While undoubtedly many of today’s posts will focus on why and how administrators and supervisors should embrace technology (and don’t get me wrong; I believe they should), I think we first need to differentiate between “administrator” and “leader”.  I hope this doesn’t contribute too much to the “us v. them” mentality to which Gerald alludes in this comment (a valid point, and a problematic issue in any field, to be sure), but I believe it’s important to note that not all administrators (supervisors, headmasters, etc.) are leaders.  Surely, the specific attributes that best describe a leader will vary from person to person, but at the very least, I see that word as describing behavior, not a job title.

Conversely, not all leaders are administrators.  At the risk of sounding nostalgic, there was a very strong grass-roots movement among some of the teachers at my old school to evaluate technology and incorporate it into classroom activities.  A few years prior, in the late 1990s, the then-superintendent sort of put us on the map with regard to technology, but the curricular implementation seemed rather confined to this one project (although it was still pretty cool).  Still, perhaps even more importantly, the series of tubes infrastructure was in place, and steadily improving, from ISDN lines to Wi-Fi blanketing the 72-acre campus.  A few years after that project came to an end, this guy some of you might have heard of took advantage of all those empty Internets tubes and became one of the first to incorporate this easily-accessible technology that would come to be widely known as “Web 2.0″ into his classes.  A few years after that, I started investigating the utility of wikis with my English students.  Right around that time, several of my colleagues began using Skype with their World Language students and podcasting in their Social Studies classes.

The beauty of this is that it was not a formal, sanctioned movement, or a directive from on high; rather, some of us just started exploring options and becoming self-taught “experts” in our own rights in certain areas – Will was our blogging guru, I was the wiki guy, Jon and Ray were the people to talk to about Skype, and so on.  When we finally did come together, some of our supervisors and administrators had the foresight and humility to say, “You guys have really gotten this figured out, or are at least on your way, and we absolutely see the value in it – can you help bring this stuff to your colleagues?”  From there, that small core of five or six teachers started running after-school and summer workshops for our colleagues.  Eventually, the core group grew, as did our interests, tools of focus, and – perhaps most importantly – the number of teachers we were able to reach and help identify technological companions for their specific needs.  It was a beautiful, very organic development, thanks mainly to a) teachers who were not afraid to assume leadership roles in relation to their colleagues, and b) administrators who demonstrated true leadership by acknowledging the strengths of their faculty in areas that were largely foreign to them (the administrators) and trusting them to lead.

It should be noted that this approach of “bottom-up” leadership (as opposed to “top-down”) was implemented in many other areas with regard to technology as well.  A core group of teachers volunteered to be the first to be assigned tablet PCs at our school.  Once feedback was collected from this pilot group and the decision was made to roll them out schoolwide, the original cohort ran most of the subsequent training sessions (after all, they were far better suited to speak to the tablet’s impact and utility in the classroom than any administrator).  It’s also interesting to note that in this rollout, faculty & staff were not required to take one if they did not want one (I’ll just leave this there for you to opine upon in the comments…).  The same approach was taken some years later when the school decided to pilot a 1:1 student netbook program.  Teachers, who occupy one of the lower places in the traditional linear hierarchy of school authority, demonstrated multiple times their ability to be leaders in their school community.  This was not only supported, but celebrated and encouraged, by school administrators.

One lesson I’ve learned in the three years or so I’ve been active in online education communities is that there’s a tremendous amount of ego destruction that has to take place in order to really learn and improve one’s professional practice (at least, there was in my case).  Just as the teacher can never presume to be the smartest person in the classroom, the administrator cannot presume to be the best-informed on every single topic.  Mary Beth addressed this quite well in her post “6 Reasons I Surround Myself with People Smarter Than I Am”, and comments by Chris and Deven on that post pretty solidly address the implications for those of us in administrative positions.

