The ISTE Blues

Data Overload

Like most of us returning from ISTE, you are probably experiencing the emotional roller coaster ride that accompanies the flight or drive home. The data overload from the content filled sessions, keynotes, poster and playground spaces, and endless conversations can be overwhelming. It is possible to keep the "ISTE's Over Blues" from setting in, but do not put it off for later, jump into your content while it's fresh and take charge! 

From the Middle

It doesn't matter what your role is in your organization, you have just spent four days gathering content that you need to share. Take the lead from the middle approach and decide how you can share what you have learned with your peers, administration, technology staff and any others that could benefit from what you have learned. This could also be an opportunity to use a new medium to share information with a presentation platform, blog site, or creative new app that you experienced at the conference. With the pace at which new technologies and classroom practices evolve, technology, curriculum, and professional development teams will appreciate the benefit of the information you provide. 

Stay in Touch

I have said a number of times that the best place to make connections at ISTE is standing in line waiting to purchase that delightful ice coffee or refreshing bottle of water. I do suggest we change the phrase "standing in line" to the "PLN line", because we ultimately exchange email addresses, Twitter and Instagram handles and district names for future collaboration, with educators from around the globe. Now that you have these new contacts, don't hesitate to reach out and continue the conversations and sharing of ideas that you started while waiting in that PLN line.

The power of social media can assist, so take advantage of the new account you just created in those power sessions and use the #ISTE2016 hashtag to share with your new friends. 

Bring ISTE Home

Coming together with 15,000 like minded educators is something magical that ISTE has

managed to create for many years. What many ISTE members may not be aware of is the ISTE affiliate groups that exist in virtually every state in our country, as wells as international affiliates in Australia, Canada, Europe, India, The Philippines, and the United Kingdom. These affiliate groups are all a bit different and have a variety of benefits and professional development opportunities that happen year around. Joining a local affiliate is another way to continue to grow your PLN, attend events in your state and become involved with advocacy movements that can directly affect your classrooms and students. To find an affiliate in your area, check out the affiliate directory and continue making connections!

Small World

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Staying relevant in a world continually growing smaller is not an easy task and each new generation of students brings a fresh mindset that as educators we must be able to connect with. Attending events like ISTE, connecting with others through social media, and remaining outside of the four walls of our classrooms, cubicles and offices, will allow us to continue growing and remain the most important part of the classroom. See you in San Antonio! 

Move Over Flair

Time...

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Probably the most common issue we hear about in life has to do with not having enough time for, and fill in the blank. Often the counter to that statement is we will make time for what is important, which is true to an extent, but doesn't change the fact that in our professional lives we still must prioritize. What has been a struggle for a number of years now from a technology integration perspective, is how we provide solid professional development to our teaching staff that is relevant, timely, and doesn't require the traditional hour before or after school that teachers may not have time for. 

Short Meaningful PD

I like to use the average length of a YouTube video to provoke discussion on just how long someone will stay with you when providing PD. Depending on what day you check, the average length of the top five most popular YouTube videos vary from 2.5 to 4.5 minutes long. When I checked #popularonyoutube when writing this post, the longest video was 5.31 and the shortest was 31 seconds. I would imagine that some may say if the content is good, it doesn't matter how much time it takes to view and to some extent that may be true. However in the hustle and bustle of the K-12 setting, moving at the pace of 140 characters at a time seems to make more sense if we want to reach a larger audience. At AJUSD we have made the conscience effort to change the way we are providing PD to our teaching staff that provides short, meaningful bursts of sharing content while staying as close to the 15 minute window as possible. Bethany Ligon, AJUSD's Technology Integration Specialist, has taken this approach with our collaboration coach tips and tools videos recently and we are monitoring feedback on video length to see what is most effective for our staff. 

