SEND ME TO NCCE!

I would love to attend the Northwest Council for Computer Education conference coming up in February. I really enjoyed the Technology class that I just took from Dr. Glenn Malone, in a relatively short time was able to glean ideas and resources to use in my classroom and as a future administrator.

I am interested in learning more about all things related to technology in the classroom. It is the future, and I would love to help lead the implementation of 1 to 1, or Google Teacher, or Microsoft leader in education. This conference would be a great continuation of the class we just took.

As I go forward I plan to inspire and lead development and implementation of technology and plan to promote excellence and support transformation throughout the organization.  This conference will help me to engage in an ongoing process to develop, implement, and communicate technology-infused strategic plans aligned with a shared vision.

I have an email in to Melayne, my principal to see if she will allow me the time to attend! I am hopeful!

Thank you for considering me!

Final Reflection and Digital Badges

Why Social Media Matters.  I was a bit surprised as I read about the authors and realized they weren’t super young people. I love that they are a bit older, and have embraced technology in the way they have. They have had a lot of success, enough success that they were able to write a great book on their experiences.  I like the idea of using social media for the purpose of improving learning among students as well as teachers.

(this is NOT what the authors looked like, well most of the time anyway!)

I feel like this book is something I will refer to time and again, especially as I have the opportunities to do some training in my building, with teachers who are seasoned, and who may think they are “too old” to get in the game! This is a great

A point they made in the book, that I will remember was to use a blog in the classroom and eventually school-wide, is to track my readership. I did this regularly when I was a very involved blogger, I feel like this is important in a school blog as it will help me get a feel for who is using the blog and in a way gave me an idea of how successful it is, and how much it is being used.

As for Facebook, I loved the ideas they share in the book on ways to engage the readers, introducing staff members, event reminders, details about policy decisions, entertaining, showcasing students, sports updates, also polls, nominations for awards.  I’ve seen some of these things done on Facebook pages for school, this is a great list of ideas to remember and ways to keep it fresh!

I also loved the section on Twitter and good and bad tweets! LOVE it, being really new to the Twitter scene this is super helpful to me! My goal is to have people tweet about what I write on my blog! (someday!)

I like the focus staying on the reasons we are doing the work we are.  We need to keep the goal in mind.  With so many options available to us, it may be tempting to get sidetracked.  We need to really focus on what we are doing and why we are doing it. They refer to the Shiny Object Syndrome (SOS) referring to getting sidetracked to the latest and greatest gadgets. (Like I get distracted on Canva... I LOVE that site!)

I am really excited about all that we have learned, and looking forward to implementing more technology into our school. There is no time like the present! We were all really lucky to have this class and to learn so much about these digital tools! We all need our own digital badges for the experts we have become!

Here is your digital badge.. made with Canva! ;)

PLN plans

It has been exciting and challenging for me to think about how and what I want to implement in my building in the near future. As excited and ready to move on this, there is a bit of hesitation as I think about how it might be received in my building. As I read the books and articles we have, one of the things I am reminded of over and over again is how important teacher training and consistency is. In fact that is one of my take aways that we need to be consistent!

 

As a blog reader, I quit reading blogs that don’t post regularly. I guess it’s that dopamine effect we heard about the other day, that we want to see and know something knew! Setting up a system to be consistent and regular with both blogging and Twitter is going to to be super important as I head into this new school year and have the desire to encourage others to do some of these same things.

 

I always want to know the why behind something I am asked to do, and really feel like whatever it is I am asked to do is for a good purpose. I am sure I am not the only one with that mindset. As I frame the use of Twitter and blogging I want to help the staff in my building, see first that is fairly easy to use and allow them time to get used to using it and help them work out or lead them to find their own solutions to issues. Then I want them to understand that blogging can really help them engage their students in writing, and having an authentic audience and for the younger grades it can be a great way to connect to families, and keep others up to date on what is happening in the classroom. I am sure not every staff member will love the idea, and there may be negative comments, but I think for the most part those that think it might be useful in their room will give it a try.

When I have my own building in the future, I think I will use a blog, like Glenn did as a way to get my information out to my staff! I love it, and I think it may take some getting used to, but like we have heard and read, if that is the only way they can get information, they will have to start using the blog!

NETS Standard 3b, going forth, I will continue to connect to and follow people on Twitter. I have found it is pretty easy to find good people to follow and the links that are provided are always leading to great reads. It is a bit easy to get lost and distracted when I go on there, so setting a limit on my time and giving myself 15 minutes a couple times a day to go on and read and learn what I can. This is a simple tool, that I want to share with the staff I work with at Fruitland. I will be asking my new principal if I can do a little professional development with this in the first couple of days, setting up a #hashmark (okay, there I said it!) that we can all use and see if that helps some people to get excited about it and naturally foster collaboration at school!  Showing the staff my own Twitter, along with all the educational leaders I follow and how easy it is to connect and learn from them, will encourage them to also develop a PLN through Twitter.

I have already asked and Melayne, my new principal is going to add me to our school’s Facebook page, so using that is connected to NETS A Standard 3c is using digital tools to connect to stakeholders

1 to World! Assignment #4

In the Pautz article I liked the idea of helping teachers to become the technology leaders.  They were incorporating NETS A Standard 1a, by inspiring and facilitating a shared vision of purposeful change maximizing the resources available.  Meeting with parents, and student leadership they were looking at a change of culture throughout the school.  The idea to come up with newspaper heading they would like to see by 2018 describing their school is really putting a vision to the ongoing process they plan on making with technology in their school.

