ISTE: This Just in: There is More Good!

I know I promised the Ugly in this post, but after today's Keynote Address, I just had to write a new post.  Don't worry, I've got plenty of snark in me; I'm just not ready to unleash it yet.

Christina and I were almost ready to skip the Keynote today after the debacle of opening day, but the Universe steered us toward getting to the conference center just in time to walk in and find a good seat.  I would like to take this moment to thank the Universe for that manipulation because HOLY SHMOLY!

Kevin Caroll opened the conference today, and let me tell you, he makes up for every minute I sat and stewed and endured Ashley Judd.  He was incredible.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Kevin Carroll, founder of Kevin Carroll Katalyst, pointing to what got him started[/caption]

 

Kevin Carroll is a consultant, the most dynamic, positive, and non-specific consultant you can imagine.   Nike paid him for seven years to just be himself.  During that time, he created his job, the position of "Katalyst," someone who serves as a creative agent for change.  I'm not going to copy his whole biography here, but I will give you the link to his page so you can learn about him yourself.

In yesterday's post, "Yesterday was the Good, Today is the Bad," I wrote that ISTE should have considered three requirements of its Keynote Speaker: 1) good public speaking skills, 2)knowledge of education issues, and 3) knowledge of education technology issues.  In my post I wrote that the Keynote Speaker should meet at least two of the three requirements.  Mr. Carroll is a stellar example of someone who was able to tailor his brand to fit the needs of his audience.  He talked about the importance of education--in and out of school.  He talked about embracing play as a way to learn.  He talked about embracing curiosity and the joy of life.  I could go on and on, but I won't.  I encourage you to check out his sources and come to your own conclusions.

Mr. Carroll made me laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time.  Most importantly, he made me proud to be an educator and reinforced my desire to strive to be a better educator and leader.  Thank you Kevin Carroll, and thank you ISTE.

 

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ISTE: Yesterday was The Good. Today is The Bad (and Still some Good).

Quick recap:  Atlanta is beautiful.  I love pie.  Read yesterday's post here.

Let's get right to it, shall we?

THE BAD:  I'm going to try to be as kind as possible with this one, which is so unlike me, but I'm writing this after my first two cups of coffee, so just roll with it.  THE OPENING KEYNOTE.  Were you there?  'Nuff said.  Ok, not really because apparently somebody has to say something since ISTE has NO IDEA who would be appropriate as an opening speaker.  Really, we only needed to fulfill two out of three requirements:  1) Good speaker, 2)  Involved in education, and 3) Involved in education technology.  ISTE is zero for three on this one.  To be fair, I blame ISTE for the choice of speaker, but I blame the speaker herself for that trainwreck of a keynote.  We can't fault ISTE for assuming that a professional actress would be on her A-game for a speaking engagement.  Ms. Judd did not do her homework, and I think that is insulting.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="511"] She looks so poised and professional here. What happened?[/caption]

 

By the way, ISTE, you had a Keynote Speaker right there the whole time:  Why no LeVar Burton?  Judging from the Twitter-clamoring to get into his small session (not to mention my own starstruck wishes), I'm betting that not one person at this conference would have left that hall before the time was up.  We love you, Mr. Burton.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="275"] Look at that man. LOOK AT HIM and tell me he shouldn't have been the Opening Keynote Speaker![/caption]

I am snarky, but I am not a heartless bitch, so I am going to finish this post with a bit of the good.  Yesterday I attended a double session  on using Twitter to engage students.  Adam Taylor gave us some tips on teaching students to connect with professionals through Twitter.  I use Twitter quite a bit, and while I've thought about having my students "interview" writers and other professionals in the language arts field, I've never really thought about how and why I should do it.  Mr. Taylor was very engaging and knowledgeable, and he gave me a lot to consider in teaching my students to leave a presentable "digital tattoo."  Shannon Wentworth led the session on using Twitter to collaboratively write stories, and this is something that I honestly never thought of doing.  I love this idea, and I plan to use it as part of my icebreaker exercises.  I think her session really started me thinking of ways to creatively teach students to use Twitter in my class.  I also love that both sessions emphasize that we need to model professional digital citizenship to our students.  Thank you, ISTE, for giving me the opportunity to participate in these sessions.

Next Post:  The Ugly.

 

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Days 1 and 2 at ISTE: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I had a decision to make, and it was tearing me up inside:  Should I go to Blackboard World in Las Vegas, or should I attend ISTE in Atlanta?  Before you hit me over the head and scream, "LAS VEGAS, YOU MORON!" in my ear, hear me out.

