Hello 2013!

The Hype

I don't usually get overly excited about the new year hype that seems to consume many every January 1st. It seems like often we know we need to reflect on things and make some changes long before the new year rolls around, but using the new years resolution line can buy us a little time before actually making change. But, I am as human as the next and often find myself doing a bit more reflecting when the new year rolls around. Taking some extra time to review current procedures, plans, and the day to day routines that can always benefit from improvement. I also felt like I needed to work on a few personal work related goals that would help keep me grounded.

Direction
There are a number of goal setting techniques out there to guide a person through what can sometimes be a difficult process. With most things, I like to not overly complicate the task and ran across an easy to understand piece on the Mind Tools website. The article is titled, Personal Goal Setting, and provides an easy to understand model for setting different types of goals for the long and short term scenario. One of their suggestions for creating powerful goals is below.

A useful way of making goals more powerful is to use the SMART mnemonic. While there are plenty of variants (some of which we've included in parenthesis), SMART usually stands for:

• S - Specific (or Significant).
• M - Measurable (or Meaningful).
• A - Attainable (or Action-Oriented). 
• R - Relevant (or Rewarding).
• T - Time-bound (or Trackable).
  
  

Make It Your Own
The great thing about all the information we have at our fingertips is being able to access it, process it, and decide what pieces we want to use. Keep that in mind when setting your goals and don't hesitate to search out the numerous ways there are to make the process enjoyable and worthwhile. Goals can be very powerful and motivating in shaping the way we maneuver through our daily lives. We live in a fast paced, technology driven world and stress is all around us. Try goal setting as a way to minimize some of that stress and keep that frown turned upside down. 

Food For Thought

It's Lunch Time
Do you ever notice that lunch conversation quite often is just another opportunity to talk about work stuff. It is tough sometimes to turn off the switch in the middle of the day for an hour and conversation inevitably stays on work. In my post F5, I talked about IT stress, burnout, and it being difficult to shut down at the end of the day, so should we be concerned about lunchtime?

                                           
Good Question
It is a good question, but a tough question to answer from a director's view. Often the best time to collaborate is over a good meal in a relaxing setting, so why change the conversation? A couple months ago we were discussing how to communicate the day to day information that is so critical for an IT department. Each day something new is discovered that can improve the end users experience, but often we are busy and don't find the time to e-mail, blog, or just talk about these things.

Make It A Date
A long time veteran of our IT department, Lonnie Trotter, suggested that we get together once a week at lunch time for an informal lunch gathering to chat about day to day happenings. Everyone can bring their lunch of choice, no formal agenda, and share anything that they feel is important for others to know. Since it is a "working" lunch, that hour is taken off the end of the day and another positive layer of communication has been added to the week.

Keep It Simple
You are probably thinking to yourself, so what. Working lunches, morning coffee, there are a number of ways to informally gather staffs together to chat, but how often do those go by the wayside when things get busy. The difficult task is finding the time and staying consistent with promoting positive collaboration within teams. Keeping it simple and not creating a multilayer approach to most situations usually yields the best results in my experience. If it takes rocket science to figure out how to communicate with one another, there may be other issues.

So, how does your team find time to stay in touch with the valuable day to day information that is critical for an IT department. The more collaborating the better, so please share. 

Making Connections

Common Ground

Finding common ground with our students and peers can be a challenge for a variety of reasons. It takes a great amount energy to learn personality types, find common interests and quite honestly be around others that are the complete opposite of ourselves. This is part of life however and great leaders, teachers, schools and communities will rise to this challenge and work hard to create relationships that allow them to be successful.

Classroom Connection
Making connections in the classroom with students is something every teacher works on daily. Walking into a classroom and observing a teacher who connects with each student is truly amazing and takes a special person. A high school teacher in the AJUSD where I work, shared an e-mail about her experience with her son while waiting in line to purchase Halo 4 recently.  I wanted to share her experience as it really sheds light into a world of technology that is just one more way to make connections with many of today's students.

