#ISTE2014 Newbie: With A Little Help From My Friends

image from https://www.isteconference.org/2014/

I just attended my first ISTE Conference & Expo!  Did you hear me? I just attended my first ISTE Conference & Expo! Sorry, I'm just very excited and energized after my time in Atlanta. So much so that I wrote this post in the airport as I waited for my flight home and on the plane. If it rambles a little, bear with me.

Over the past few years, since I started building a PLN via Twitter, I have been watching the stream of tweets with the #ISTE conference hashtag as my school year would come to an end.  As I read all of the tweets going by with links to amazing resources and nuggets from thoughtful sessions, I knew that eventually I would have to go myself. This year, I was able to attend in Atlanta and it was an exhausting, rewarding, learning, connecting, type of experience.

image courtesy of clker.com

Fortunately, I got by with a little help from my friends. I was able to hook up with members of my PLN from the moment I got there and they helped show me the ropes. A big thanks to Billy Krakower (@wkrakower), Kyle Calderwood (@kcalderw), Liz Calderwood (@liz1544), Kate Baker (@KtBkr4), and, of course, Jerry Blumengarten(@cybraryman1).  There were many people that I met and had the opportunity to talk with because the folks above took me under their wing and mentored me during my time at #ISTE2014.

Everyone told me that the informal conversations are as valuable as the sessions themselves and I truly understand what they meant now. The learning and connecting can take many forms; a brief chat with Nathan Stevens (@nathan_stevens) and Jenny Grabiac (@techgirljenny) at a social event, a conversation with Jessica Allen (@jessievaz12) over dinner, a dialogue about a project from one of the poster session presenters (they are GREAT) in the Galleria, a warm, wonderful hug and words of encouragement in the Blogger's Cafe from Paula Naugle (@plnaugle), a

me and Paula Naugle

great opportunity to go to lunch with Jerry, Billy, and Kathy Bloomfield from Readworks, or a quick conversation in the conference hallway with Angela Maiers (@AngelaMaiers) to remind that "You Matter!"  These real life connections are part of what make the virtual connections via social media so valuable. 

#ISTE2014 was also filled with fantastic sessions. The biggest problem was deciding which ones to choose because there were often several sessions of interest to me at the same time. I came away with some great ideas from Kyle Pace (@kylepace) and Michelle Baldwin's (@michellek107) session "Full STEAM ahead: Cultivating connections with the arts." I learned that I can start a maker space in my school and classrooms and I don't have to break the bank from the folks at Digital Harbor Foundation's (@DHFBaltimore) session: "Classroom Makerspace: Your Guidebook to Inexpensive Making in the Classroom". I was inspired by the session

Levar Burton speaking to a packed room.

with Levar Burton (@levarburton) whose Reading Rainbow has helped so many children over the past decades. That barely scratches the surface of what I have learned (fodder for more posts).

You never know what opportunities will present themselves at #ISTE2014. I arrived on Saturday and that evening received a message asking if I would help out in a session as a Twitter Mentor. So my first professional development opportunity at the convention was actually working with Elana Leoni (@elanaleoni) from Edutopia and Kyle Calderwood in their session "Saved by Twitter: 10 ways to use Twitter to Connect" (#savedbytwitter) as they worked with a room of 150 new Twitter users to show the power of the social media platform for connecting and professional development. Awesome! The next night I went in to support Jerry Blumengarten and Susan Bearden (@s_bearden) in their session "Twitter 101: Build Your Personal Learning Network" and was asked to do something similar. 

I'm going to stop now because now that I have my initial thoughts down I need to process them a bit more. I am sure there are more posts coming when I collect my thoughts.  Stay tuned...

So, a few takeaways from this post....

1. Go to #ISTE2015 in Philadelphia if you can

While there:

2. Talk to people, they will talk back

3. Take a risk and leave your comfort zone

4. Take the time to explore the Expo floor. There are some wonderful things there and a great deal to learn (I didn't even mention that above!)

But, Right now:

4. Get on Twitter and start to connect with the amazing folks out in our education community.

5. Follow all of the people I mention in this post, you won't regret it!

6. Leave a comment and let's start a conversation here or on Twitter

P.S. Thanks to all of the educators with whom I've interacted during the last several days. It has been wonderful.

