased information with our community. Teaching our students how to do the same is also important. Many years ago I would create fake websites that made no sense to what my students were studying about and send them to the web address. Teaching students how to critically look at online information is a definite skill for all of us.
7. Digital literacy. As a digital citizen I have a responsibility to learn how to use technological tools effectively. One of my pet peeves is when classrooms just digitize what could be done with paper and pencil. While there is a time and place for all levels of tech usage, using technology in 21st century ways helps our students for their futures.
8. Media fluency. Whether I am curating or creating information it is important to have a technology toolbox that gives me varied resources. Whether I find my information using Google Scholar, Twitter, or Edutopia I should look for multiple places for information. Just like I want my students to have multiple sources for papers, I should be creating a digital toolbox for myself. Because we have already talked about the importance of contributing to the digital world, we also should be looking for various digital formats to communicate and share our knowledge.
9. Mentor. I am thankful for mentoring people in my own life that have grown me as an educator. I too try to help others (if they want help) through various digital outlets. I share my own failures and successes on my blog for anyone to see. I use the hashtag #CHAedu to share thoughts with local Chattanoogan educators. I offer help in my community through edcamps and technology conferences. Please hear me say I don't think I am a master teacher but I do try to help others as they navigate edtech because I have been doing it for a while.
10. Safe practices. I model safety by only accepting people I know to view my personal life online. I also make sure I don't share too much personal information when talking with others. I often will block Twitter users that don't seem to have a legitimate reason to be following me. I try to keep my social media accounts clean from spammers and questionable followers.
11. Legal practices. I try to give credit when I quote other people or articles online. If I share graphics, I either make them myself or get them from somewhere like www.photosforclass.com  so that they are creative commons cited.
12. Ethical practices. When I see rude or inappropriate comments on the internet I do not participate in the conversations. I have been known to contact people directly when I see cyberbullying taking place. 
13. Protection of intellectual rights and property. As mentioned in 11 above, using creative commons and making sure to cite the works of others when I blog, tweet, or share shows the importance I place on the works of others. This helps students to see what non-plagiarism looks like.
14. Model and promote. I'm probably annoying about this. I remind and show teachers the value of a positive online digital footprint often. I promote the importance of doing that for our students. So many teachers don't want to participate in social media but I think it is important for us to show it positively to our students. I also feel it is important for me to model using social media for educational purposes for my fellow teachers to see. 
15. Management of personal data. By modeling personal contact through direct messaging and showing the importance of private versus public accounts, I show others how to manage their own personal data. 
16. Management of digital identity. By being mindful of my digital footprint and the persona I want others to see regarding me, I am careful about what photos I upload, who can tag me in photos, and how others might see me. 
17. Protect student data privacy. It is important to not use names of my students online and if my students' parents don't want their identity represented online I adhere to their wishes. I am also careful about asking or creating accounts for students for learning purposes. I often will choose software that works with Google because I know my students can sign in through their accounts. This allows me to protect the privacy of my students. 

We often talk of the importance of digital citizenship for our students but we are lackadaisical about teacher expectations on the same topic. Many teachers feel that their digital identity is their own business and shouldn't be judged or have expectations on it but we live in a society that values social media and its connections. Our digital identifies are the only way some people know anything about us (and our students). We need to start teaching into this aspect of our students lives by modeling empowered digital citizenship behavior. 

Parenting in the Digital Age

As a parent and educator, I know that parenting in an ever connected world can be a constant battle with our children.  As an educator I speak on finding balance and I teach digital citizenship skills on a regular basis, starting as young as kindergarten. Honestly I start most lessons with elementary students this way: "Do you ever try to talk to your parent and they don't listen because they are busy doing something on their phone?" 94% will shake their head yes with about 89% adamantly wanting to add their two cents. Learning how to balance plugged and unplugged time is a beast, even for adults. As an educator, I read 3 books every year to kindergarten and first graders. These books are When Charlie McButton Lost Power by Suzanne Collins and Mike Lester, Doug Unplugged by Dan Yaccarino and Goodnight iPad by Ann Droyd. I think it's important to start talking to students about the why of unplugging from technology at a young age when they still think adults know some things!