Badge Up

Another area that takes time and attention is growing our professional learning networks and sharing what our teachers and administrators are doing on their campus. Social media has obviously been a game changer in this area and blending this with the traditional walking by a classroom and seeing evidence of the great things happening, has led us into the badge game. It is difficult for just one district TIS, to get around to every classroom and see what is happening. With a quick Google Site and Forms, teachers and administrators can apply for a badge, share their artifacts, display their accomplishment, and share with others how they are integrating technology in their classrooms. Bethany summed up nicely what she enjoys most about implementing this program:

The best part for me, is that teachers are able to request training on exactly what they want. It's not a one size fits all professional development setting anymore. But it's me meeting with one teacher or a small team of teachers who want to grow their instructional toolbox in a specific area or with a particular tech tool/app. And because I now have documentation on which teacher is proficient on each tool, I can use them as a resource as needed. Another "best part" for me is the teacher's reaction when I walk into their rooms on a Thursday afternoon to hand them their badge. Yesterday, a teacher literally jumped up and down and clapped her hands because she was so excited and then her little first graders started cheering for her. That totally made my day.

Find A Way
Time doesn't have to be a monster that keeps us from growing and sharing on a professional level. If we look around and see what others are doing, share what we are doing, and be willing to try new things, great things will happen. In the words of Ian Malcolm, life finds a way. 

25 Pound Backpack

My Back!
Have you picked up one of your kiddos backpacks lately and immediately thought, oh my gosh that seems heavy?  I often compare my backpack that contains a laptop, iPad, and miscellaneous cables to theirs that are full of books, binders, and pencils, and there is no comparison. I literally weighed one of them recently and it weighed 25 pounds, which I thought was crazy heavy. After digging into the backpack, I found the culprits to be a math book and a social studies book. The good news is the school provides two sets of books and the students do not have to transport them back and forth on a daily basis, however it leads us back to the conversation about textbooks and where we are at with them as an educational community.

Timing
I have to be honest, I started this post a few weeks back and it has been sitting quietly waiting to be finished. When I read the recent Center for Digital Education article covering the FCC Commissioner's discussion in San Francisco, the timing seemed appropriate. Jessica Rosenworcel addressed an audience of tech industry professionals, updating them on the recent FCC initiatives, encouraging "digital disruption within the teaching and textbook industry." Rosenworcel pointed out a few things that I feel are worth sharing here.

• “In the rest of the world, we have an infinite array of digital tools to change our civic and commercial lives. Yet somehow we’ve put up some barriers at the school doors, It’s time we started inviting them in and wrestling with them and doing some good things”
• "As a market estimated at $17 billion and with price increases in the last decade at 800 percent, the textbook industry’s services burden educators and students alike — average school districts only able to afford textbook purchases every seven to 10 years"
• “I just think it’s crazy if we keep on doing what we’ve done before because the world and the job opportunities that are out there look remarkably different"

These statements have all been said before in a number of ways by others looking to lighten up backpacks and promote change in a system that has been relatively unchanged for a number of years. I applaud anyone who takes the initiative to start these conversations as a way to reflect on the education we are providing our students. We must provide a relevant experience and not allow a $17 billion industry to give us what we have always had because that is what we have always done. Industry will provide what the educational community wants, so the conversation is important to have at the school, district, and community level. Listen to our teachers and students and allow their ideas, thoughts and needs, drive the industry to develop the disruption that will keep our classrooms moving forward.

Snob
I want to make it clear that I am not a book snob by any means and would never advocate for throwing all classroom texts in a big bonfire. Going to the extreme in any direction is what has kept technology a conversation piece, big shiny object, instead of just an everyday part of our classroom environment. But, providing our students with something other than the same basic textbooks like we have always done, is a conversation that is very necessary for today's classroom.   

