Why Not Rotate? A Case for Instructional Technology Sabbaticals

What a difference four years can make. 

Four years ago, I nervously prepared for my debut as an Instructional Technology Facilitator in my county. I had spent thirteen years as a classroom teacher, and I was looking forward to the opportunity to teach teachers about using technology in the classroom.

Now, I find myself heading back to the classroom, eager to take all that I've learned in this position and use it to be more dynamic in my instruction, hopefully inspiring students once again with better resources, better workflow, and better feedback.

In a way, I feel like I've earned an advanced degree in the last four years. I have learned about online learning models, how to really use a Learning Management System, ways to focus and engage students digitally, and loads of pedagogical strategies within technology implementation.

Why not rotate Technology Facilitators? 

In about year two of my ITF job, I was so excited about everything I was learning and was so inspired to apply what I've learned in my classroom, that I wished this position could be set up on a rotation. Teachers leave the classroom for a couple of years, work and learn and share and teach other teachers, and then return to the classroom, refreshed with new skills and strategies.

And the more I think about that, the more I think that it could work.

In addition to having a permanent ITF team, there could be a "rotating position" for teachers who would like to come out of the classroom for a one to two year sabbatical to learn about technology integration.

Of course, there would have to be a way to ensure a teaching position for the teacher once he or she completes the program. That is the tricky part, but I think that the benefits of this sort of program could be astronomical.

• Greater capacity of tech-savvy, highly effective teachers in the building
• Higher morale among staff who are refreshed after a long learning break
• Higher engagement among students who are using technology more authentically

And those are just a few of the perks. 

Looking Forward

Either way, I am so excited to be heading back to the classroom with this new knowledge. As good as I was before this learning experience, I know that the new knowledge I have will help be be way more organized, efficient, and effective. I can't wait! 

Ditching the Drive-by PD: Focusing and Leveling

I've been dissatisfied with the professional development I offer my teachers. 

The Stuff That's Wrong

In my district, we have Instructional Technology Facilitators who serve just a couple of schools each, and we offer in-house PD during teachers' planning periods at least once per month. This structure is convenient for teachers, so they don't have to take a day off and get a sub just to get some professional development. 

In the past, I've structured my PD arc for the year on things like the ISTE Standards or Technology Integration themes, like digital citizenship, gamification, or student-centered learning. 

But even with those topics sort of uniting what I offer, I was still jumping from topic to topic or tool to tool each month, and for my teachers, it was difficult to take what I was offering and use it in a relevant way in their classrooms. 

I also had teachers who felt my content was way over their heads, while others felt I wasn't meeting their advanced needs. I needed to change things up. 

My First Changes

First, I'm giving my teachers a single focus for the year. That focus is going to be Blended Learning. Each PD session will be designed to get teachers using differentiated resources and constructing opportunities to bring student choice and individual control into the classroom. We'll be starting the year with resources, move into assessment and feedback, then create and revise lessons and add components of instructional design. 

Next, I'm leveling the PD for teachers. Our school colors are blue and orange, so the blue team will have a narrower focus on tools / pedagogy and will help teachers who are a little less comfortable with technology. The orange team consists of teachers who are a little more tech savvy, so we'll be focusing more on employing a wider variety of strategies and more complex technology. 

So far, my teachers are loving the new setup. Only time will tell if it will be effective. Stay tuned! 

Baby Steps to your Blended Classroom

Image from "Disruptive Innovation in Practice"
a review by Mark Bauerlein

I completely meant to blog as I read Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools, but I got so consumed with reading and talking about the book with my colleagues, that I finished the book instead of digesting it in portions.

Truly, this is one of the better books out there about initiating big changes in your building.

The book's focus is on creating school-wide or district-wide change, but teachers can take the process and scale it to their own classrooms. Teachers should also remember that no appreciable change happens overnight, and while moving toward a blended classroom can be lots of work on the front end, the time saved and the impact on student achievement makes the change worth the work in the long run.

The trick is to help teachers implement blended learning in baby steps, so they are not overwhelmed and they can experience success.

Baby Step 1: Pinpoint a Problem

As Horn and Staker point out, disruptive innovations only survive to become mainstream if they are actually filling a need.  So for teachers, simply blending without careful consideration of how or when or why will only cause chaos and confusion for students. Teachers first need to pinpoint the problem that a blended lesson or unit can solve.

I think the best way to do this is to figure out what concept your students struggle with most year to year. This should be the first bit of content you work to blend.

Baby Step 2: Know Your Resources

Schools and districts who decide as a whole to go with blended learning also decide upon a specific set of digital resources, either online or software-based. Teachers choosing on their own to adopt blended learning can be overwhelmed with a bevy of resources. How do you evaluate the many resources available and choose the right ones for your students? Before teachers can move on with planning their blended lessons, they must explore and pick the right resources. 

