Orchestras and Teachers

For a discussion in my College Class this week we watched a video from Ted by Itay Talgam. It is called "Lead like the great conductors". As I watched it, it struck a chord (no pun intended) about school. If you have not watched or listened to Ted talks, go there and watch one. Watch many.
So, one thought I loved in the video was the idea of enabling those around us to do what they need to. Giving teachers the autonomy to play their instruments, or teach their lessons, and as they do so in harmony, through a school vision, they can make beautiful music together. Working together as a faculty to accomplish one goal and not compete against each other will help our school succeed and improve.
Another thought I had was that musicians weren't even looking at the conductor and yet they were playing in rhythm together. They were working together and following the music and each other to play their part. They could feel the song. As teachers we practice our lessons, we learn new strategies, and we collaborate together. We depend on each other. We work together. The conductor was the person that started and set the beat for the orchestra. The administrator provides the support and get the teachers on their way and provides the resources throughout the year to keep the music going.
Itay Talgam also mentions that the musicians should be used as partners and not instruments. They need to be able to develop. In a school setting the teachers and stakeholders need to be partners in the school. Teachers and parents do not need to be told what to do. There are times when there are requirements that need to be met or a curriculum that needs to be taught, but in the workings of the school, everyone needs to be involved in the education of students. Doing what is best for the students. Doing what is best for the music. Itay Talgam also talks about the leaders in the orchestra leading the group so they can get the feeling of the music.
I love that he talks about how the conductor enjoys the process of the music and the orchestra. We need to enjoy school and teachers. I am not sure I can explain what I mean here. We need to enjoy the work that happens in our schools, enjoy the collaboration, enjoy the harmony that can be created in a school. Enjoy the movement.
In the talk Itay says, "Don't look at the trombones, it will only encourage them." I would say, "Don't look at the negative people, it will only encourage them!" Giving the negative comments in a school room to breathe by passing them on only encourages negative people and those that can be swayed. Positive words and encouragement is harder to spread, but needs to be done. We need to be more like an orchestra and feel the music as it is playing. We can't stop the song in the middle, but we can do our part to make the song work.

Building Your Learning Network

I have been using Twitter for a few years now. It has been a great way to learn and build my idea bank for school. The greatest thing about twitter is being able to talk with people that I am inspired by. It used to be that I could read the ideas in magazines like Edutopia. Now I use Flipboard to read my favorite blogs and sites. I can also read through tweets and meet during a hashtag chat to get ideas and share my thoughts. Education has become a worldwide collaboration thoughts, ideas, and practices.
It is time to build our personal learning networks and learn. We can also share our I ideas with others. We all have something to say. We just have to practice writing it down for others to read instead of just talking about it in the all before school. Share it. Tweet it. Blog it. Get it out there for others to comment on. We can make our ideas better by having others take it and move it to the next level. Collaboration is amazing. It help us all improve. Be a part of the worldwide collaboration happening right now. Here are a few ideas that might help you get started.
Twitter
1. Sign up for a twitter account.
2. Follow a couple people you know on twitter.
3. Read tweets a couple times a week.
4. As you read, follow those people you enjoy most.
5. Retweet great posts.
6. Comment on great posts.
Blog
1. Sign up for a blog(Edublogs, Wordpress, Blogger, etc.)
2. Attach it to your twitter account
3. Write a post about something. Anything.
4. Write every month, if possible.
5. Read other blogs.
6. As you get more comfortable, write more.
This is how I got started. I am in no way a great blogger or tweeter. But I am a great learner and I am learning a lot from others. Building my PLN has made me a better teacher. It will you also.

Blogging I Will Go

I attended UCET this last weekend. I learned more than I had at other conferences over the years. i enjoyed the keynote speakers Dean Shareski(@shareski) and George Corous (@gcouros). Dean talked about how we need to have joy in our teaching. That message needs to get out with the new state testing starting this year. I don;t think it will be that bad. It is just new. New always causes ripples in the comfort level of anyone. Dean also talked about creativity and how we need to expand it in our classrooms. Loved his ideas and thoughts. Thank you Dean.
My biggest ah-ha moment came in the breakout session with George. Blogging with teachers and students. I found this to be mind-opening. I have blogged for a few years about what I have been doing in my class to help me remember what I have done and to reflect on those ideas. Then George had to come and break it wide open. Blogging to help organize what I am doing in my classroom that pertains to the teaching standards I am being held to. Really? Keeping track of all the standards I am evaluated on but the administrator does not see because they only come to my room a couple times a year for an evaluation? Wow. Why would I want to do that? Well I would like to do that because I want to make sure I am doing what I can to give the best teaching to my students. I need to make sure I am keeping in line with the high standards set for me like I expect the students to keep in line with those I set for them.
I find this intriguing. So intriguing that I am starting this blog on edublogs to get my "write" on and stop with just the remembering and reflecting. I want to start keeping track of my thoughts and actions on this blog to show to the world what I am doing. This is not a place for me to brag. Well it kinda is. This is my portfolio. My scrapbook. My resume. My teaching life. This should be a place where I can put down the things I love doing in my class. The things I love thinking about. This will be an opportunity for me to provide my principal with enough information to see what i really do in my class between the times she evaluates me (Even thought she ends up coming around quite often to see what we are doing and enjoy the students).
Thank you George. This will be a great ride. It will also be a great opportunity for me to see what I actually do and make adjustments and changes in my classroom to provide the best education I can for my students. They deserve it.

Trying to Provide Options

We have looked through a few student learning management systems and have decided upon Schoology. We have some high hopes for some opportunities to let students head out on their own and move ahead while having the opportunity for teachers to work one on one with students that need a little extra practice and guidance. 