School's Out For Summer

Willie Style

Who can forget when the Fresh Prince was throwin down "summer, summer, summertime, time to sit back and

unwind?" I am showing my age with that bit of information, that song was the first single on his Homebase album, released in May of 1991, nice play record studio. As educators we all know that summertime doesn't afford much time to unwind, although we try to sneak in a little time for "cool shootin some b-ball outside the school," the downtime is used in different way. Teachers are busy searching for new resources, building their PLN's, and planning for the upcoming school year, which is a full time job. Tech staff is using this time to upgrade hardware, implement new software, and refresh thousands of devices before the new school year arrives. Frantic as it may seem however, this may be the time to seek out new ways to collect resources, build your PLN, upgrade devices, and take a deep breath before the new school year arrives.

Your Not Alone
If you are a student, teacher, administrator, or techie, there are thousands of your same kind out there working on similar projects looking to collaborate with others. So how about taking a little time this summer to connect with others, gather some great resources, and build your PLN by following other educators on Twitter. Twitter is arguably one of the best places online to gather educational ideas and resources. Follow people like Free For Teachers @rmbyrne, hashtag #chromebooks, or if iPads interest you, guru @tonyvincent! The great thing is, you don't have to work hard to find great educators to follow, here is a list of educators that will get you started by content area/title, you can even add yourself after you create your Twitter account http://goo.gl/k8U1Yc. If you would like to take it a step further and participate in a Twitter chat, follow this link for times and hashtags http://goo.gl/9h74lg (thank you @MrsKim_Reynolds for sharing). 

                                           Change It Up

Summertime is also a chance to reflect on the traditional things that we seem to do when this time of year rolls around. Speaking from the technology side of the house, the first thought that comes to mind is re-imaging of devices. Spring always seems like the time when new images are being built for deployment, so the second the students and teachers are out the door, massive re-imaging starts taking place. Often we can't avoid this type of scenario, we will be doing our fair share of imaging this summer, but maybe there is a better way. Use this time to reflect on the processes and see how you can eliminate some of the lengthy projects that seem to take up most of those summer days that you could be focusing on other areas.

Another idea that is always refreshing during the summer months is the start of the day. When school is in session, start times are critical for providing good customer support. Summer can allow flexibility for your tech staff to start the day off in a different way. Use this time to have brief 15-30 minute sit downs to share how their summer projects are rolling along, collaborate on any issues that may be happening and enjoy a nice ice coffee or smoothie to start the day! 

   

A Different View

Decisions
With Microsoft Office 365 Personal adds running lately, articles concerning the mining of student data, and the forever debate on which cloud suite to choose, I began reflecting on my district's office suite timeline. Maybe we have traveled a different road than others, but the decisions along the way I feel have been well thought out, even if the timing was not always perfect. Since 1998 we have run on four different platforms of office suites roughly:

Microsoft Office/Exchange: 1998-2000

Sun's Star Office/E-mail: 2000-2002

Open Office/Open Webmail: 2002-2005

Microsoft Office/Exchange: 2005-2009

Google Apps: 2009-Present

This is quick overview of our journey and why I enjoy the ever changing landscape of technology.

Duck and Cover

If you think switching to something other than a Microsoft product now is tough, try doing it back in 2000, we switched top down to Star Office then, departments and all! You would have thought the world was ending, but it really wasn't that tragic when everyone became comfortable and discovered they could still do their job. In those five years we switched email to Open webmail because the Star email went away when Sun pushed star office to the Open office format. Again, a few were upset, but then they realized they could access their e-mail from anywhere with a Internet connection and things were a little better than before. When we went from a distributive server model to a data center and made the move from Linux based servers to a Server 2003 platform, we decided to give the Microsoft horse a ride again. It was ok, and I do love me some Outlook, but the back end maintenance with Exchange was present and the web version of Outlook was not well received. As far as the departments go, they were happy and I do agree that they use Office products unlike most teachers for their jobs (no offense to any teachers who are power users with the Microsoft Office suite). For the ease of our departments daily functions, we will always run Office products for them, but they all have Google apps and Gmail is the districts e-mail client (sidebar, our departments are using Google Apps to collaborate in ways they never have been able to previously).  