Last night I got to spend seven lovely hours with a subculture of humans in a context that I had never been in....I got to camp out in front of  a Game Stop in a line filled with mostly male teens (and some not so young) with my youngest son waiting to buy the new version of a computer game which came out at midnight (we didn't get our copy until 2 AM)..  I fit in with these "gamers" as perfectly as a biker would at a knitting contest. I have seriously never ever played a computer game (unless you count PacMan in the 80's a couple of times). These typical kids like we see everyday, which we have to drag information from and shove motivation into, were gabbing (yes, actually communicating with expressive tones) for the entire seven hours! They were talking about the new game coming out, the new uniforms on the characters, the battles they had fought, the strategies they had used and were planning to use, the levels they had gone through, the goals they had for the new Halo 4, the expectations they had, the disappointments they'd experienced with the last Halo, the manner in which they would change the game if they were the designer, the gamers they had "met" on line, the best gamers, the worst gamers, their "battlefield" experiences, the planets they had visited, the weapons they would design...and on and on.....there were a lot of words and concepts in there that sounded like total neologisms to me.  The words "giddy with excitement" kept coming to mind... However, it hit me that this was their world.  I was being allowed a peak into it.  Then my brain cells must have started functioning again because I started to realize the potential that was in front of us as educators. If these kids were asked to write, debate, publicly share, design, create, explain, read about, plan, goal set or ANYTHING involving their computer games, I KNOW they would do an amazing job so.....here's my thought to any of you out there who are struggling to reach some of those kids that don't really seem to have much to say or couldn't care less about the subject matter in class or couldn't care less about anything at all.....maybe you want to try approaching it from a gaming standpoint???  Go into their world for a little bit and see what's in there.  I was truly impressed with the critical thinking that I was hearing while in line but I do think it is worth a try....and as educators, trying strategies seems to be what we do everyday to try to reach some of these kids.

Melissa Mel
Special Education Teacher
Apache Junction High School

Relationships
At the end of the day we all know relationships will determine how successful we are in the classroom with our students. Finding common ground through the gaming world is just one way, but a different way that often we as adults my overlook or dismiss. Being an educator involves being in touch with what our students are doing outside of the classroom and we must explore their world. I leave you with a quote from Ms. Mel, "Go into their world for a little bit and see what's in there".

F5

Refresh

Let me preface the use of "F5" up front by saying that I am using the term in a PC kind of way. Like when you lose network connection on your PC and hit F5 to restore your desktop icons, or when your browser doesn't refresh and you hit F5 to reload the page. With that being said, I am sure that we have all hit the F5 button before at some point, and it actually is refreshing when it does its thing.

IT Stress
Stress in the IT field has been studied for some time and there is no doubt that as technology becomes more infused in our classrooms, the need to keep things up and running increases. Throw in 1:1 programs, multiple types of devices and the need for a robust network to handle the ever growing amount of internet traffic and you have an IT staff that is always on the go. It is the exciting and ever changing landscape that makes being in IT so much fun, but sometimes it is hard to shut down at the end of the day.
                                                     
Stress Management
A quick search will return 100's of ideas and even a few really strange techniques to reduce stress. Although I would pass on the extreme techniques of reducing stress, I did find a post titled, Stress Management Tips for IT Professionals. It is a few years old and the stress management tips could probably apply to any profession, but felt it was worth including their 8 tips to help reduce stress. To read the full description of each tip, visit the full article here.

1. Change perspective

2. Breathe

3. Meditate 

4. Get a life

5. Manage your time

6. Talk it out

7. Reduce uncertainty

8. Take control

Burn Out

I have always kind of thought the old rock star saying, it is better to burn out than fade away, made sense, but I don't think burning out at work is what they were talking about. With the amount of data coming at us and the need for 100% up time, the IT profession can definitely burn a person out in a short amount of time. Remember that staying on top of your game means staying healthy and there is nothing wrong with hitting that F5 button! 

Get Out!

The Best

You have the best staff ever, great relationships, hard working, solid plan, and you see the great things they do on a daily basis. So is there a need to tell the world how great they are...I say yes. Sharing your staff with your district, community, and others helps build relationships. Communicating the accomplishments and hard work that is going on everyday in my department also helps generate conversation with stakeholders and allows an opportunity to hear their thoughts and ideas that provides another perspective. Here are a few ways that I like to share with others what is happening in the AJUSD Technology Department.