I imagine there is a tremendous amount of pressure on school administrators to always have “the right answer” and know exactly what to do in all situations.  That goes with the territory, I suppose, but please remember that you also have an entire faculty of intelligent, dedicated professionals who work with you (you did hire intelligent & dedicated professionals, right?), and whose strengths and knowledge you can draw upon and foster, especially in the realm of educational technology.  Chances are there is a group of teachers in your school who have been tinkering and experimenting just as my colleagues and I did years ago.  Putting your ego aside and drawing upon these resources right under your nose can only benefit the students you serve, and provides a golden opportunity for you to be a leader in deed as well as by title.

Conduct county/state PD workshops: Sort of.  I applied, but ultimately was not chosen, to run some county-level PD workshops this year.  I was, however, asked to run two sessions at the New Jersey Education Association’s Technology Integration Conferences this spring.  Prior obligations prevented me from attending both, but I was able to make it to Trenton a few weeks ago to speak with a group of teachers about Google Sites.  I’m told it went well.   And in that vein…

Present at NJEA 2009: Yes!  Every November, the New Jersey Education Association hosts its annual convention in Atlantic City over two days.  Last summer, I submitted two proposals for the convention’s “High Tech Hall”, hedging my bets that one would be accepted and the other, not.  To my surprise, not only were both accepted (meaning I was “on stage” for eight straight hours the first day of the convention!), but I was also asked to come back the second day to do a one-hour workshop on wikis in the classroom.  It was a phenomenal experience (I wrote about it here and here), and I’ve already submitted more proposals for Convention 2010.

Attend two psychology conferences: Achievement unlocked!  I attended a presentation in King of Prussia, PA in September on Asperger Syndrome and the New Jersey Association of School Psychologists Winter Conference in Jamesburg, NJ in December.  While I mostly write here about educational technology, I am still a school psychologist for several hours out of the week, and I find far fewer online PD resources in this arena than I do for general ed classroom teachers.  One notable exception to this is the National Association of School Psychologists, who has an entire hub of online resources, including RSS feeds of info, blogs, and online webinars and presentations for which I can receive continuing education credit hours towards my national school psychologist re-certification (thanks, NASP!).  Beyond them, however, I haven’t found much (but am open to suggestions if you have any!).

In a related vein, I also had the privilege of attending a talk by renowned education law guru Perry Zirkel, who came to my school to address an audience of special education teachers and Child Study Team members from Hunterdon County.  An unexpected PD bonus, to be sure!

Get an iPhone: (OK, so they can’t all be lofty goals.) I’d lusted over the iPhone since the day it came out, but in the weeks leading up to my current contract expiring, Sprint introduced a new Android phone, the HTC Hero.  I ended up sticking with Sprint and purchasing the Hero shortly after it came out – the Android market is easily competitive with the iPhone App Store, and my monthly payment is still significantly less than what it would be with AT&T.  I love my Android phone, and can’t see myself going back now.  I didn’t technically achieve this goal, but I’m quite satisfied with how it turned out nonetheless.

Get published: Yes and no.  At the time of goal-setting, I had envisioned writing an article and having it published in an academic journal.  That hasn’t happened YET (but watch this space in the next year), but I am proud to announce that I will have two short stories published in upcoming anthologies by Kaplan Publishing.  The Teachable Moment is available from June 1, 2010, and includes my story “Alleviating Shakes-Fear”, about my experiences teaching Shakespeare’s works to high school students.  My second story, “The Ick Factor”, will appear in One Size Does Not Fit All (available from June 29, 2010), and presents my feelings on the importance of a visible GLBT presence in school curriculum.  As noted in the agreement I signed with Kaplan, I retain the copyright to my stories, and will be publishing them here as well over the next month or so.

Attend EduCon: Did it.  I only live an hour’s train ride away from Chris Lehmann’s Science Leadership Academy, so now that I’m done with grad school (for now) and my kids aren’t babies any more, I really had nothing preventing me from going.  I had wanted to attend since the first EduCon in 2008, but circumstances were such that I wasn’t able to make it until the 2010 event this past January.  I only attended one of the three days, and you can read my thoughts on my time there here.  Deven Black and I also recorded an episode of EdTechClassroom with Karen Chichester & Burt Lo in which we discussed our respective experiences at SLA (check it out here!).

There are two other goals on that list of a more personal nature that I can’t go into here, but I will say that one is in process and the other one has been intentionally deferred until next summer.