For my older elementary students I actually have them participate in a little multitasking lesson that can be found here:

But the truth of the matter is, it's usually families that feel the brunt of too much technology usage because home time is less structured than school time and children want to use their free time to connect with friends on social media, play online games, or just mindlessly surf, shop, and chase rabbits for hours on end with their technology. So the question is "how do parents create boundaries at home for their children?" The first time I was asked about this as an educator I was a little shocked. It felt like someone was asking me how to parent their child. I see technology as just one of the things in life that I have had to place boundaries for my two girls. I also can tell you that no two children are the same, different genders often need to be monitored differently in families, and that the choices I make regarding technology in my family may not be what works best for your family. 

That all being said, I do believe there are options available to families to make the process a bit easier. Here is my list of things I share with parents as they try to navigate what is best for their own families:

• www.commonsensemedia.org  While this has great resources for students and teachers, it also gives some morally sound help to parents in regards to movies, apps, websites, etc. 
• www.meetcircle.com  "Manage all of your home’s connected devices. With Circle, parents can filter content, limit screen time and set a bedtime for every device in the home." (https://meetcircle.com/circle/).  While I haven't used Circle myself, I know families that have and the less confrontations about technology they are having makes them sing the praises of this device. While it only controls devices while on your wifi network, at a price tag of $99 it appears to be a family game changer for some people.
• Parental controls on devices or Google accounts. Whether it be a Chromebook or an iPad there are parental controls on the device that can be found in settings to tighten up your child's access to things you deem inappropriate. Google your device and parental controls and learn more about how to create a safer browsing experience for your children.
• The Tech Wise Family  by Andy Crouch. Every family is different but Andy Crouch shares the goals his family set for technology usage. While I read part of the book and thought some things wouldn't work for my own family, this book can be used as a catalyst to start discussions regarding your own family's philosophy on technology usage.
• Shared account information or following your child on social media. First, create a culture of following set rules regarding social media usage. Almost all social media platforms require the person signing up to verify that they are at least 13 years of age. There is a reason for this...maturity levels. If you have allowed your child to have social media accounts, ask yourself about their maturity level- 13 isn't always a magic number. If your child is begging but you have reservations, create an account with them that you have access to as well. At my house, the rule was that I knew what social media platforms my children were using. I would friend them or follow them for accountability. But my favorite accountability moment ever was when my then 16 year old daughter walked in the room and said, "you know what will make you use Instagram correctly? When your grandmother starts following you!" Go Mom! I hear many parents say they don't want to have social media accounts, my guess is you also don't want to drop your child off at 8 a.m. sports practices on Saturdays but it's part of parenting. Let them know you are parenting them in all aspects of their life.
• Check with your phone provider to see if there are parental controls. Because phones use cellular networking, all the wifi filtering in the world will not block things for your child. I know Verizon has these options for families. 
• Last but surely not least, create a culture of using technology in open areas of your home and put technology to bed at night. Most issues of inappropriate usage whether it be bullying, pornography, or just sleep deprivation happens often because children have their devices in their rooms at night where there is no accountability. Invest in an old fashion alarm clock for your children (because this will be their excuse why they should keep the device in their room) and plug in devices in a family area at night. If children start this at a young age, it will just be the expectation forward. It's harder to manage as children get older.

The bottom line is each family is different and each user of technology bring different views and struggles into the mix. What might be a addiction to one person will have no real pull to others. What might seem like a glorious "rule" and a no-brainer for you might change as situations change. For instance, at age 11 my youngest child was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, from that point on her phone (which she didn't have before the diagnosis) stayed in her room at night in case of a medical emergency. As we all know, parenting is messy as it is, add technology to the mix and it might feel like a losing battle much of the time. Hear me say that I see a whole lot of good usage of technology by students daily. I see our digital citizens making wise choices and reaching the world in positive ways through the use of technology. 