Me, Nathan, Kate, Aaron, Liz, & Kyle

Related articles

• ISTE Day 1 Reflections
• ISTE Day 2 Reflections (thankfully I brought sneakers)
• Thoughts from ISTE 1

#NJED Chat - Grading and Grading Practices

This week's #njed chat was a lively discussion of grading. In this post I've included some of the thoughts of the participants as well as the resources that were shared during the chat. If you haven't participated in #njed chat, be sure to check it out at 8:30pm EST every Tuesday on Twitter. The seven questions asked were:

Q1: What do you believe is the purpose of grades? #njed

Q2: How do you grade students'  - individual Work? #njed

Q3: How do you grade students' work when it is done collaboratively? #njed

Q4: How do you grade late work? Why? #njed

Q5: Do you have experience with Standards Based Grading? If so, your thoughts? #njed

Q6: What is your favorite formative assessment tool and why? #njed

Q7: (How) Does effort/homework/behavior fit into your grading #njed

These led to some great discussions about why we grade students. It is interesting to see that many educators are grading students based upon district practices that pre-date their employment and don't necessarily jive with their educational beliefs or philosophy. Another salient point that was raised is the idea of Standards Based Grading as a best practice as opposed to traditional grading.  Following are some thought-provoking tweets from the chat:

These 12 tweets only give you a taste of the wonderful conversation that took place. I encourage you to check out the archive of the entire chat!

Here are some resources that were shared during the chat:

Ed. Leadership - Starting the Conversation About Grades - 
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/nov11/vol69/num03/Starting-the-Conversation-About-Grading.aspx

Best Practices in Grading - 
http://www.shaker.k12.nh.us/files/ResearchBriefGradingPractices%20(1).pdf

Grading Practices: The 3rd Rail -
http://www.leadandlearn.com/sites/default/files/articles/1003-pl-grading-practices-the-third-rail.pdf

ASCD - 7 Reasons for Standards Based Grading - http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/oct08/vol66/num02/Seven_Reasons_for_Standards-Based_Grading.aspx

TOOLKIT for Evaluating Alignment of Instructional and Assessment Materials to the Common Core State Standards
http://www.ccsso.org/Documents/2013/Toolkit%20for%20Evaluating%20Alignment%20of%20Instructional%20and%20Assessment%20Materials.pdf

PARCC Condensed Scoring Rubric for Prose Constructed Response Items (DRAFT)
http://www.parcconline.org/sites/parcc/files/Grade6-11-ELACondensedRubricFORANALYTICANDNARRATIVEWRITING.pdf

Grades That Show What Students Know (Marzano) https://www.ocps.net/lc/southwest/mso/parents/Documents/Grades%20That%20Show%20What%20Students%20Know.pdf

Standards Based Grading - @RickWormeli YouTube video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-QF9Q4gxVM

Joe Bower posts on Grading/Abolishing Grading 
http://www.joebower.org/p/abolishing-grading.html

Why Schools are Ditching Traditional Grading 
http://us.cnn.com/2014/04/07/living/report-card-changes-standards-based-grading-schools/index.html?sr=sharebar_twitter

Doug Reeves on Toxic Grading Practices (YouTube) 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jduiAnm-O3w

Doug Reeves - The Case Against Zero http://www.leadandlearn.com/sites/default/files/articles/caseagainstzero.pdf


If you feel moved to do so, please provide your thoughts on grading and grading practices in the comments. Also, please join us each Tuesday at 8:30pm EST on Twitter using the hashtag "#njed" as we discuss topics that are important to New Jersey educators and educators from around the world. We enjoy and welcome participants from near and far. Join us!

Integrating STEM in the Classroom: Resources

This past Tuesday, February 25th, we held our weekly #NJED Chat at 8:30pm EST. Our topic was: Integrating STEM in the Classroom. I was very excited about this topic because we are in the planning stages of opening a 4th Grade STEM Magnet Class for our district at Bear Tavern Elementary School.  I will be writing various posts about our progress as we continue to move forward; however, after the chat I received this tweet:

The easiest method seemed to be on my blog. So here is a list of the hyperlinks that were shared during our chat. It is a pretty good list of resources for anyone interested in STEM Education; HOWEVER, if you have others, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE share them in the comments below so that we can all benefit.

