NJASCD/MSU New Teacher Bootcamp Presentation

Below are my slides from the NJASCD North/Montclair State University New Teacher Bootcamp Keynote.  It was a wonderful morning and the prospective teachers at MSU were a great audience with some thought provoking questions.  I truly enjoyed my visit.

#edcampphilly 2013 - Simply Wonderful!

Yesterday was a fantastic day of learning and connecting at #edcampphilly!  I went back to my edcamp roots and made sure that I was in attendance at this one.  Last year I went to edcampphilly 2012 and it sparked an interest in becoming more involved in the edcamp movement.  I subsequently attended #edcampleadership 2012 and then helped to organize  #edcampNJ 2012.  Now I am currently working with the same group of amazing educators to plan #edcampNJ 2013 which will take place at Linwood Middle School in North Brunswick, NJ on November 23rd.  But, I digress.

As is always the case when I attend an edcamp, I feel reinvigorated and connected by others who are passionate about education and the things that they are doing with children in their classrooms and schools.  Connecting with many of my PLN members from Twitter is also another great benefit of attending.  As @wkrakower tweeted yesterday in response to a tweet about conversations at edcamp:

There were so many amazing sessions to choose from that it was a shame that I could only pick four.  Check out the list of offerings that the participants facilitated throughout the day on the schedule document.  This year the #edcampphilly team added shared Google Docs for each session so that participants could take notes together during and after the sessions.  You can find those on the schedule, as well. (great idea!)  Here are some thoughts about the sessions that I attended.

Session 1: Taking Genius Global - facilitated by Angela Maiers

The conversation in @AngelaMaiers session "Taking Genius Global" was inspirational.  Her passion for giving children a place, a "global refrigerator," to post projects about which they have a passion is powerful.  I am awed by the stories of how the global connection that is afforded us by current technologies allows for students' visions of change in the world to become reality.  As I listened and participated in the conversation with Angela, it became clear to me that we have the opportunity to provide children with the connections that would normally only be found at $1000 a plate cocktail fundraisers.  The ability to connect with people who have the means to make projects and dreams a reality is right there in the palm of our hands (literally)!  Please take a moment to check out the Choose2Matter website and find out how you can get involved.  Here is the link to the Google Doc from the session.  There are a number of great resource links in it.  Thank you Angela, it was inspirational. You Matter!

Session 2: Preventing the Zombie Apocalypse - facilitated by Gerald Aungst

The presentation and conversation led by @geraldaungst was clever and apropos.  While there is a fascination with the fictional Zombie Apocalypse (The Walking Dead, etc.), it is clear that we can foster this same, very real, phenomenon in our schools and classrooms if we do not engage students.  When we as teachers cause/allow them to disengage, we are part of the virus that creates those zombies.  A strong discussion ensued around several key questions:

Should teachers be entertainers?
Who owns the engagement? Students? Teachers? Admins? etc.?

What is the difference between "instructors" and "teachers"?
Are those students engaged who are just chasing GPAs?

Gerald caused us to truly think about so many things surrounding the topic of engagement even beyond those questions.  The room was very lively with discussion.  We also learned about the "diseases" of Elementitis and Aboutitis which are discussed in David Perkins' book Making Learning Whole. If you want some additional insight into this session, check out the Google Doc with shared notes.

Lunch
I mention lunch because it is such a worthwhile time to spend with colleagues discussing the morning sessions and a whole host of other topics.  Enjoying food and conversation is a great way to learn and grow together.

Session 3: PBL in the K-5 Classroom (What does it look like? How does it happen? What are the tech tools to use?) - facilitated by Diana Potts

This discussion led by @pottsedtech helped to highlight the planning and thought processes needed to adapt Project Based Learning to elementary school content and students.  Diana highlighted the need to have a "driving question" to guide the work. Additionally, the discussion touched on Wiggins' UBD concepts and working with a backward design.  What is your desired outcome? --- How do we get there?  She shared a great resource for all things PBL, the Bucks Institute for Education.  One of my big takeaways from this session was the following:

Don't stand in the way of student learning.  Often we limit the students by our expectations. Students learn how to hide their learning for fear of failure, instead of risk-taking.