I think the main thing I would leave you with is this...most of the time the technology in the hands of our children belong to the parents. Remember that. Oftentimes because students are the sole user of a device they get the "this is mine and you can't touch it" mentality. While technology is the main way students communicate with each other informally, you have the ability to adjust that usage as their parents. I believe in restorative practice. There is nothing wrong with forcing your child on a technology fasting for a while. It might lead them to better balance later. Just leave the communication lines open so they know what your concerns are and why. While schools are teaching digital citizenship and about digital footprints, parents have the bigger impact and ability to speak into non-educational use of technology. Don't let that opportunity slip by. 

Nitty Gritty of Technology Integration

Lately our school has been in a discussion of what technology integration should really look like. Some hard discussions have happened but progress is being made to better identify how technology can both support the learning in the classroom and prepare the students for their future. One of the things I keep hearing over and over in discussions is "I just don't know where to start." As an instructional technologist, this is where I feel my support comes in. Helping people find good resources and consider ideas for integration. The following slide presentation came about because I truly want to help others at our school to find ways to integrate technology in their classroom that allows them more efficiencies as well as empower our students to know how to use the tools of technology for learning endeavors:

               Technology Integration by Subject Matter

The Beauty of Ownership and Belonging: Elementary Tech Teams

For this school year our fourth and fifth graders have the opportunity to participate in elective Fridays that change each quarter. Each fourth and fifth grade teacher and out of classroom educators then decided what elective they would like to lead based on their passions. Options included things like drumming, woodworking, crocheting, volleyball, and creative writing. These elective opportunities gave me the possibility of having an elementary tech team. You can look here to see what was taught weekly to the students and you can look here to see the end results that the students created this last quarter. The main point of this blog goes beyond the great resources the students made for our school community and it's more about how it made them feel in the process.

About halfway through this quarter I received an email from the Georgia Educational Technology Conference that included a submission link to be a part of the student showcase at the GaETC conference November 2-4th. Because this group of educators really seemed to be taking ownership of this new "tech team" concept, I chose to apply. Meanwhile, every single week our students were learning how to be technology troubleshooters and they were being empowered to be "go to" people in their classrooms.

How exciting it was to learn that our students were chosen from a competitive group of applicants to be one of the 24 groups to share in the student showcase! The pressure was on to create good resources to share at this conference. Every week, the students would earn a new badge (in the form of a sticker) to show they had completed the needed steps in the process of becoming a certified tech team member.

On the last Friday of the quarter all the students received a tech team t-shirt and their final "certified tech team member" badge/sticker. Then on Wednesday of the next week, 8 of the 13 students got on a bus at 6:45am to travel from Chattanooga, TN to Atlanta, GA to "present." The student showcase is set up in the main hallway of the convention center and any educator can stop, ask questions, and learn about what the students are sharing.


Right before our day started I sat all 8 of my students down and said, "you can sit behind this table and be bored all day or you can go out and ask people if they want to know about your tech team and get this most out of this day." Our team became little salespeople, pulling people over to learn more...I mean, who can say "no" to a cute 4th/5th grader? I was so proud of them all. I only wish all 13 could have attended!

These students that chose to be a part of the tech team because that is what they are interested in, got to take part an educational technology conference and that was an amazing experience for them. They learned first hand the beauty of educational collaboration and communication to best meet student needs. They asked lots of questions about why teachers would choose to come to the event. There are times as an educator you try new things and you think "it was good but I should have done a) or b) or maybe c)." And occasionally you try new things and it leaves a happy little warm fuzzy in your heart because you see students rise to the occasion and grow in so many different ways. That was what the tech team did for me. I'm thankful for the joy it brought and I believe it will always be seen as a highlight of my educational career.