Why Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy went MAD!
Framework for 21st Century Learning
Don't Squelch the Creativity #SAVMP
Falling isn't Failing
Infographic: The Value of STEM Education
12 Steps to Great STEM Lessons
If school is supposed to prepare students for real life, then why doesn’t it look more like real life?

4 TED Talks for Educators Interested in STEAM

National Girls Collaborative Project

STEM Curriculum/Resources from the NV STEM Coalition

Goldie Blox and Rube Goldberg YouTube Video

Maryland K-5 STEM Resources Page

NEA 10 Best STEM Resources

Technology & Children: STEM, It's Elementary! (Entire Journal Issue)
Engineering for All

PBS Teachers: STEM Education Resource Center

NASA Explorer Schools


Also, here is a link to the entire chat archive. I encourage readers to peruse the chat because the interaction between the participants was rich with insight, suggestions, and ideas.

"Integrating STEM in the classroom" #njed Chat 2-25-14

Please join us each Tuesday evening for our weekly chat. Our topics are varied and focused on what we do as practitioners. We welcome participants from all over the country and all over the world!

#DLDay: The Verdict is...

I know, Digital Learning Day was February 5th, but on the 6th I got to be involved in a fantastic example of technology tools being used effectively to break down the walls of the classroom and allow students to learn and connect with students and teachers beyond their school.  I was fortunate to be asked to judge a Virtual Debate! South Orange Middle School sixth graders debated with Lower Alloways Creek sixth graders about the merits of homework.

Before I talk about the technology, let me first say that these boys and girls were wonderful. They were prepared with strong arguments, they formed coherent rebuttals, and they presented convincingly. I was impressed with the amount of support that was cited on the subject from people like Alfie Kohn, Robert Marzano, Harris Cooper and other researchers in the field. The students understood that presentation is an important part of debate and they worked to put forth a compelling and convincing argument for their given side. The only part that was unfortunate was that I had to fill out my rubric and decide on a winning team. They both did such a remarkable job. If you don't believe me and you have about an hour, you can check out the debate here sfy.co/aZxd .


I was invited to be a judge by Melissa Butler, one of the teachers involved in the project. Here is the first instance of technology playing a role. Melissa (@AngelinaShy) is a member of my PLN. We connected through twitter and are both part of the planning team for #edcampNJ. Using twitter as an avenue for professional learning, growth, and connection has afforded me various wonderful opportunities (like this debate) and introduced me to some of the most amazing and passionate educators. Melissa co-teaches with Elissa Malespina (@SOMSlibrary) (another #edcampNJ organizer), who is also the media specialist at South Orange Middle School. They were connected with Ruth Williams' and Kristen Ayling's students in Lower Alloways Creek, NJ through another twitter connection, Jay Eitner (@iSuperEit) (you guessed it, #edcampNJ organizer), who is the Superintendent of the district and a strong proponent of technology as a tool for learning.

The students used various methods to research their arguments. It was clear during the debate that the boys and girls were using laptops and desktops to quickly get information to use in their rebuttals. I can only assume that with their teachers facilitating the process throughout, the students utilized resources in the schools' classrooms and media centers, including books and web based tools.

The debate, itself was held using Google Hangout. This is a personal favorite tool of mine. We use it often to hold meetings in the evenings to plan. However, the debate illustrates an amazing use of the tool to allow students to interact with people from other locations. Of course, there were their adversaries in the debate who were several hours away in another part of the state. In addition, the judges consisted of:

Tim Charleston @MrCsays - District Technology Coordinator of Green Brook Twp Public Schools - NJ

Tom Murray @thomascmurray - Director of Technology and Cyber Education for the Quakertown Community School District - Bucks County, PA

Annie Taranto @tarantoannie - Literacy Consultant for the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, Columbia University, NY

Frances Ann Squire @FASquire - Jr. High Technology and LA teacher - Prince Edward Island, Canada
******Her entire class viewed and served as judges!