The Board
Sharing information with your school board should be top priority for any CIO/CTO/Director. Support from the school board is necessary for just about everything that happens in a school district and building a relationship with them is important. Often it is only the administration that has contact with board members, so sharing your staff and their accomplishments makes that connection. I understand every districts' procedures and communications with their board is different,
but suggesting a little time at a board meeting to your superintendent may be a start.

Social Media
A little over a year ago I wrote about the "Social Hurricane" and how this medium of communication can be overwhelming, but worth the effort to get into the game. With little surprise, social media has continued to grow, and as a leader you can not ignore the importance of an online presence. The great thing about sites such as Facebook and Twitter is the ability to not only share what your staff is doing, but showcase what the entire district staff is up to. Many districts however are still nervous about jumping into the social media scene, but this is where your influence as a CIO/CTO/Director can lead from the middle. Take the time to research what other districts are doing and present examples to your administrative team. Discuss how social media will allow their schools to quickly disseminate information and promote just how great their staff is by sharing classroom and school events!

#1 Resource
Good leaders know how important their people are to a successful organization, many leaders have stated in a variety of ways that people are a leaders number one resource. One principal that I work with in AJUSD, Larry LaPrise, has a gift for promoting his staff in a variety of ways. Mr. LaPrise is always speaking of his staff and their successes on his campus, he is very aware that employees often leave their jobs not because they aren't happy with their pay, but the lack of recognition. So get out there and talk up your staff today!

Hey Apple!

Good Stuff
I like Mac's as much as I like PC's, each have their strengths and I use both on a daily basis. When it comes to tablets however, my personal preference is still the iPad. I am not going to get all Apple fanatical about it, but there are many reasons I feel they are great devices. However one area of frustration I have had with the iPad is syncing multiple iPads in my school district. We have 18 Bretford Powersync carts that hold 30 iPads each and allow charging and syncing to all 30 iPads simultaneously. The carts are used at 4 elementary and one jr. high school and after a year of use, I needed to reflect and come up with a better plan for the new school year.

Go iPads
The carts are primarily used in the K-3 classrooms and shared between rooms, which opens up the way each school has decided to manage them. The positive of not bringing in the devices and trying to dictate how the devices can be checked out or rotated has allowed each school to be creative with their plans. Initial training with Tony Vincent was a great introduction for teachers to see how the devices can be used for creation and not just as a "station" in the classroom. Our Special Education department has also used the iPads and a variety of specific communication apps to open up opportunities for a number of students. I feel we are in the early stages of realizing what the devices can do and look forward to seeing how our teachers use them again this year in their classrooms.

Train Wreck

Moving from 10 iPads as a pilot to 13 carts in one year brought a number of challenges. The Bretford carts worked great, but at the time there wasn't a way to efficiently sync 30 iPads at once without mass confusion, and the only option through Apple was iTunes. I thought it would be a no brainer to sync all the carts using one MacBook and one Apple ID. Let's just say that if you can do this and your are successful, you are a genius and my hat is off to you. For me, it was a gigantic train wreck that I will spare you the details, but iTunes was created for the individual and not the classroom, so I understand.  The question when reflecting on the situation was how could a more efficient approach allow the teachers freedom to still download apps that they decide are right for their students/curriculum and not have it become a giant mess? It also has to be a solution that can be managed by the teachers and not rely on tech services.

Let's Try It
After many hours of talking with peers, co-workers, Apple, etc., we have decided to use Apple Configurator. Turns out I wasn't the only one banging my head against the wall trying to manage multiple iPads and Apple decided to try and create a solution that would possibly meet the needs of many in the same boat. We have bought MacBook Airs for each of our carts and I have managed to setup 5 new carts with Configurator, ready to roll them out and see how it goes. Each cart will now be shared by a grade level and the 4 teachers will have to colloborate on app management using Configurator after I provide basic training.

Share It
I will definitely make it a point to do a follow up once things are rolling and all 18 carts have been setup with their MacBook and Configurator. In the meantime, please feel free to share any helpful tricks and tips you may have found with multiple iPad syncing, the more collaboration the better!

Iceberg Dead Ahead

www.literativa.com

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

http://shooshan.com/switchon.htm

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!