These certainly aren’t the only things I’ve done in the past year, but these were the major goals I wanted to make absolutely sure I hit (or at least made progress on) since last summer.  Would I have achieved them had I not recorded them and periodically referred to the mindmap?  Perhaps; it’s impossible to say, really.  All I know is I did write them down and I did achieve almost all of them… and yes, I’ve already started looking at my list of 2010-2011 goals and working hard to make those dreams realities, too.

We’re always setting short- and long-term goals for our students, but are you doing it for yourself?  We all have ideas of what we’d like to do, but have you taken the time to think 6-12 months into the future, put pen to paper (or fingertips to keyboard!), and make those intentions a little more concrete?  Perhaps most importantly (and terrifying), are you sharing those goals with anyone else?

My interest piqued, I looked for these works in my school’s library.  The only book that was available was the last in the trilogy, Horace’s Hope: What Works for the American High School.  Going into it, I feared that reading this first would be a bit like watching Return of the Jedi before the other Star Wars films, but as I read on, I found the book stood just fine on its own as a series of case studies of school systems that have bucked traditional models of what the American public education system has been and developed more progressive, student-centered communities of learners.  Re-reading that, I realize that sounds very tree-huggy and hippy-dippy, but the schools Sizer describes are not theoretical models of what could be – they are concrete examples of what has been done, and with great success.

The books of the Horace trilogy were published over a 12-year period from 1984 to 1996, and it genuinely shames me to say that it took me until now to discover them, as I think they would have been so beneficial to me when I was teaching high school English, especially early on in my career (which didn’t even begin until four years after Horace’s Hope was published) – they would have provided me significant insight and lessons I eventually had to learn the hard way (which isn’t necessarily bad for me, but for the sake of my students…).

I’m not going to write a book report here, but I do want to highlight a section of the book that impacted me so greatly that I actually made sure to jot down the information for personal future reference.  Sizer noted 13 conclusions to which he came after a decade of working with schools through his reform advocacy group, the Coalition for Essential Schools (these are different from the nine common principles of the CES).  Sizer annotates this list heavily in his book (so go read it!), but I will simply reproduce the list here:

1. The leap from traditional school practice to commonsense reform is for most Americans a heroic one.
2. Focus and Exhibitions are important.
3. If students are to understand deeply, less is more.
4. The students have to do the work.  We learn when we engage, the more intensely the better.
5. Human-scale places are critical.
6. Practice caring rigor and rigorous caring.
7. Adults must be interesting and confident.
8. Control, autonomy, and choice are essential.
9. Attempting too little is a recipe for failure.
10. Start as early as possible.
11. The relationship between the top and bottom of the educational hierarchy must be fundamentally rethought.
12. Clusters of schools proceed more effectively than schools alone.
13. Respect the persistent tortoise.

(Sizer, 1996, pp. 80-104)

I imagine most folks who read this blog have already started making mental comparisons between Sizer’s list and their own practice (yup, yup… nope, uh-uh…); I know I certainly did.  I also thought about how the schools at which I’ve worked have measured up as systems against Sizer’s conclusions; after all, much of what CES advocates for favors cultural (in the sense of school & community culture) implementati0n over pockets of innovation in this classroom and that.

My recollection of reading this passage for the first time involves me laying on my couch, reading silently to myself, and occasionally nodding.  Then the nodding grew more vigorous, punctuated with “mm-hmm”s.  By the time I hit 11 or 12, I was upright and saying “Yes!” out loud to nobody in particular.

Whenever I read books about education, I find myself doing so through a very critical and skeptical lens, but my experience reading Horace’s Hope has been somewhat profound (and decidedly out of character for me).  In Sizer, I believe I have found a posthumous mentor – someone who has already researched, articulated, and expounded upon the flittering, semi-formed ideas I have had about education, but done it far better than I could hope to.  I’m looking forward to learning a lot more from his body of work and the ongoing work of the Coalition of Essential Schools, and perhaps one day earning the honor of contributing in some way to his legacy in education.

Reference

Sizer, T.  (1996).  Horace’s hope: what works for the American high school. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin.