Bruce Arcurio (me) @PrincipalArc - Principal of Bear Tavern Elementary School, Hopewell Twp., NJ

As you can see by my highlighting above, the Google Hangout allowed these two schools to debate with judging from 3 states and a Canadian province! This was a wonderful example of

how technology serves as a means and not an end.  The tech was NOT the ultimate goal. The goal was to allow the students to research and conduct a debate using persuasive techniques. Technology served them in their research and presentation. It allowed for a connection between schools.  In addition, it provided an authentic audience with judges bringing their expertise to the process. It is unlikely that these students would have been able to debate for a similar judging panel live. However, in my case, I was able to close my office door for an hour and participate fully without the time and schedule juggling of going to one of the schools.

I was thrilled that technology allowed me to be a part of this experience and hope to participate next year. As far as I am concerned, the verdict is... Everybody wins in this situation!


What did you do to celebrate Digital Learning Day (#DLDay)?

Related articles

• Happy Digital Learning Day!
• 7 Tuesday Top Topics #DLDay #CommonCore
• Digital Learning Day 2014: K-12 Kids, Tech and You
• Happy Digital Learning Day #DLDay

Evernote, Backchanneling, and Tabs, Oh My!

George Couros

I just read a short post entitled, Stating the Obvious, by George Couros on his blog, The Principal of Change. Basically, the post is about the penchant of adults to complain about how kids are so distracted by their devices, yet when it comes down to it, they are simply doing what adults do when they are bored. I agree with the sentiment that this is stating the obvious; however, it is amazing how many people complain about this phenomenon and don't realize the hypocrisy of it. I guess my post is just expanding upon the idea in Stating the Obvious. By the way, if you don't follow The Principal of Change blog, you should start. I have learned a great deal from reading it.


All of our minds have wandered at meetings and we've opened up our email on our handheld device, tablet, or laptop. When I do that I am generally not engaged in the content of the meeting or session. But, I also want to note that I often use a device and may look as though I am distracted or not paying attention when, in fact, I am actually more engaged than others who may appear to be listening and attending to the teacher or presenter.

First, there is simply using an electronic device to take notes. I hate writing with a pen or pencil. After about the third word, my hand cramps up (likely psychosomatic) and I stop. So, when I am typing on a device, there is an excellent chance I am taking notes in Evernote. This is evident from the blog posts that I have written from my notes after sitting in sessions at Teachers College during their Saturday Reunions. (#TCRWP Saturday Reunion - March 2013 - Laurie Pessah's Workshop, #TCRWP - Cornelius Minor Session on the BYOT Movement, or Depths of Knowledge (DOK) is More Than an Acronym!)


Second, there is backchanneling! Generally, when I am at an #edcamp or #TCRWP session (or any other for that matter) I look for others who are having a conversation about the topic behind the scenes. I find that backchanneling  has provided me with a renewed ability to focus on the points that a presenter is making. When I can tweet out or use some other backchannel to converse about the topic as it is being presented, I am able to better digest the material, wrestle with it, and ultimately engage with it in a deeper way.


Third, I am often finding resources that a presenter is mentioning. There are sessions that I have attended where I have actually ordered a book from Amazon as the presenter had it up on the projector screen. When presenters mention other thought leaders, bloggers, and researchers on the topic being presented, I generally like to pull up a tab in my web browser immediately with the blog or connection so that I can easily find them when I get home.

While I realize that our students in school may not be doing the things I mention above. I think that we should find out what they are doing before we get upset. If they are productively engaging in their own digital way, then we should probably let them keep doing what they are doing. If they are just playing around and doing other things, we should probably try to figure out if it is our instruction that is lacking before we blame the devices.

How do you "pay attention" at meetings and conferences?

Reflections - Post #1

Last year on Super Bowl Sunday I decided that the following day was going to be a new start for me. I was
mainly referring to my health, weight and other related things. However, in making that decision last February, I have found that the past year has provided me with an amazing "refreshed" outlook on life, work, and family.

I wrote a post on December 2nd that gives some detail about my decision to make some changes in my health entitled, HATS,Goals, and Me. This post is a reflection upon the ten months or so leading up to running a 5k on Thanksgiving morning, the satisfaction of reaching that goal, and how it fit in with our school theme this year. The process of the last year has truly made me assess my goals and priorities throughout all aspects of my life.