Creating an Elementary Tech Team

For a couple of years I've been trying to figure out a way to have an elementary tech team...I wanted an opportunity to mentor a few "go to" kids that have a natural bent towards all things techie. This year my wish came true. Our elementary school is piloting the idea of elective Friday's for fourth and fifth grade students. For six weeks I will have the opportunity to lead 15 students that chose to be in this elective to become technology leaders in the lower school.

What does this look like? I've mapped out a plan of attack associated with each of the six weeks the students will earn badges in the form of stickers that they can place on anything they own to show others that they have earned the right to be considered lower school technology superstars. Today was the first day stickers were earned and immediately I saw fifth-graders put them on their iPad cases for everyone to see. That was exactly what I was hoping for, the pride in their accomplishments! 

The following is an overview of the plan.

Week one: 

Students were introduced to the idea of a tech team with excitement! I shared with them that this has been my dream for a long time and that I was so excited to be able to work with each of them. I had created a Google classroom for this TechTeam (I told them part one of being on the TechTeam was being my guinea pig to try new things out... they like that). Lesson one was all about digital citizenship. The students started working to earn their digital passport on the common sense media website. For the past four years I have been a common sense media digital citizenship educator.


We talk about the importance of each of them being good digital citizens in order to be on the team. I also told them that there was a possibility that they might help me decide what should happen when bad digital citizenship choices happened at school. They love the idea of being empowered to help make school decisions regarding technology. As students complete the assigned games on digital citizenship, they receive their "digital citizenship" sticker. 

Week two:

Today students were broken into two groups and one group worked with me to learn troubleshooting for devices. They learned how to do a hard turn off on an iPad, how to swipe open apps closed, how to close tabs that were open in a browser, how to use the airplay setting to turn on and off Wi-Fi if there seems to be connection issues. We then opened Chromebooks and made sure everyone knew how to log onto them, how to access Google Chrome, how to refresh a webpage, and how to look for help on a webpage such as being aware of ❔and ℹ️ icons, as well as help menus.
The other group was learning how to troubleshoot projectors in the classroom with our director of technology. He taught them about the different modes, how to use the remote, and how to clean the filters. He also taught the students how to add print drivers to a computer.

At the end of the class the students took a quick three question quiz in Google classroom to earn their "troubleshooter" sticker. 

Week three: 

Students will learn how to troubleshoot iPevo interactive whiteboards. These are new to our teachers and having a student that knows how to help in the midst of the classroom is an exciting option for me! In this week students will continue to work towards gaining their digital citizenship sticker and also they will receive their "helping hand" sticker after completing a short quiz in Google classroom regarding iPevos. 

Week four: 
Students will begin to map out what resource they want to create to help technology users at our school. I'm leaving the options fairly wide-open on purpose. Maybe they want to create a how-to video on logging into chromebooks? Maybe they want to write a song on digital citizenship? Maybe they want to create a Google slide on how to troubleshoot interactive whiteboards?

This is the day to allow them to creatively consider options for sharing and to use a graphic organizer to make sure they hit the main points for their resource to be most helpful. At the end of this session they will write in Google classroom what their plan is and share it with each other. They will also have earned their "seek me out" sticker. 

Week five:

This week we will start creating our resources! Students will be able to work on their resources of choice with me working the room and helping them if and when necessary. The goal will be for students to upload their resource into the Google classroom at the end of our session. They will receive their "resource creator" sticker when they are done. 

Week six:

This is our last week together. At this point all the resources should be mostly made and we will put them on a Google site and share the link out to all the Elementary teachers so that they have access to them when they might need them. As each student finishes up their resource they will get a quick tutorial on how to use Google sites and we will put all the resources on one page (Link to resources to come when done). When the students are happy with the way the site looks they will receive their last sticker "Super Stars," to proudly display the completion of our time together and the fact that they are now a CERTIFIED MEMBER OF THE TECH TEAM.