Baby Step 3: Over-plan

Effectively blending your lessons or units involves an incredible amount of planning, because you have to create several opportunities for learning and review and develop effective ways to monitor student achievement and progress. I would suggest to teachers that they not begin blending until they've had time to get to know their students a little, so they can better predict where they might struggle or need extra enrichment.

Baby Step 4: Reflect and Rebuild

You know what happens to even the best laid plans. So whether your lessons are successful or not, it's always best to look back and see where you have room to improve and then take steps to rebuild with different resources. Seek feedback from your students on this; look at your assessment results; talk to other teachers; sit down with your tech facilitator. When concentrating on the blended aspect of your class, consider your workflow as well. 

Keep Calm and Blend On!

Just remember that the first time you try to work blended learning into your classroom, there will be problems. You can't avoid hitches the first time you try something new. But if you keep these baby steps in mind and scale down to implementing blended learning to just a few lessons or units, you'll see success. 

Happy blending!

I'm not Blending... and Neither are You.

I have begun reading Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools by Michael B. Horn and Heather Staker. So far, I have enjoyed learning about the different blended models and what the implications of disruptive and hybrid learning will be for schools. 

When I started the book, it was with the intent of getting a better handle on blended learning so I could help my teachers perfect their practice. What I have already learned in just the first two chapters is that I am not blending, and neither are many of my teachers. 

What blending is and isn't

My teachers have become very comfortable with technology. They post assignments and resources online, and their students turn in most of their work digitally. Kids can access online calendars, and teachers mass email parents or post newsletters on class websites for communication. These are all great and efficient uses of technology, but it's not blended learning. 

Horn and Staker say that in order to have a true blended learning experience, students need some level of control over the time, place, path, and/or pace of their learning (35). While my teachers love technology, they are still only using it to facilitate whole group instruction. I now know that my goal for the next school year will be to encourage them to adopt blended learning models. 

How we can bring the blended model to the classroom

It's hard to convince teachers to make major changes to their instructional strategy, but with the right coaching, teachers can start to make some small changes to move their classrooms toward a blended model. 

The best way to make a small change in a single classroom is by instituting a station rotation model. Teachers do this for general review of a unit or term, but making this model a more frequent occurrence can give students more control over their learning.  

Teachers new to blending can start with a once a week rotation for reviewing, and students can complete activities to reinforce the skills they need to work on most. In our district, teachers can use the results from in-class review tools like Kahoot, Socrative, or the Flubaroo add-on for Google forms to identify the skills students need to practice, then group students into stations to review those skills. As teachers get more comfortable, they can move to other blending models, giving students choice and control in what they are learning and when they learn it. 

Other Ideas About Blended Learning

I am reading Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools as part of a book study with some great colleagues. Check out the links to their blogs too, to get their perspectives on the book and on how we can bring these ideas to the teachers in our district. 

Follow Heather Staker on Twitter @hstaker

Follow my colleagues too! 

Jill Stout @MsStoutSchool

Michael Boyes @mwboyes

Jan Dillon @JanHDillon

Get the book

Social Media Templates - a Safer Option

We really can't deny that there are great opportunities when it comes to using social media in the classroom.

All over the country, students are blogging, tweeting, and Facebooking their way through their school days, and from tweeting the Civil War to literary characters on Facebook, teachers have creatively applied the fun of social media to their classes to blend content and real-world communication.

BUT there are still some snags with using social media.

Most importantly there's the Terms of Service obstacle. Although we know that many middle school and even elementary school children access social media through their own accounts daily, we also know that their access violates standing Terms of Service that are in place to adhere to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Middle schools and elementary schools have a particularly tough time finding and using websites and apps since their students are under 13.

While we may see the educational value in using social media platforms, we still want to protect our students from being exposed to nefarious influences. We also want to use social media as the doorway to discussions about digital citizenship. In our district, we've created several social media templates for students to use to replicate the feel of social media without its dangers.

In an 8th grade math class, students demonstrated their understanding of slope through a Pinterest template in which they created "boards" that collected examples of the different slopes found the in the food, architecture, and art of different nations.

Check out one student's example here!

In a 6th grade English class, students used an Instagram template to complete an analysis of a character from a chosen book. Students became so engrossed in the project that those who had read the same book linked their presentations together and created a tiny social media web where each "Instagram account" linked to the next.

Students in a high school world history course created a Renaissance social media network in which various notable political, religious, and cultural figures carried on conversations amid Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Tumbler accounts. Students examined the spheres of social influence each of these figures had on one another and used the various accounts to illustrate those relationships.

So when you're thinking of ways to incorporate social media into your instruction, think of ways to make that use safe, so you can model the best use of technology and the best digital citizenship.

Make your own copy of these templates!