By Everaldo Coelho and YellowIcon  via Wikimedia Commons

I had to sit down and take a look at all of the things that are on my plate and decide what things are vital to me and what things need to fall by the wayside or need to be postponed.  As I reflected upon this and made a list (I love lists, especially digital lists!); here is what I came up with:

Vital (these are not in order after the first two)
Family
Health
Friends
Work/Educator
Personal Learning and Growth
My PLN
Inner Peace/Faith
New Experiences
Time
Change


Postponed/Wayside (these are not in order at all)
Doctoral Work
Some Home Improvements
Toxic People
Sweating the Small Stuff
Stuff, in general - clutter



Please note that these are fairly broad categories and each has more specific subtopics on my personal list. This post is an introduction to a series of posts I am going to write about the items on the lists above. As I have always said, this blog is a place for me to learn with others by reflecting upon my life and work. So, this may get personal, but I hope that working through these topics here will provide greater clarity for me in the year ahead and maybe ignite a spark for someone else to look at things differently or make a change. As I work through these posts over the coming weeks/months I reserve the right to add to or modify the list as any evolving, reflective thinker might.

On some level this post and those that follow are inspired by @DrSpikeCook. This year he committed to writing a post a day for 365 days. I am not ready for that challenge (maybe next year); however, I wanted to commit to at least a series of posts that would provide direction and focus this year. This is my start. I am sure I will have posts about other things in between, but look for the title, "Reflections" and the post number for the ones in this series.

Please join me and comment along the way. I would greatly appreciate it.

Unannounced Observations

A strange phenomenon is occurring in my school at the moment surrounding unannounced observations. This year, the NJDOE has instituted a new teacher evaluation system for all teachers. One component requires at least one unannounced observation of the three required for tenured staff. This is a departure from past practice in our district. We have generally scheduled our visits. There was never a real sense of urgency to do unannounced observations because administrators work to be in classrooms for walkthroughs anyway, so "unannounced" informal observations were happening fairly regularly.

Our first round of observations completed before the New Year were all announced, but our second round of tenured observations have all been unannounced. This has created a different vibe in the building than I have been used to for the last 11 years. I remember back when I started teaching 20 years ago in a different district where all observations were unannounced; the principal would walk out of his office with his leather portfolio and news would spread like wildfire through the building that he was on the move. It was crazy because usually when he came to your room, you were already teaching and never got the message in time anyway, so you just did your thing and got observed.

Now, I am the principal and over the past several weeks every time I leave my office, I notice people looking to see if I have my iPad in my hands. It has actually become somewhat of a joke where I either hold up my hands to show that I am not "carrying" or I politely remind the teacher looking at my hands that, "my eyes are up here:-)"

Here is the crazy part, I am seeing some great lessons!! I am beginning to think that when teachers have advanced notice of observations they tend to over-think it. I have a wonderful staff who are dedicated to student learning and success every day. Conducting unannounced formal observations has only served to reinforce my belief that our staff "gets it" and that our children are being served well through their efforts. Can all of us improve in some areas? Yes, and that goes for me, the teachers, and anyone reading this post; however, I think that the shift to including an unannounced component to our observation system has been a positive one. I realize this may not be a revelation for those who have always conducted unannounced observations, but it was a wonderful reminder for me!

What do you think? Are your observations announced or unannounced? Which do you prefer? Why?

HATS, Goals, and Me

HUH?!?

Let me explain.

What is HATS?
At our school this year the theme is "HATS off to Learning!" HATS is an acronym for Habits, Attitudes, Talents and Skills.  More specifically:

       strong Habits

     positive Attitudes
celebrating Talents
developing Skills

We have been exploring these concepts during our Morning Meetings, at our Whole School Meetings, and throughout our classroom discussions this year. We even have a bulletin board in the hallway where students and teachers can post pictures that they would like to share of examples of their habits, attitudes, talents, and skills. So, how does this apply to me? As lead learner, it is important that I model what I am asking of the students. I don’t know that I consciously did it, but when I look back on things now, the last 5 months have been a reflection of our school theme for me (actually it is more like 8 months). Once again, let me explain.