To the Cloud

© 2004 Michael Jastremski

When we made the most recent move to Google apps, there were many reasons why and we did look to Office 365, but it was not ready for release and we felt the road map was not there at that time. We have pushed to do everything in the cloud for a number of years and apps fits nice. Teachers were given directions on how to setup their folders for migration to Gmail and that happened without much fuss on our side and that was their biggest concern was losing email, all students k-12 and staff use Gmail. We let teachers know that we would never be upgrading Office and did a survey if they wanted it to remain on their teacher laptops. All departments are running Office and theirs will be the only ones that we will upgrade. Google apps has done more for student/ teacher, student/student collaboration than any other program I have seen in many years. The communication and endless options are what makes cloud based apps a modern day joy....always changing.

Change
For many, all the changing we have done over the years may seem a bit much, but I think it has done a few things for us. One, it has helped staff realize that change is not such a bad thing. In a profession that is usually slow to change, it has helped create a culture that looks at change as something positive that keeps us relevant with the world and our students. Two, it keeps our tech staff always moving forward, innovating, and leading from the middle, which can be very powerful. I don't believe there is a one size fits all, so take the time to decide what fits for you and your district and don't look back.

Puzzle Pieces

Another Hero

I am not sure what specifically prompted me to begin singing the Tina Turner song "We Don't Need Another Hero" recently. Usually that song only pops into my head when someone is trying to take a little more credit for something than they should, or when reminiscing about back in the day when my friends and I would jump garbage bags with a metal milk crate and piece of plywood on our bmx bikes. This time however, I believe I was watching a sporting event and thinking about how incredible the athletes really are. I am definitely not a fan of the over the top, look at me athletes, those types can curl up to the Tina Turner song and keep telling themselves how great they are. I admire the humble, hard working athletes who let their actions speak for themselves. Thinking about the leadership role that these athletes play in their specific discipline, lead me to draw comparison to leaders in the workplace.

Behind The Success
The humble hardworking athletes I mentioned earlier will always mention the individuals that help them maintain their regiment that allows them to perform the way they do. If you think that a top level athlete is doing it all by themselves, think again. These athletes have strength trainers, dietitians, specific discipline coaches, personal assistants, family and more that assist with putting together all the proper pieces so the athlete can achieve their goals. I find this very similar in many ways to the role that a leader plays on a daily basis. A leader is out front, answering questions, concerns, planning, influencing, basically performing like an athlete. The individuals behind the leader are all part of the puzzle and that leader will only perform well if all the pieces to the puzzle are fitting together. If an athlete or parts of their program are struggling, they must maintain communication with their support team to quickly address the issue. A leader does this much the same way in the workplace to reach the desired outcome.

On The Podium

I am not a huge Nascar fan, but I think most people have probably seen the winners circle after a Nascar race. There are so many team members you often can't find the driver amongst the group. This is a good example of how many individuals are behind that car making it to the winners circle and if just one of them has a bad day, it can keep the entire team from reaching their goal. One thing you can count on from that driver when interviewed, they will thank everyone behind their win that day. Leaders should not be different than that driver, take every opportunity you can to thank all the pieces to the puzzle that are allowing you to be successful, because you can not do it alone.

Dump Truck Model

Back Up

Models haven't changed much over the years when it comes to implementing technology in our schools. I have by not been perfect by any means, but have learned a few things along the way that I use as guiding questions before making implementation decisions. However often circumstances seem to get in the way and decisions are made that produce large blanket purchases of technology that is hastily thrown into classrooms. We have seen this happen many times and on such a large scale that it gathers negative press when things don't go oh so perfect. My concern with the dump truck model is the negative impact it could have on the smaller roll outs that generally take more effort to set in motion.