PBL requires risk-taking and failure is part of the process.  Students don't need to be ashamed if something does not work, they need to learn from it and redesign their project.  This is reality learning!  We also need to keep reminding ourselves and the children that when infusing technology into PBL, technology is anything that solves a problem and had to be designed.  Finally, it was clear the PBL is certainly not easy; however, the "Aha moments" are exciting and it brings out the creativity and the best in our students!  For more see the Google Doc of shared notes.

Session 4: Creating the schools we need vs maintaining the schools we have - A brainstorm on professional learning - facilitated by Mike Ritzius

This discussion was unique in that @mritzius was leading a discussion while working to highlight both the form and content of the session.  We were immediately focused on the participant driven nature of Mike's session and how our personal experience and knowledge made up the "value" of the session.  We wrestled with the ideas of balancing the "have to's" of professional learning (new teacher eval systems, common core, state mandates, technology mandates, etc.) and the "want to's" or participant interest topics.  The questions that we discussed can be found in the Google Doc.  Some of my musings during the session included:

I think it is important to note the fact that I (and many other folks) tweet our ideas and questions and thoughts during the sessions because one of the things this session covered was the different ways that people participate in professional learning.  I am not sure that I could fully benefit from pd anymore if I was not "back channeling" or communicating with others in a focused, related, "side conversation."  However, that is not for everybody.

This session capped off a day of exhausting, rewarding, exciting professional learning.  To top it all off, I learned about some new apps and tools with which I was not familiar during the closing Smackdown!  Before we headed home we also joined the organizers and other participants for a Tweetup afterward at a local restaurant.

Thank you to all of the organizers and attendees this past Saturday for a great experience.  Specifically, thanks to my #njed tweeps for connecting and learning together.  Even more specifically, thanks to @wkrakower, @sirotiak02, and @MissCass22 for two great car rides there and back!

As I have said before, if you have a chance to go to an #edcamp, you should jump at it.   The worst possible thing is that you may spend a Saturday and learn with some great people. The best thing that could happen is you find a whole new model for professional learning that feeds your mind and your passion for teaching and learning!

I hope to see everyone at #edcampNJ on November 23, 2013 in North Brunswick.

Related articles

• My First EdCamp: #edcampPhilly Reflections (drstaub.wordpress.com)
• Hot Pocket Leadership: The Edcamp Movement as a Case Study (educationismylife.com)
• My First EdCamp (primarytechblog.com)
• Knapp Elementary Hosting ParentCamp To Help Parents, Teachers Connect (ptotoday.com)
• EDcamp experience (educatorsforabetterbuffalo.wordpress.com)
• My First EdCamp in Boston! (karenmahon.com)
• My First Edcamp Experience (teachthrutech.com)
• How to Make PD Better (mrerichills.wordpress.com)
• #YouMatter Movement with Angela Maiers (educationismylife.com)

Balancing 21st Century Writing with Tradition

This afternoon we had a half day professional development program.  The district allotted the time in the Elementary Schools for the grade level teachers from all schools to get together and work on creating and preparing for common benchmark assessments.  The grade level with which I worked already finished creating its benchmark assessment in reading for the second marking period.  Over the course of the next week the teachers will be giving the assessment to the students.  So, today we spent some of our time calibrating our holistic scoring practices by reading several passages and real student open-ended responses and scoring them using the NJ Open Ended Response Rubric.  Overall, the group did a wonderful job and was fairly consistent in their scoring of the responses.

While this was a successful exercise and I believe it prepared the teachers for the work of the next week and a half, it was one particular discussion that caused my mind to race for the rest of the afternoon.  One of the teachers was having a difficult time with the responses because the grammar, punctuation, and overall writing mechanics were poor, yet these responses did not receive the lowest scores.  How could this be?

Well, on a basic level it is fairly simple.  These open ended responses are designed to gauge reading and comprehension ability, not writing ability.  There is a writing portion of the test that takes care of that.  So we looked at the rubric and really studied what each of the four points asked and were able to come to agreement on the higher scores even though the writing did not reflect strength in traditional composition techniques.

The reason I wrote everything above was to give background for this part of the post.