New Habits
On Super Bowl Sunday 2013 I made the decision to start eating healthier. I was probably the heaviest that
I have ever been in my life and completely out of shape. I let myself get comfortable in the mindset that I was too busy to worry about my health. So, I decided that night that I was going to eat healthier. I’ve made the mistake of jumping in to this type of thing too quickly in the past and I didn't want to fail, so I figured I would just give the eating thing a try. It worked. I lost some weight and was starting to feel a bit better about things. This was the first STRONG HABIT that I cultivated. I continued this until the school year came to an end and then it was time to really make a decision on how to move forward.

Several months before, I downloaded C25K onto my iPhone; that is a “Couch to 5K” app. It sat on my phone and I opened it from time to time when I was bored; however, I did not really have any intention of using it. However, my PLN (Professional Learning Network) changed that. I went to #edcampphilly in April and met up with a number of people from my twitterverse.  After the event, we went out to celebrate and @sirotiak5, @wkrakower, @misscas22, and @thomascmurray were talking about doing a 5k in the summer (If I missed anyone, my apologies). There was no way that I was in any shape to run a 5k by then, no matter how many times they said I should. BUT, that was the spark that I needed.  I still didn't start running right away, but the seed had been planted!

On July 1st, I decided that I was going to give it a try. I have always hated running and it was definitely something I had never tried before to get in shape. Enter STRONG HABIT number 2. The app says that you will be ready for a 5k in 8 weeks. I say, “Ha Ha Ha!” If I tried that I would have certainly quit early. Fortunately, one of the many runners with whom I work (its like an epidemic at Bear Tavern) said that if I did not feel ready to move on to the next week’s running schedule I should just do the week over again; and again if necessary. That was great advice. By the end of the summer, I would get upset if I missed my running workout at the gym.

Positive Attitude

Somewhere during those two months in the summer, I decided that I needed a goal to attain. Since I had the app and was using it, I guess it was natural to decide on running a 5k. Thanksgiving seemed like a reasonable time-frame and my town has a Turkey Trot every Thanksgiving. So, in August when the registration became available online, I registered. At this point it became real. I told everyone that I knew about it so that I couldn't back out. I genuinely believed that I was going to run a 5k on Thanksgiving. I think it is safe to call that POSITIVE ATTITUDE. Even when I injured my hip and basically could not run for much of October and November (except on the stationary bike or elliptical), I knew that I was going to reach the goal!

Celebrating Talents and Developing Skills
Since my running mantra had always been "I'm not running unless someone is chasing me," it was awkward for me to start celebrating accomplishments in something that I have generally disliked my entire life. However, I found that for some reason my dislike of running actually seemed to make the accomplishments more meaningful. I began to realize that I probably disliked it because I never felt that I was any good at it. The first time I ran for 20 minutes straight I texted my wife with, "I DID IT!" Similar texts ensued as I reached other goals. I don't really know if running is a talent, but I know that I sure began to CELEBRATE it! Additionally, by reaching these goals and increasing my stamina, I was DEVELOPING the SKILL.

The Point(s)
We all need goals, and I found one that helped to spur me on to a healthier lifestyle. I received texts the morning of Thanksgiving from numerous friends and colleagues offering support. Here are a couple texts that I received from teachers at Bear Tavern:

"It is a great morning to run. Enjoy the moment and celebrate the accomplishment. You may not know this, but you've inspired a lot of your teachers - including me. Have fun."

"Happy Thanksgiving. Happy run! Disregard the other runners and have fun - even in the cold - this is what you've trained for. I look forward to hearing about it all." 

I can't convey how amazing it was to receive those messages that morning. I truly work with amazing people who are always there for one another. That morning as the nerves built up and I started to wonder if I was crazy for doing this, these thoughtful notes meant a lot.

I know that running a 5k is not a big deal in the scheme of things, but for me it means a great deal. I proved to myself that I can do it. I truly feel that I acted as an example for my own children and those at Bear Tavern in getting healthier, setting a goal, and working to achieve it. It reminded me of the amazing and supportive people with whom I work everyday. It showed me that my PLN is more powerful than I thought and can foster all kinds of learning. If all of that is not enough, it also showed me that adhering to the ideals in our school theme can help us reach our goals.

So, what should be my next goal....?