We will have activities lined out for students to do in the order they want while being able to test when they think they have the concept down. If they do, they can work on a genius project or tutor those in need of help.

We will still teach whole ass lessons with the option of having students teach a few lessons. 

This is going to be an opportunity of learning for all of us as we try to give students more options. I am hoping that we can give students more options than this in the future.

IBeacon in the Classroom?

I have been reading a lot about Apple' iBeacon. I know it will be the next invasion of privacy issue we will need to address, but then I thought about what it could do for us in education. My school is 1:1 iPad 3-5 grades. I imagine that if their iPads can be recognized when they come in the classroom I can assign a topic or an agenda of things to do that day for each individual student. We rotate students into different classes and I see that this can give them topics and assignments as soon as they come into their classroom. I can see the opportunity for individual questions depending on how I differentiate and the activity. I can see the opportunity to use it in the classroom. I also see it as an incentive for students to remember their iPads. Our iPads to home for home learning (after a short presentation and signing a permission form).

I know I can do many of these things with other means, but having the information come right when they enter the classroom, no matter what classroom, is exciting. If students come to a classroom  museum, a presentation can share information, help, and give suggestions on what to do. How fun would it be to have different pictures or presentations come up depending where students are in the school? What about when a parent comes into the school. Information, directions to get to the right room for a class production or school activity. 

These are a few things I see that can be used with this new technology. I wonder how long before we can set up beacons using this technology?

A Few Articles
4 Uses for iBeacon - Wired.com
iBeacons Gaming- Macrumors.com
First Look: Using iBeacon Location Awareness - Appleinsider.com

Why Do I Teach?

I was reading though some tweets from my PLN last week and I came upon one by Karl Lindgren-Streicher(@LS_Karl). He was quoting Jamie Casap (@jcasap) writing, "he doesn't ask kids what they want to be, he asks students what problem they want solve." I brought that question up to my students. They wrote about what problem they would solve. It was great to listen to some of the problems they want to solve.
A couple days later, I started to think about what problem I want to solve as a teacher. Why did I become a teacher? What do I want to do with my life? When I started in college I thought that all students can learn. When I started teaching I had other ideas, but after a few years I learned from the students that all students can learn. They can progress. Every student can progress. That is when I decided I wanted to change how students felt when they came into the classroom. I wanted more for them. I wanted to give students opportunities they might not get elsewhere. Over time I changed my teacher to try to accommodate different learning styles. When I learned about flipping the classroom, it gave me one more thing to give students to help them progress. Thinking about this question gave me the opportunity to reflect on why I do what I do. What problem did you want to solve when you started teaching?

Increasing iPad Usage in the Classroom

We are now a 1:1 iPad grade level. What an opportunity for our students to use iPads in school. Some students also have the opportunity to take them home for home learning, if their parents want that option. We have increased the use of iPads in each subject as we find ways to use them. And that brings me to the issue with 1:1 technology in the classroom.
We decided not to use the iPad as a GamePad for students. We want them to create, collaborate, and consume information with the iPad in as many subjects as possible. That is not an easy task. We looked for apps that made learning better and not as a way to keep students busy. They get the games at home, we need them to see technology as a way to learn and produce. I will say that we do have a few games on the iPads they can use on those days we would pull out board games anyway (rainy days, 100˚+ days, etc.). We try to get learning games that students like to play. There are some questions we needed to ask as we decided what to do, how to do it, and which apps we will use.

• How do we make an activity/assignment better by using the iPad?
• We did not want to make an activity harder or more time consuming for the teachers or the students.
• Is the iPad the best tool to use in the activity/assignment?
• Just because we have the iPad does not mean it is the best tool for the job. Sometimes a whiteboard is the better choice.
• What is the learning outcome of the activity/assignment?
• It is still about the learning.
• Which app is best for the activity/assignment and will the app make it better?

There are activities that we changed because of the iPad. There are many we kept the same. We started writing a few books using iBooks Author for the students. We take some of the articles/assignments we use and put them into books for students to read. In iBooks students can look up words, highlight important information, and bookmark pages. That has kept our paper use down.

Our use of Google Drive is huge.  We wrote a ebook to help students as they start to use Google Drive. We started with writing stories, and now it has become our student portfolio. They share their stories with their teacher and other students for comments to help make the stories better. They also create a folder and share it with their teacher. Students can upload pictures of assignments, activities, objects for their portfolio. We use the spreadsheet for students to monitor their improvement. They keep track of their assessment scores to see their improvement and for writing goals on a document. The teachers created a shared folder for dropping pages in for students, short videos for students to watch, and a place for students to download books or files.

Another app we started using is Explain Everything. We use it as a white board to record how students are doing their work. We could use free app Educreations or Doceri for the same thing, but there is more to EE. We have students take a picture of a story we posted on the iPad Photo Stream and import it to EE. Students read and record the story then upload it as a movie to their Google Drive portfolio. This gives us a fluency assessment that they can review later to hear improvement in their reading. They can mark up the story to show words they missed, how many words they read in one minute, and listen to how they read. Spelling sorts are our activity of choice. So we started using EE for sorting. They can cut out the words right in EE and save a stack of words to sort. Students sort the words and then write it into their composition book. We post the words on Google Drive in the shared folder for students to take a picture of. We have just started to crack the surface of what we can do in this app.

We have come up with some great uses of the iPads to help with organization and implementation of assignments and activities. We are always looking for more ideas. If you have any ideas or suggestions of what else we can do, let me know.