Some teachers were lamenting the demise of the rules of writing and saddened by the comment that these responses, which were drawn from an online bank of past test questions and response, made on the state of traditional writing.  As I saw the pain in one particular teacher's face and felt for her (by the way, she is a wonderful teacher and her students are well prepared), I couldn't help but feel a bit differently.

In the interest of full disclosure I must say that I was a high school English teacher and I taught the 5 paragraph essay religiously to my students. I understand the mechanics of writing; however, I feel that sometimes we hold on to the past at the expense of the future.  Let me explain what I mean.

1. 5 Paragraph Essays - When was the last time you wrote one?  I am not saying that we shouldn't all learn to write them, but realistically we learn to write them in elementary school so that we can write them in middle school so that we can write them in high school so that we can write them in college so that we can write them.... where?  Not really anywhere.  I am sure all of the professional essayists out there are quite angry with me right now and I know that learning to write those essays helps me in all of the writing that I do now, but I wonder if I needed to learn that form of writing or if some other form would serve me just as well.

2. Mechanics, Punctuation, etc.- All of these things are important to learn.  Writing generally makes little sense if one does not have a grasp of these concepts; however, sometimes we focus on these things so much that we do so at the expense of thinking and creativity.  Writing is not proper form.  Writing is thinking.  I have brilliant students in my school who will likely be innovators of the future that will change the world; however, if we hold back their creativity because they don't conform to our rules of writing we may never get to see that.

3. Indenting- Another focus of the discussion was the loss of indented paragraphs.  Most of the responses that we were scoring (as well as several typewritten examples we found in a book) were written in block paragraphs with no indentations.  This was troublesome to some teachers.  I made the comment that this particular convention of writing is not as important in many areas of modern writing.  Take the blog for example.  If you surf through many blogs you will find that there are many who indent and many who don't.  The key in blogging is relating to your audience, not necessarily traditional form. (I hope that I am still relating to you.)  By the way, in 2013 blog writing is a more likely activity of the average person than most forms of writing that would require a 5 paragraph essay.

4. Tradition- Now here is the real controversial point.  I would lay odds that moving forward our current students will interact with their writing in an increasingly dynamic fashion rather than a static traditional fashion.  What I mean is that  we are all becoming increasingly comfortable and fluent in the dynamics of electronic reading.  As you read through this post there are hyperlinks to various terms.  These links will take the reader to a different location to gain more information about various topics.  Additionally, there are graphics included in the blog to bring certain concepts to life.  In many electronic writing pieces there are also links to videos that illustrate points in the writing.  What I am saying is that writing has become dynamic and interactive rather than static.  Who knows, maybe even writing in 140 characters or less is an art form to be appreciated by writing teachers?

5. Shakespeare- The works of Shakespeare are considered classics.  I taught his plays and he is one of my favorite writers.  Based upon Shakespeare's understanding that writing was a medium to bring ideas to life whether on the page or on the stage, I have to believe that if he had the tools of the 21st Century at his disposal, he would have exploited those tools.  Hey, not everyone liked Shakespeare's writing as is evident when Robert Greene wrote in Greene's Groatsworth of Wit Bought with a Million of Repentance, 

Cover of William Shakespeare

"There is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country."

In the passage Greene is complaining of a young upstart Shakespeare who is an actor that thinks he can write as well as the educated writers of the time.  It sounds like Greene was a bit of a traditionalist and Shakespeare was shaking the foundations of his world. Hmmm...

6. The Dictionary- So why does the dictionary keep getting bigger every year?  As time marches on new words are introduced.  We add words to our collective lexicon when they become ubiquitous in our culture. Words like "blog" or "crunk".  If you want to see some that are being considered check out here.  Once again, if we stuck with tradition there would be no progress; we wouldn't be able to just "Google" something, we'd have to "find something by searching with an electronic search thingy."

I guess the point of this post is that I think that we have to remember that some of the greatest developments in language come from accepting the changes that the future brings.  We must defend the rules of writing to a point, but not to the point that we hamper the creativity of thought.  Let me be clear, I know the tasks for which we must prepare our students and I am committed to doing so; however, I would rather see a child who can think, create, problem solve, infer and demonstrate it through a visual representation than one who can't but can write a nice paragraph.  Is that crazy?