What About Blended Learning?

As we are now 4 weeks into an eighth grade math blended learning prototype at our school we are hearing things, we are experiencing things, and we are learning things. We've started, adjusted, moved forward, and camped in place for a few days. We've listened, we've researched, we've visited, we've adapted. These are things teachers do in any class- whether traditional or blended. Good teachers adjust their teaching to their students needs. As a technology coordinator, this is what I have learned 4 weeks in:

1. A need to explain expectations well. Our students are submerged in a traditional school environment, this model of learning is very different for them. Being in control of their pace, learning that homework doesn't necessarily happen with pencil and paper, and using time in class wisely have been either new concepts or concepts being leaned on more heavily than ever before. Some of these kids seem to have the "mind blown" look in their eyes as they enter into a collaborative-based learning environment with strange looking desks, 3 teachers in a classroom, stations, and technology.

• We thought we would just let these students be "self-paced" and we may eventually get there but we quickly learned that eighth graders need CHECKPOINT EXPECTATION STRUCTURE. Perhaps it's because it's all new but we have set some progress check points so that we can make sure they are on track.
• Some zeroes had to be placed in the grade book to remind students "this is for real." They are adjusting, but just like a traditional classroom some kids lag behind based on bad priorities of getting things done- not just ability. Those things are being addressed.

2. Pacebreakers are seen quickly. The ones that struggle to understand and the ones that can just go on ahead show themselves and their learning can be adjusted for much earlier in the classroom than in a traditional environment. Coming up with a plan has been a bit more tricky because this is a prototype and there is no "plan" for those with the ability to zoom beyond Intro To Algebra within the year and we have to keep the stragglers on target to finish the class in the school year as well.

• Having 3 adults in the classroom has made it easier to small group instruct those students that need additional help. The adults have also taken advantage of some available daily RTI time built into the school day.
• Using technology has allowed students to move ahead a bit from the pack as well. In a traditional setting, these students would be sitting there waiting for the teacher to address the issues for the majority of the class and they wouldn't have had the ability to do anything but wait and possibly aid their friends in peer-to-peer tutoring. These students can also have the ability to go a bit deeper with projects or tasks that show critical thinking of concepts beyond the norm.

3. A base for good resources is a must. Giving teachers time to create their own videos, places to go to look for additional resources, and a flexible budget to adjust to standards is needed. For instance, we have been using Khan Academy as one of our main technology-based instructional options but the upcoming unit doesn't seem to have as many good videos and problems as we have had for the last 2 units. We plan to adjust by buying something. 

• Last year, before the project was actually being implemented I spent some time looking into various technology-based options. This list came from that research but I find it to be ever changing with the hardest problem being me finding the time to research more and more. 
• Using something like educanon.com or edpuzzle.com to take a pre-made video resource and allow the teacher to personalize it is also a great way to personalize resources for a certain environment.

4. Standards-based assessment with blended learning could open the door for true personalized learning to happen and for future teachers to know exactly where the gaps are for students next year as they could see "this student is not proficient in these concepts" or "this student is proficient beyond the concepts of this class, dig deeper!"

• Using a new LMS called Edify has had its challenges but what we are seeing is what value there is in standard-based assessments. We now know what concept a student still isn't getting with a quick look instead of just seeing a grade. While we have not been able to use this to it's full potential, I see amazing capabilities. 
• We have to start with the standards and work backwards, not start with a curriculum and work towards the standard. Expecting teachers to work from a curriculum forward greatly increases the amount of work they have to do to reap the benefits of standards-based learning.
• With standards-based learning, the next teacher would know exactly what concepts a student struggles with not just "Suzie is historically a C+ student." Standards-based learning is a longterm continuous key to personalized learning for each student throughout their educational life if handled appropriately. While we aren't "there," I want us to be there and reap the benefits! 

Looking forward to what this means for the future!