I have attended Blackboard World in 2012 and 2013.  In 2013 (Las Vegas, also) I was a co-presenter and a VIP blogger, so I felt hyper-involved in the whole conference.  I loved the conference both years.  This year Blackboard decided not to go with bloggers, and I didn't prepare a presentation, so I felt like maybe I should try something different.  I had heard lots of buzz about ISTE, and I was very interested in the posted sessions, so I thought I should attend.  After all, I often complained that I didn't get a chance to really see the sights in either of the cities because Blackboard does a fabulous job of keeping attendees busy from early morning until late at night.  I started my days at 5:30 am to work out and get to the first session by 8:00, and my nights usually ended around 11:00 pm because of Blackboard social networking events, all which were included in the conference fees.  Why should I choose the conference in Vegas if I don't get to see Vegas?

Anyway, I arrived in Atlanta yesterday, and I've experienced two days of ISTE, so I have some ongoing observations, which I have sorted into The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.  In today's post I will focus on my good experiences in the first two days.  Let's get to it, shall we?

The Good:  First of all, Atlanta is a beautiful city.  Last night I strolled through Centennial Park where I saw the Olympic torch and a gigantic Ferris wheel.  Children laughed and splashed in the dancing fountains.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="640"] Centennial Park[/caption]

 

My sessions were informative and engaging.  I learned how to use games to engage my students (Brain Pop and Minecraft), Twitter to link my students to professionals and each other, and video to tell stories.  I will write about what I learned from these sessions and others in future posts.

The best part of my first two days in Atlanta has been a surprise.  Christina (the Technology Integration Coach on this blog) and I were tired and cranky, and we wanted pie a la mode.  After walking to a diner to find out that it wasn't a diner but a bar, we came back even crankier than before. . . until we saw the counter of pie in Sway restaurant at the Hyatt Regency.  Sway is a nice place, and we weren't sure they would want to sell us pie a la mode to go, but boy, were we wrong!  The hostess offered us the Bucket of Love, which was a box that we could fill with any dessert we wanted.  It was only nine bucks and it came with enough ice cream for both of us.  Click on the link to see  our Bucket of Love .

While I have enjoyed the Bucket of Love, and I highly recommend that you get one if you ever come to Atlanta, the absolute best part of ISTE so far has been spending some time with Christina, whom I don't get to see as often as I would like.



I will leave you with a happy thought because remember, today is The Good.  Tomorrow I review The Bad.

 

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Get Kahoot!

No, I did not say to get "in Cahoots;" I said, "Get Kahoot!"

Kahoot is an online game quiz that I learned about at the Learn 21 conference this year.  Gamification is the new buzzword in Blended Learning, so there are many apps and websites that incorporate gaming into the classroom.  I try many of them when I'm not overwhelmed with life and work, and Kahoot is a new one that has great potential.

There are many apps that use a quiz format for kill-and-drill.  Quizlet is an early app that my students and I use to create online flashcards that students can study through quizzes like Space Race.  My students and I like the app because they can share their flashcards online.  One possible drawback to Quizlet might be that the quizzes are always individual.  I believe that group activity in review adds excitement and relevance.  This is where Kahoot comes in.

Kahoot allows any user who registers for a free account to create, save, and possibly share online quizzes (multiple choice format).  It is important to note that a central screen/projector is necessary to play this game.  The teacher goes to getkahoot.com to create and access his quizzes (or Kahoots).

This is the screen shot of my collection of Kahoots.

He launches the Kahoot, and the students see a PIN, which they log into their devices after going to kahoot.it.

This is what the students see when they receive the PIN for the Kahoot.  They enter this in their devices.

Students log in with the PIN and they create user names to join the game.  Note:  if a student uses an inappropriate handle, the teacher can boot her with a click of the mouse.  When all students have joined, the teacher starts the Kahoot, and the fun begins.  Students read the question and possible answer choices off the main screen.  Each answer choice is linked to a color (yellow, red, green, blue), and the student simply taps on the color of the correct answer on her device.  The interesting part about this game is that the answer choices do not appear on the students' devices; they must look at the main screen to access the questions and the choices.  This creates a group dynamic that is often missing when students use their devices for quizzes.  Students must focus on one point together rather than look down at their screens individually.  To reinforce this group dynamic, Kahoot flashes a leader board after every question.  Students get points for the correct answer and for speed.

I have used Kahoot many times this semester, and the students have loved it every time.  They discuss the questions and the answers, and I see a real motivation to get the correct answer and get on the leader board.  The best part is that I have the students create my Kahoots after we play the initial game.  They work in groups to create questions and answers for future Kahoots, which strengthens their review of the material and makes less work for me!