2012: edcampNJ and so much more! A good year for NJeducators!

The first edcampNJ took place on Saturday, December 1, 2012. This event was a labor of love for a number of people (see photo below).  I know at least one person is missing from the photo, but you get the picture.  For me the journey to December 1st started almost a year earlier when I decided to start using Twitter for professional purposes.  My first attempt in 2008 was traditional and did not provided me with much value; however, the second go around gave me a whole new perspective on the world of education and the people who are out there simply working to connect and learn from one another!

edcampNJ team

As I began to connect with some amazing educators, a sort of cadre of New Jersey folks began to form.  It was nothing formal, just a bunch of people from the Garden State who seemed to have similar interests in connected learning and personal/professional improvement.  After some time, the bonds among strangers became stronger and things like #NJED came about.  Wow, New Jersey educators had their own twitter chat (1st and 3rd Tuesdays @8:30pm EST). +Dana Sirotiak and +Bill Krakower took it upon themselves to  get things rolling and start bringing us together.  I had the privilege of co-moderating one of the earlier chats on preparedness for the Common Core.  Honestly, it was exhilarating connecting with all of these other people in my own state who were as jazzed about this stuff as me!

After some time, I connected with +Jeffrey Bradbury who created and runs TeacherCast, an amazing resource site for all educators.  Jeff's vision and tech skills helped to foster even greater connection between New Jersey educators.  He began podcasting about #njed and more people started to become a part of the fold.  Some of the people in this group had been to some wonderful professional development days that took place on Saturdays, didn't cost anything, and were participant driven, called edcamps.  After some back and forth on twitter, it seemed like we needed to meet to discuss the ideas.  A meeting was organized on Big Marker.  After our first meeting we began to meet more frequently on both Big Marker and Google+ Hangout. Between the focused discussion and the laugh-out-loud fun we were having, the group seemed to gel and the decision was made that we needed to have our own edcamp: edcampNJ.

edcampphilly team

edcamp leadership team

This is the point where things truly changed for me.  I met up with Dana and Bill and we drove down to edcampphilly.  This experience changed the way that I look at professional development.  You can see my reaction in this post from June of this year.  After initially hearing about the edcamp movement, I was intrigued and interested in being a part of organizing one; after attending an edcamp, I was hooked.  Soon after, I registered for edcampleadership, which took place in July and thought about attending edcampNY, but it conflicted with Teachers College Readers and Writers Project Saturday Reunion.

In the meantime, some other amazing educators began a venture that was spurred on by their love of twitter and its power to bring people together.  +Scott Rocco and +Brad Currie co-founded #Satchat.  As per its facebook page, "Satchat is a weekly discussion on Twitter that takes place every Saturday morning at 7:30EST.  School leaders from all areas of education are welcomed.  Feel free to sip and chat." +Bill Krakower joined on as a co-moderator and the discussions are phenomenal each week.  I couldn't believe that others would get up at 7:30am on Saturday morning to have educational dialogue, but they did and #Satchat has grown to include a West Coast version that takes place 3 hours later.  Once again, New Jersey educators making a statement in 2012.

These are just some of the things that happened in #njed and led up to the hosting of #edcampnj. at Linwood Middle School in North Brunswick, NJ.  After doing my small part with the crew to organize the event and working that morning to set up, it was heartwarming to see that 200+ participants showed up for a day of professional learning.  A live #satchat was held to kick off the day, Teachercast was creating videos of events and sessions throughout the day, a Guidebook app was created to assist participants, the session board filled and we needed to open additional rooms, and a great time was had by all connecting and learning.  New Jersey educators showed their support for victims of Hurricane Sandy through the purchase of t-shirts and a toy drive for Toys for Tots.  Please visit the #edcampNJ site for more information and pictures! You won't be disappointed. Here are two reactions to the day:  +Damian Bariexca: EdcampNJ Two Weeks Later and Kate Baker: My EdcampNJ Highlights.  Please add any others in the comments section below. Now it is only another 11 months or so until edcampNJ 2013!  Check out the great photos by +Kevin Jarrett and other from the 1st edcampNJ!