Instagram Template

Twitter Template

Pinterest Template

7 Ways to Keep Kids Safe Online - A Guide for Parents

For the second year, Union County Public Schools has rolled out over 24,000 Lenovo Chromebooks to students for classroom use. While it is important that students have fair and equitable access to technology, it is also extremely important that students know how to be safe and responsible with their devices. UCPS adheres to federal laws and policies in order to keep students safe online, but our students must also assume personal responsibility in being good digital citizens. Here are seven ways parents and teachers can help our young men and women make good decisions in their use of technology:

1. Think Ink

People talk about their “digital footprint,” but this isn’t an accurate term. Footprints fade over time or are washed away by the tide. Your online persona is more like a tattoo - there’s permanence in the internet, and a soiled online persona, like an ugly tattoo, is difficult and painful to remove. Make kids aware that “the internet is forever,” and help them cultivate a positive online persona. Think carefully about every post, every picture, every video - do you want this “tattoo” or not? My grandfather used to advise us to live in such a way that our name didn’t show up in the papers. I think the advice for kids today would be to keep your online activity above board so you’re not embarrassed by a Google search.

2. No Such Thing as Privacy Online

We all operate under the comforting delusion that an email to a friend is private or that a text or picture over Snapchat is safely deleted, but we live in a copy, paste, and share world. Look at how easily and quickly videos, tweets, and memes go viral. Our kids need to understand that anything sent digitally can be copied or captured and then shared. The bottom line is that if you want an aspect of your private life to stay private, do not put it online in any form and do not send it to anyone, even someone you think you trust.

3. Give Credit Where it’s Due

There are 347 new blog posts in Wordpress and 571 new websites created every minute. That’s a ton of new information, and with so much information so readily available, it becomes increasingly difficult for kids (and adults, honestly) to give accurate credit to their sources. But even though this information is not published in a book, it is still someone’s intellectual property, and your intellectual property is protected by copyright as soon as you write it down. It’s important for kids to know how to find and correctly cite online information and how to license their creations as well to protect themselves from plagiarism. Teachers and parents should encourage kids to cite everything they use, even images, and understand copyright and licensing rules and terms.

4. Be Kind Online

It’s a bit of a paradox, but because the internet is such a public place with such a high volume of information swirling around, we become more anonymous. Anonymity makes it easy for us to say things online we wouldn’t say in person. Our online conversations, if we aren’t careful, become frank, even rude, and sometimes downright mean. Encourage kids to be as honest and kind in their online conversations as they are in their personal ones. Good communication skills are always important no matter the platform.

5. Separate Work and Play

If you have a phone or a laptop or even an email that is for work, you are expected not to use that device for personal activities. The Chromebooks UCPS has purchased are meant for students to access information and complete activities and create projects for school. It is extremely important that parents and teachers work together to drive this concept home for our kids, that the device they are issued is for school use only. Understanding and adhering to this very simple rule not only mitigates discipline issues, but it also helps cultivate good working habits for our young men and women as they transition into the working world.

6. Know Their World

Who are your kid’s friends on Facebook? Do they have accounts with Reddit, Tickld, or Tumbler? Whom do they follow on Twitter? What are their favorite channels on YouTube? Who are they connecting with while they are playing video games? When we were kids, our parents knew the people we played with in our neighborhood, but our children are members of a vast and mostly invisible community. It is vital that we ask them to share the details of that community with us, so we can help them be safe within it, and knowing where they go when they’re online is crucial.

7. Lead by Example

The very best thing we can do to teach children to be good digital citizens is to model good citizenship. This means that we make sure our work and our personal accounts are separated, even if it means doing personal things on a different device. We strive to be diplomatic and positive in our online communication. We talk and talk and talk with our kids about the importance of privacy, responsibility, and kindness. We keep reminding them that they are building, even at this age, a permanent reputation with every keystroke.

In order to find more information about online safety and ethics, please visit commonsensemedia.org. This online community of writers and advocates have compiled wonderful information for parents and educators about online safety, educational strategies, and reviews of apps and software for all ages.

5 Great EdTech Tools for Assessment

There are loads of opportunities for using technology for assessment and review. Here are five really great online tools. 

Flubaroo - This is a Google Sheets Add-on that automatically grades quizzes submitted through Google Forms. Flubaroo will grade your quiz and will supply you with data on most-missed items so you can adjust your instruction.

Kahoot - This is a great interactive quiz tool to do class reviews. Students get to the “game room” by putting in a unique code, then questions are displayed on the board and kids use their chromebooks as responders.

Schoolnet - This is the new assessment tool that replaces ClassScape. The improvement over ClassScape is that teachers will now be able to create customized test items and passages and will be able to collaborate on common assessments. Oh, and the test grades pop instantly into your grade book!

Kaizena - I briefly demonstrated this app in a couple of PDs already, but with Kaizena you can supply oral feedback to your students. This makes feedback personal, and gives you the power of project or paper conferencing on your own time.

Moodle - Did you know you could build quizzes in Moodle that give students

instant feedback? Did you know kids can complete a voice recording assignment in Moodle? You can even share common rubrics with each other.