Give Kahoot a try--you may decide to replace some of  your Jeopardy-style review games, and your students may be more motivated to learn together.



Stephani Itibrout

Blended Learning Rhetoric and Composition

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A Walk with Blended Learning: Community Service

This morning I ran almost seven miles in Sand Run Metropark.  It was beautiful, hilly, and fast.

This morning I saw eight deer.

I'm not going to write about those experiences.

This morning I joined some of my students to participate in the Medina Walk out of the Darkness Suicide Awareness Event.  A large crowd showed up at 9 am on a chilly but sunny morning to walk 4.5 miles.  That crowd raised over nine thousand dollars, and my students were a part of it.

Part of the philosophy that I embrace about Blended Learning is that it facilitates community involvement.  I want my students to strive to be good citizens of their school, their community, their state, their country, and their world.  Students in my Blended Rhetoric and Composition class chose to fight back against suicide, a heart-breakingly relevent issue in our community.  What I had originally imagined to be a quick project in making videos turned into a large-scale community outreach complete with publicity, fund-raising, donations, interviews, research, and lots of writing.  Click here to see the video my students created to Stomp out Suicide.

Our walk today was a way for us to process everything the students have accomplished this year and to reflect on their involvement in the community and their year in Blended Learning.  I try not to always lead the class; I want them to lead themselves, each other, and me.  It was in this spirit that I encouraged my students to lead the way on the walk.  As they talked, I listened.

The students talked and laughed about Prom.  They poked fun at each other and at me.  Then, as often happens on walks or runs, they got serious.  One student told me why she was glad that she took my course.  She told me that she learned how to be more independent and responsible.  She said she learned to enjoy literature.  Another told me that she felt that our class had bonded more than any of her other classes at the school.

Every one of those students told me that they were so glad to get up and walk together in the sunshine at nine in the morning.



It was perfect.

 

 

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The Power of Collegial Coaching

Last night I edited my last few lines of my final paper for my graduate course, hit the submit button, immediately checked to see that I actually submitted the damned paper, checked again, and then poured myself a glass of wine.  Whew.

[caption id="attachment_298" align="alignnone" width="300"] This is EXACTLY what I was afraid I would see just as I submitted my paper.[/caption]

It was a bumpy ride, this course on Mentoring and Leadership, but I have to say that it was completely worthwhile.  I have been thinking a lot about Leadership lately.  I am currently a mentor for a second-year Resident Educator in Ohio, and it's a big responsibility.  I remember every mentor I've ever had, and it just occurred to me before I took this course that all of my mentors have retired.  Sure, I still visit with them, and they still offer great support, but who is currently my mentor at school?  This is the first step to realizing that I am old.

[caption id="attachment_299" align="alignnone" width="300"] This is EXACTLY how I look when I realize that I am an old teacher.[/caption]

 

 

[caption id="attachment_231" align="alignnone" width="225"] See the resemblance?[/caption]

The model that I often use in my mentoring experiences is that of Cognitive Coaching.  The premise of Cognitive Coaching is that my colleague has the answers to her questions/problems already, but she needs some help to bring them out.  I first learned about Cognitive Coaching when I helped to start our Mentorship Steering Committee in my school district about fifteen years ago.  I find that truly listening and reflecting back a colleague's thoughts gives that person the chance to discover his own truths.  When a teacher can find his own answers, it builds that teacher's sense of efficacy, and that is a large part of the goal of Cognitive Coaching.

Through my Leadership course I learned about Collegial Coaching, a process where two or more colleagues work together to form their own professional development.  This may include reading groups, reciprocal observations and critiques, and group discussions designed to improve teaching and learning.  The premise behind Collegial Coaching is that teachers know what they need to do to improve their classroom performance, but one can not force professional development on a teacher.  Professional development must be relevant, it must be authentic, and it must be clear in its payoff in the classroom.  Overall, teachers want to do what is best for students; if professional development does not offer immediate improvement in this area, teachers will not value it.

My colleagues and I have been formally and informally practicing collegial coaching for years; we just didn't know it.  Rob, the English teacher, sends out a group email at least once a week in which he attaches an article about educational practices or trends in education.  Some of his colleagues meet him for lunch for a lively discussion about the article; the rest of us (who don't eat during that time) weigh in by email or Google docs.  Our Blended Learning Pioneer Team meets weekly to discuss Best Practices in Blended Learning.   This is a practice started by our original  Tech Integration Administrator (Shout out to Stacy!), and our current Instructional Tech Coach (Christina) continues the practice.  Shannon (the Blended Learning Social Studies Teacher) and I meet nearly every day, or every night in a Facebook chat, to go over our trials and tribulations (See my post Snookledorp Means Camaraderie.) and rehash our day in the classroom.  In all of these practices, we continually challenge ourselves and each other, and the discussions can get heated.  The best part about Collegial Coaching in my building is that it all comes down to one question:  How is this good for kids?  We may have differences of opinion about many educational topics, but we all agree that our ultimate goal is to be the best teachers we can be to serve our students.