In the meantime, please allow me to direct your attention to some projects to which I’ve had the pleasure and honor of contributing:

• Terry Freedman’s The Amazing Web 2.0 Projects Book is a free e-book describing over 80 Web 2.0 projects developed and implemented by teachers in classrooms around the world.  Head over to his download page for more details (and check out my write-up on the wiki created by my Honors British Literature class on page 70!).
• As I’ve mentioned before, I was a presenter at last November’s Technology Integration Showcase at the NJEA Convention in Atlantic City, NJ.  During my eight-hour shift on the floor of High Tech Hall, I was interviewed about social Web tools for educators for an episode of Classroom Closeup NJ.  You can watch the segment on the Tech Integration Showcase here (my bit runs from about 2:15 to 3:20).
• The Cooperating Teacher Leadership Network is an initiative based out of my grad school alma mater, Rider University.  The declared purpose of the group is to celebrate and support the folks who work closest with student teachers, but I think over time the positive impact of a group like this will ripple further into the entire teacher training program at Rider, with other universities hopefully to follow.  We’re in the process of planning a two-day conference for June 29-30 of this year, so if you’ll be in the Lawrenceville, NJ area this June and think you might be interested, check out our brochure (direct link to PDF).  Our Facebook fan page is still new and low on content, but feel free to become a fan if you’d like to see what we get up to in the coming weeks and months.

Add to this a few presentations I have coming up and a collaborative research project that I am very excited about, and my dance card is pretty darn full through the end of the school year.  I just hope I can stay focused as the seasons change and the weather draws me out of my winter hibernation!

All of the career decisions I have made in my ten years in public education have been guided by my desire to affect positive change in the lives of young people.  In my roles as both a teacher and a school psychologist, I have been able to create or influence these changes primarily on a classroom level (e.g., teaching techniques, uses of assistive technology, incorporating principles of Universal Design for Learning).  It is my hope that in matriculating to _____ University’s Ed.D. in Educational Leadership program, I will be able to build upon my existing leadership skills and knowledge of educational practice to affect change at a much larger systemic level, either through the training of undergraduate pre-service teachers, researching and contributing to education policy reform, or acting in an administrative capacity.

Fingers crossed, chin up, etc.  Here begins a new chapter of my career in education.

I’ve just walked in the door from Educon 2.2, a conference structured as a series of breakout conversations about current and future issues in education, facilitated by classroom teachers, professors, researchers, and students, among others.

I was fortunate to attend sessions led by Gary Stager, Ben Hazzard & Rodd Lucier, and Jon Becker & Justin Bothan.  In between I spent time walking around the conference site, Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, and taking in the classroom setups, the facilities, and even the little details like the posters & flyers on the walls.  The majority of what little down time I had, however, was spent speaking and rubbing a friendly elbow with many people with whom I had heretofore only corresponded online via Twitter or Facebook.

Doubtless, there will be a flurry of blog posts over the next week about how great EduCon was (and it was!), and what people’s favorite presenters or sessions were, or what have you.  What’s on my mind right now, however, is the value of the time spent in between sessions.  I imagine that most folks at EduCon have a few things in common:

• we fancy ourselves “progressive” educators (for whatever that might mean to each of us)
• we are proponents of increasing student access to technology
• we believe that there is a significant degree of change needed in the American education system, from the federal level down to individual classroom practices.

I don’t know that these phrases always describe the majority of our colleagues outside of our little online pseudo-social circles.

While it’s easy to look at the folks congregating in-between (or in some cases, during) sessions and cast aspersions that they’re prioritizing socializing over their own learning, consider how isolating the teaching profession can be in general.  Then, place yourself in a small subset of educators who can be defined by the above criteria.  For teachers who work in districts where their passion is not only ignored, but sometimes actively discouraged or prohibited by colleagues and superiors alike, social sessions with like-minded people are a necessity for sharing ideas, blowing off steam, and, as someone I spoke with earlier today said (I forget who, sorry!), “remembering that we’re not crazy”.  In some cases, it can feel like a deep exhalation.