Cuban made some interesting points that speak to the engagement of students, however it sounds like the process is an ongoing one, with more research being needed to see if funding these 1:1 programs is truly worth it. Personally I see it is a great engagement factor, however I don’t see that the cost is worth it.  Of course technology is engaging and fun- but I don’t know that without a shift in teaching or teacher training that we need to spend the money on ensuring each child has a technology device in their hands at school! My son has a chrome book at his school, he just finished 6^th grade, but one of the first days he had his chrome book he got caught playing Pac Man! He told me “other kids were doing it”, in fact he said he learned to turn off the volume and when he got his work done he would still play games.  It seems to me like it would be hard to monitor the usage.

 

I really liked November’s article that focuses more on teaching teachers how to use the technology in the classroom! Without a shift in how we teach I agree, that it is a big waste to just hand teachers and students technology. Honestly, it would drive me crazy to teach and not have my kids looking right at me! (I feel for you Glenn!)  I would need some tools and training on how to be effective with technology, while I am learning some great tools in this class, and how to use technology with my staff, I believe it would be worth it to invest in teacher training at different grade levels to show the most effective ways to use technology in the classroom! #1toworld!

Reflection Essay #1 Eric Sheninger

Reflection on Digital Leadership by Eric Sheninger

Eric Sheninger's website

I have learned to really love Twitter over the last couple of days, and am inspired with Eric’s work and some of the stories he shared in how schools have made more of positive presence through Twitter! I feel like it is a tool that may need some instruction and promotion before it is fully embraced. I liked Eric’s idea of sending home instructions for parents to learn how to connect via Twitter.  If parents knew that their child was in the spotlight via Twitter they might be more motivated to learn!

Blogging seems second nature for me, and for that I am grateful. I am setting up a blog for my class this coming year. I will share my pictures, newsletters and links to helpful sites for their child to practice some of their skills on. In my experience, not ALL parents are eager to connect through technology, for whatever reasons, but there is a large percentage of parents who are willing and able to do so. As a busy, working, and student mother of three kids in school, I do realize that other parents are busy as well. If we have blogs, twitter, email or Facebook pages all set up, it is so important that we use them, AND that we put worthwhile content on there, make it worth the effort to be following along.

Enhancing my professional leadership network (PLN) is important. I liked the illustrations that Eric used in pages 119-120. I think sharing these with our staff could be valuable in helping them too, to understand how being connected may take some effort and time, but it is valuable to their development and success as a teacher. One area of being connected that I’ve been reading about, but am not super confident in nor understand is wiki’s. Pinterest is one of my favorite sites, and I am not sure how teachers managed without this awesome resource!

I could relate to Kathi’s comment the other day about how some teachers in St. Thomas have SMART boards but don’t know how to use them, they have just “been sold” this product without the training. I see that very thing is true in different buildings I have taught in. In my current building with very experienced teachers the other 2 gals on my team do not use their SMART boards at all, because they don’t know how.  I have SMART board interactive games I use regularly with my kindergartners, they are fun and engaging, and have helped them in a variety of ways.  In another district I taught in, the whole MATH curriculum for my grade level had SMART board games and lessons set up through their shared drive, it was an expectation for us to use these, and they were easy to use, and very engaging for the students. Students are very capable of learning how to use technology and help each other learn how to use it!

I know being connected matters, I have felt the quick impact this week as I have become even more connected to different sources. As I go forward I want to help my school become more connected via Facebook as well as Twitter. I am hoping my new principal will allow me to take that on, and I can help her to feel confidence in me in this area! It is a great time to be in education and to be a leader! What awesome tools are available for us to use!

Assignment #3 All about the BRAND!

(Maybe I need to take this class to help me out? Click here to go to the blog offering this class from Brave the Woods)

After reading The Brand Called YOU, and 5 Steps to Empowering the Brand YOU, I feel very urgent about creating my brand.  However, I feel like in some ways we all have been working on that all along.  We already are known for certain things, and characteristics, I feel like this idea helps me think about controlling that a little more, as well as being very intentional about promoting our strengths and being more cognizant of our weaknesses. I can see the importance of not overselling ourselves, and being careful not to undersell who we are and what we can do.

In my experience I have been a witness to some people doing a fabulous job of this, and it has really paid off (it appears) for them. It is far from my nature to be about self-promotion. To be honest it is something I find annoying.  As I read through these articles I can see the benefit and the need of branding and in a way that is self-promotion. As I ponder the difference between these two ideas I feel like branding is more about having some ideals and skills that you become an expert at, and then sharing that, and being known for that.  

If I can change my thinking, that will help me to become more comfortable with the idea.  We all need to stand out, stand apart from the rest by being able to offer a certain skill set in leadership and education. Finding out what to focus on for myself is something I am thinking about and working on. Glenn has already shared this idea with me, this last spring, as we talked about my future as an intern, I kept thinking about that conversation as I read these articles, and I thought about others in my cohort to seem to be naturals at it!  

Of course I want others to think of me as a leader! I want them to feel like they can count on me, and that I will do what I can to support them in their work. I want to be great at having ideas for interventions, and sharing those with other teachers. I want to be knows as being positive and encouraging among other things I need to continue to think on!

Being a presence in social media is a way to create that brand, and it is something that is exciting to me to be involved in again! J I enjoy blogging, and although my husband and teenagers are laughing at my tweets, I love learning more about it, and know that I can learn so much professionally from others through social media!  As I go forth I want to use a class blog this coming year, and encourage my families to connect with me through that, and I want to be a presence on Twitter as I connect with more educational leaders!  I am hoping to offer some professional development at my school along these lines as well, to help others feel empowered by the opportunities we have available!