Last week Christina and I participated in a professional development session at Purcell Marian High School in Cincinnati.  We saw a group of dedicated teachers who were in the same boat we were in three years ago: they can see the headlights of the big Mack truck that is called Blended Learning, and they want to drive the truck instead of getting run over by it.

[caption id="attachment_300" align="alignnone" width="300"] My name is Blended Learning, and unless you can drive me, I'll mow you down![/caption]

 

We spent the day listening to them, and we heard our own voices from three years ago.  The difference now is that we know we have something to share with these teachers.  Three years ago we didn't know what the hell we were doing, and it seemed like there was no mentor for us.  Today I am thankful that there is an ever-expanding Blended Learning network in Ohio and, via Twitter, in the world.  This is what we were able to introduce to our colleagues, mentors who are willing to encourage, critique, and share.  What we saw at Purcell Marian was the beginning of great Collegial Coaching.  These teachers have the will to examine themselves and their practices with a critical eye, and they have the sense of efficacy to know that they can create a learning environment that is good for kids.

My colleagues at Purcell Marian made me hopeful for the next step in Collegial Coaching in our own district.  How can teachers provide even more leadership through professional development?  How can we be the leaders we need in our classrooms, our schools, our district?  How can we continually question our practices with the idea of what is good for kids?

This is an exciting thought for someone who believes in encouraging efficacy, who believes that she and her colleagues can create their own intellectually and creatively stimulating environment.

Rock on, Purcell Marian Friends.  You have inspired me to fight the good fight in education.

Stephani Itibrout

Blended Rhetoric and Composition

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Change Is. . .

This week I was part of a team of teachers who led a professional development day at Beaver Local School District.  Even though I have presented at three conferences, a board meeting, and a podcast, I was nervous as hell.  A dark secret we all know is that teachers can be the worst audience.  They can be critical, disinterested, or downright rude.  There are many reasons for this, but I attribute the main reason to the fact that professional development offered to us usually sucks.  There, I said it.



Kent Polen, Superintendent of Beaver Local SD, invited us to present for his waiver day.  He gave us very open-ended instructions, but one thing he told us really interested me:  Beaver Local is building a completely new school district.  Their teachers and students are highly involved in the whole process, from working with the architects to researching programs and technology for future use.  Kent told us, "We can't create a completely new building on the outside and do the same thing we've always done on the inside.  We need to change with the times."  There is nothing more fearful and at the same time exciting to me (and many other teachers) than those words.

Change is good.  It is exciting, stimulating.  Change is bad.  It is stressful, worrisome.  Oh boy, I know this.

Three years ago, I started a wrestling match with Change called Blended Learning.  My principal asked me to be a part of our Blended Learning Pioneer Team, and I said yes.  I didn't even know what Blended Learning was, and so I started a year of research.  The whole time I was convinced that I was learning to develop technology in the classroom that would eventually replace me.  What changed my mind was good professional development:  Blackboard World, OETC, Learn 21, Twitter, and the fascinating blogs and articles written by my colleagues.  I learned that there is a time and place for technology, and I learned that sometimes I can relinquish control of my students' path to learning.  I am learning to be a guide who participates in the journey rather than a travel agent who delivers a completely planned itinerary.  Three years later, I am still here, and I am still teaching and learning right along with my students.

Back to the professional development session.  I taught three sessions about using Web 2.o tools (see our Google site with links here) and one session on Google docs.  The Beaver Local teachers were outstanding: kind, eager, energetic, and FUN!  I gained some experts in my Twitterverse (@Kentpolen, @AmyWolski, @mrjcongo), and I learned to expand my thinking about instruction to other subjects and grade levels.

I would like to thank my colleagues at Beaver Local School District for reminding me how scary and exciting change can be.  I would like to thank Kent Polen for being on the cutting edge of change for his school district.  Finally, I would like to thank my Medina colleagues for encouraging change.  When Christina (Technology Integration Coach, formerly The Math Teacher on this blog) told us about this opportunity, I said, "I don't know what I can offer."  She and Shannon (The Social Studies Teacher on this blog) looked at me like I was insane (shhhhh. .  .Let this one go.) and reminded me of things I had learned that, instead of taking for granted, I should be sharing with my colleagues.  Thank you for reminding me that I do contribute.

Change is. . .Necessary.

 

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