There’s always been talk of the dangers of the “echo chamber” effect in ed-tech circles online.  Yes, it’s a valid concern, but considering how far the pendulum swings in the other direction for most of us in our professional lives, it’s not as if there’s not plenty to bring us ‘back to reality’.  Indulging in some off-the-clock camaraderie, perhaps even at the expense of a structured, scheduled activity, is not only acceptable, but vital to our continued advocacy in the face of continued opposition.  The sessions gave us plenty of food for thought about what we can do differently (or do more of) in our classrooms, buildings, and districts, but the shared food, drink, and laughter outside those sessions nourished our souls.

And I’m definitely going back next year for seconds.

Credit must be given where it’s due: I think the organizers of this year’s High Tech Hall really got it right in terms of how to provide participants in such a huge setting (we’re talking attendance estimates in the tens of thousands) access to tools and meaningful uses thereof (as meaningful as you can get in a giant convention center, anyway).  Presenters in High Tech Hall were given round tables (approx. 6′ diameter), 32″ LCD screens, and 8-9 chairs.  We hooked up our own netbooks, laptops, speakers, and whatever other peripherals we needed, and conducted “drop-in” sessions where we could talk with small groups of people (see photos) about our respective topics (I did 4 hours on wikis and 4 hours on developing learning networks).

Having given both large group lectures and small group drop-in sessions, my favorite type is by far the small group setting.  I really enjoyed being able to talk with the folks who dropped in, find out what they knew and what they needed to know, and learn about their specific professional circumstances.  I was then able to tailor my presentation to their individual needs and help guide them where they felt they needed to go, not necessarily where I wanted to take them.

Toward the end of the day, I was talking with a resource room reading (I think?  sorry!) teacher who was thinking that wikis might somehow be encouraging to her students.  After explaining the basics of the tool, as well as listening to her background, we agreed that a wiki probably wasn’t going to be of much use to her students.  Due to the small setting, however (she was the only one at my table; this was about 10 minutes before shutting down for the day), I was able to sit and brainstorm with her for a bit, and I showed her Audacity, a free program for digital audio recording.  We talked a bit about teaching reading, oral fluency, listening skills, and self-monitoring & self-evaluation, and after some further discussion and an impromptu demonstration, that teacher left with at least another idea for helping her students.

It didn’t matter to me that a wiki was not in her immediate future because that would not have helped her students.  I liked being able to go “off book” and use what knowledge of tools I have to help her brainstorm some ideas for activities (aided, not driven, by technology) that would suit her students’ needs.  We do all our students a far greater service by letting their needs drive the choice of technological tools (or the choice to not use technology), rather than the other way around.  As I have said in the past, when you add a wiki (or a podcast, or a blog, or a Voicethread) to a poorly designed lesson, it doesn’t magically become a good lesson – it’s just a bad lesson with a wiki.  Folks who attended the High Tech Hall sessions were exposed to dozens, if not hundreds, of technological tools, along with ideas for classroom implementations.  Speaking as one who knows all too well how easy it is to get swept up in shiny new things, it is my hope that they balance their enthusiasm for their new tools with a very clear picture of the pedagogical benefits they offer (or don’t).

If you’ll be at the convention, stop by High Tech Hall to see Kevin, Lisa, me, and a slew of other folks speak about (and, more importantly, show examples of) using various technological tools to enhance teaching and learning experiences.

On Thursday, I’ll be discussing “Exploring Online Personal Learning Networks” from 9am – 1pm (supporting wiki), then from 1pm – 5pm, it’s “Wikis, Wikis, Everywhere” (supporting wiki).  These presentations are both condensed versions of multi-day PD courses I conducted when I worked at Hunterdon Central Regional High School.

On Friday morning from 10:15 to 11:15, I’ll be running a shorter, 1-hour version of “Wikis, Wikis” in Classroom 2, where participants will have access to computers and have the opportunity to create and explore along with me (computer access is limited and first come, first served, so get there early!).

Hope to see you in Atlantic City!