Celebrate
Don't get me wrong, there are any number of large roll outs around the world that have been well planned and executed and remain a model for others to follow. It is those scenarios that we need to celebrate and hold up as examples to promote the importance of providing our students the relevant environment they deserve. The recent publicity that LAUSD has received with their billion dollar ipad initiative is one that is too big to fail. Without being involved in such a gigantic project, I can only reserve judgment on why they have had their issues, but it has drawn attention and gives the nay sayers fuel that is unfairly used in other situations. LAUSD will work out their issues and find success, they have to, and it will benefit other educational technology projects in many ways. Many of us do not have the resources that larger districts possess and having a successful model with resources to share is important for success outside of LAUSD.

Take Steps
I did a quick search for "steps for implementing technology" and had a wide range of returns, which included a variety of business world ideas also. One article that held my attention was titled, "Eight steps for implementing a technological overhaul", written by Ken Tysiac and highlighted the work of author and consultant Geoffrey Moore. Although the focus was business, many of his eight points easily cross over to the K-12 environment and I have highlighted a few below that I feel are very relevant to implementing a successful technology implementation.

• Determine which tools would have the biggest impact on effectiveness in those key moments with clients.
• Calibrate ambitions with their organization’s technology adoption tendencies, such as whether employees tend to be innovators, pragmatists, or conservatives.
• Recruit to the effort first those employees who tend to embrace new ideas.
• Engage with outside help to design and prototype the first new tools for communications and interactions
• Focus on user experience as the critical acceptance criterion.
• Get feedback from early adopters to create the case for applying the system to more pragmatic, less enthusiastic adopters.
• Align the technology to solve a particular issue that causes the pragmatists pain, and do whatever it takes to solve that issue.
• Once pragmatists are convinced, deploy a global roll-out.

Moore's ideas were addressing a specific need for client employee relationships and did not include the initial employee input on the best tools to address the need, which is something we rely on in the K-12 space, or should. But the idea of recruiting the high flyers that are always willing to embrace new ideas and listening to their feedback is critical.

It is difficult not to take advantage of grants, overrides, large funding sources of any kind when they present themselves. My hope is that the dump truck model is put in perspective and the audience, early adopters, and their feedback is kept in mind before that familiar sound is heard...beep...beep...beep. 

Social "Media" Bigfoot

Footprint
Here are a few questions that I often hear when social media is being discussed that deserve some attention.

1. What is a social media footprint?
2. How big should it be?
3. Why do I care?

The Numbers
From a pure numbers perspective, it seems to make sense that jumping into the social media landscape can be a benefit to the professional growth model. Facebook currently has over a billion active users a month alone, even if you discount that 100 million of those users are pets, objects, or brands, 900 million is alot of humans. Twitter has 554,750,000 active registered twitter users that tweet on average 58 million times a day according to Statistic Brain.  As of January, 2013, Linkedin reached 200 million users, "LinkedIn now counts over 200 million members as part of our network, with representation in more than 200 countries and territories. We serve our members in 19 languages around the world." Google+ is a bit harder to get a true read on numbers, but even if we go with 135 million users actively posting to Google+ Pages, that is no small number.

Why Do I Care
All the numbers above can be dissected, debated and manipulated for company purposes but I see them as an opportunity to connect with others that run in the same professional circle as myself (no pun intended). I care about growing as an individual and bringing new ideas into the workplace and sharing my successes with others, which is easily done through social media.

                                        How Big

The size of your social media footprint depends on your comfort level in this arena. Some can juggle multiple feeds while others feel overwhelmed with more than one. My suggestion is take your time and find what works for you, and use technology to help you organize. There are a number of programs out there that will help you streamline your feeds and better manage the large amount of information coming in and out of your busy day. HootSuite is one that I have found to be very helpful for me and worth a look if interested in managing multiple streams.

Give It A Try
We often hear the saying that you have to get out of the four walls of your classroom or office to see what is happening out there. That is a true statement as we all know that sharing, collaborating and having an open mindset will help us grow as individuals. To grow professionally you have to care, why not use social media as one option to step outside those walls.