As if all of that were not enough, +Jeffrey Bradbury also started another NJ virtual gathering place after edcampNJ to help facilitate even greater New Jersey connections.  If you have not checked out jerseyeducation.com, you need to do so.  This is a new landing spot for New Jersey educators to connect and learn.  Jeff has been working tirelessly to make this a functional and valuable tool for New Jersey educators.  It is a community that will grow and looks to provide a one-stop location for all of the needs of the NJ educator!

I must add a little disclaimer to this post.  It has been a crazy year.  I haven't touched on half of the amazing things that have changed my perspective on connected learning and education in general during 2012, so if I got some of the events/facts above out of order, please forgive me.  It is hard to keep all of these great things straight.

I am proud to be a New Jersey Educator and I am looking forward to an even better 2013!

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Yes, Another "I Love Evernote" Post

I know, it's nothing new, but I have really started to hit my stride in using it and wanted to share. I know that I don't even use half of the features that Evernote includes yet I am still blown away by this phenomenal principals' companion.  Let me start by saying that I have tried many note-taking apps and programs in search of the one with which I could finally settle down and have a long and happy life.  I may be overstating this a bit; however, among tools for doing my job more efficiently, Evernote is one of the best that I have found.

 There are many reasons that I have gravitated toward this tool as a staple in my electronic toolbox.  As a principal I work with immense amounts of text, media, and information.  Having a place to organize this is essential.  I am working to transition from the lovely piles on my desk to a virtual set of piles, files, and baskets.  Evernote gives me a place to store everything.  At this point, I actually get a little annoyed when I am handed paper.  Eventually, I will pull everyone else along.

If you are interested in how another principal has encouraged teachers to use Evernote as a tool in the Balanced Literacy program, check out this post by Tony Sinanis (@Cantiague_Lead).   I am focusing solely on administrative uses.  Hopefully you will find one that makes sense to you.

1.  Principal's Log -  I have always had trouble keeping track of my office notes.  These include my call log/notes, investigation notes, and general notes on daily events.  One of the difficulties that I always found with the old paper notebook method of keeping a call log was that I needed to remember the date or sift through pages of notes to find the notes for which I was looking.  With Evernote I keep my notes in folders by year and each note is named using the same convention "PL-Month-Day-Year."  So if I know the date, it is easy to find.  However, when I don't know the date, I can simply type the name of the student in the search box in Evernote and it will bring up all notes with that name in it.  This function is priceless.  Additionally, the notes that I keep for disciplinary investigations are easier to search and store.
2. Meeting Notes - When I go to administrative meetings I use Evernote to take and store all of my important notes.  I can tag them so that they are easier to search later.  If I don't get an electronic agenda and I don't want to add the paper one to my pile, I take a picture of the agenda and put it right in the note.  I always leave meetings with action items, so making bulleted lists in Evernote is a lifesaver.
3. PD Notes - Evernote has changed the way that I take notes at workshops and PD sessions. With my iPad, I have a true multi-media note-taking system.  I add photos from presentations in real-time.  If the presenter is moving through slides too quickly this can be a great help.  I can also use the voice recorder if it is late in the day and typing is not high on my list.
4. Idea Bank -  I use Evernote as a bank of ideas for all aspects of my professional life.  I have numerous folders as you can see in the screen shot to the right.  When I have time I go through the folders and sift through the ideas for use at a later date.  The most valuable feature in making this happen is the Web Clipper.  When ever I am online on my computer, iPad, or iPhone, I can "clip" an article, a webpage, or a link and put it in an Evernote folder.  This makes it easy to keep all notes on a particular topic, like "faculty meeting ideas," in one place.
5. Always With Me Notebook - I think one of the best features is that it syncs across all of my devices.  I have Dropbox, which does the same thing, but in Evernote, I can take the notes, whereas in Dropbox I can only store files.

I have not found a need for the paid version.  I didn't think that 60megs of uploading per month was very much; however, I haven't even come close to using it.  I am sure that would not be the case for many people.

As I said in the beginning, Evernote is nothing new and there are plenty of posts out there about how great it is, but this is mine and I hope that just as I stumbled across someone's post and found Evernote could work for me, you may find some uses that you did not see before.

I would love to hear some of your uses for Evernote.  If you have any to share, please post in the comments.



 

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