Fortunately, amidst all the running around, I was able to engage in two professional development activities that gave me great cause for optimism about the state of social media and technology in education.  The first was speaking with a group of educators at my former place of employment, Hunterdon Central Regional High School.  Will Richardson wrote fairly extensively about it here, but the Cliff’s Notes version is that a group of 20-25 teachers from across disciplines will be piloting a 1:1 netbook program with about 300 students this year.  Doubtless, HCRHS is an affluent district, but unlike many others with more money than sense, they really front-loaded their teacher’s training this summer with discussion and reflection on constructivist teaching and the role that personal computers can play in that.  In other words, it wasn’t “tech tech tech”, it was “teach well with tech”.

I was particularly happy to see two new educational bloggers emerge from this cohort, library media specialist Heather Hersey and English teacher Cathy Stutzman.  I’m really looking forward to reading their public reflections and learning from them, and I’d be lying if I said that watching all this from the outside didn’t make me just the teensiest bit envious that I won’t be a part of some potentially great things at Central.

Another event I was honored to be a part of was Patrick Woessner‘s panel discussion entitled Digital Citizenship & Social Media in the Classroom and Life (click for link to mp3 archive of our chat).  I joined Chris Betcher, Matt Montagne, and Kevin Jarrett via TinyChat for a group videoconference with teachers at Patrick’s school on topics such as Internet filters, use of social media tools with elementary students, and all manner of other neat stuff.  To be talking about a topic about which I’m passionate to a captive audience was thrilling enough, but to do so while bouncing ideas off these guys (and building off their own thoughts) was really a privilege, and I hope it signifies good things to come at this school in St. Louis.

I guess what ties what’s happening at these two schools in New Jersey and Missouri all together for me is this feeling that something is changing in education that is coming from the ground up.   These changes are not coming as a result of administrative directives; in fact, just the opposite is usually true – the movement is coming from teachers who are realizing where the next big shift in education could come from, and how we can harness that for the benefit of our students.  They are becoming school leaders through action and example, not simply by virtue of a degree, certificate, or job title.  It also underscores for me my belief that while the technology enables us to do some really cool stuff, the oft-cited “21st Century Skills” are as much, if not more, about the human connections we help to create, both inside and outside our classrooms and schools as they are about the technological tools we use to foster communication.  Students, much like potential customers or clients, are tired of being spoken to/at – that doesn’t fly anymore.  They want to be part of a conversation, and the teachers at HCRHS and MICDS are, directly and indirectly, fostering conversations about learning as well as about content, which is neither new nor revolutionary – it’s just not done enough.

I fired up my MindMeister account and started a mind map entitled “Yearly Goals”.  From this central main topic, I had five branches – one for each of the next five academic years (e.g., “2009-2010″, “2010-2011″, etc.):

As I recorded some of the ideas I had thought of earlier on the mindmap, I placed them under the year I thought I’d begin or complete them.  I don’t want to go into too many specific details here regarding content, but I will say that by the time I was finished, I had a very clear idea of what I was going to work on this summer and coming school year and what could safely wait until at least next summer and beyond.  This has helped me to focus my energy and attention on what is most immediately needed.

In the matter of about 20-30 minutes, I went from feeling overwhelmed with abstract concepts and ideas to having a very clearly defined, well organized plan of attack.  Mindmapping is not something I ever got into in depth with my students (although I did use graphic organizers to aid in writing), but maybe I should have.  My expertise is in the secondary English/language arts setting, but I imagine students in any project-based or multi-step environment could benefit from something like this.  In addition to helping me “pace myself” and sort out a plan of attack, an unexpected benefit of this exercise was seeing what smaller milestones I can achieve in between the major ones I’m shooting for.  Instead of focusing on the big things I’m planning for 2011-2012, for example, and wishing I could fast-forward to that date, I now have a list of smaller, more manageable (but still important) achievements to keep my focus on in the here & now (not one of my strong suits!).

Although I did this for personal reasons, how many of your students, in a special ed or general ed setting, could benefit from some short and long-term goal-setting like this, online or off, for curricular or other purposes?

For further information on mindmaps, check out Dr. Brian Friedlander’s blog – he has written more extensively on the topic than any other blogger I’ve read.