Quick Feet

The Future
I have said before that I like change for a number of reasons. Maybe it is because I am not a big story
teller of past experiences or don't spend a lot of time day dreaming about the good old days (there is nothing wrong with that of course). I just personally enjoy looking forward to the new experience, it keeps things fresh and even though it can be a struggle at times, the world we live in waits for no one.

Traditional
Quite often I hear industrial age model, traditional, slow to change, creatures of habit, as words and phrases commonly used to describe our public school system. Having two elementary age children, I would rather hear the words collaborative, innovative, student centered, challenging, and ready to adapt for each individual student. Those environments do exist in public education and we should hold them up as models for others to see.  The question is how did they get to that place many schools and districts struggle for everyday?

An Agile Staff
When I say agile, I am using the word it in the purest sense:

-quick and well-coordinated in movement
-active: lively
-marked by an ability to think quickly: mentally acute or aware

I am not an English major, so hopefully I am using the word correctly, but I can't dismiss the notion that if a staff is agile and prepared to be quick on their feet, they probably have a mindset that is open to change. The question becomes how do we build in a comfort level with our staff that allows them to be quick on their feet, embrace change, and allow that quick thinking, lively personality to take over?

Supportive Environment
Start by building a supportive environment that fosters collaboration, risk taking, and direct answers that address concerns when they arise. If staff members have support from their leadership and peers, change can become more of an opportunity for improvement and not a scary situation that threatens the comfort of what we know.

Change is inevitable and it is necessary for moving forwarding in any school, department, or business. Embracing the concept is difficult for most because routine is something that is built into us as humans from birth, so maybe it shouldn't come as a surprise. But a supportive environment is also something that most are provided from birth and that allows kids to grow and develop and enjoy new experiences. Maybe we just need to provide that supportive environment at the shop and see what happens.

Iceberg Dead Ahead

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Bad Idea
It is probably a bad idea to really compare any situation to the Titanic, cause at the end of the day, we all know how tragic that ended. So let me start with a little different situation that still has to do with water and small boats, not gigantic ocean liners. About 10 years ago my wife and I had a personal watercraft (which I will refer to as a pw from here forward) and our friends had a boat, so on the weekends we would spend time at the lake. One of the best things to do, although not to safe, was to spray the boat and soak everyone with the pw. You could accomplish this by moving quickly at the side of the boat, turning hard and gassing the heck out of the pw. Our friend who owned the boat was on the pw one weekend and was going to pay me back for all the soakings I had dished out. So he came quickly at the boat and we knew we were in for it, but instead of the pw turning at the last second when he turned the handlebars, the pw kept going straight and he ran right into the side of the boat. Luckily nobody was hurt, but I don't think he ever took a turn on the pw again. I will get back to this story a bit later....

Turn The Ship
The Titanic is a great math problem that I just don't have the skills to figure out, but I get the idea that it takes a lot of space to turn something that is so large. School districts, schools, even departments can often feel like a massive ocean liner bearing down on something that they just can't maneuver around quick enough, and once the iceberg is struck, forward momentum is lost. Often I think that we see the iceberg with plenty of time to avoid the impact, but the thought of turning the ship causes many to shut down the engines, take their foot off the pedal. This choice can lead to doing the "same old thing" not innovating, becoming stagnant. Every organization has reasons that keep them moving forward, always seeking new ways to do things, improving practices, creating better learning environment for their students. How does your organization keep forward momentum?

Walt Disney was very big on curiosity leading to new ideas, dreaming big, and always moving forward. "We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new path." Walt Disney

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Power On
Every day there are icebergs in our lives that we must maneuver around to avoid a disaster and sitting idol in one place is not going to move us forward. The reason for the long story above about the pw and the boat was to point out that if he had just kept the gas on, he would have made the turn, sprayed everyone in the boat and accomplished his goal. The second he left off the gas, there was no power moving out the back of the pw which is what allows it to make the turn, and the boat became an iceberg. So keep the power on, maneuver around the obstacles and continue moving forward!