LOA Diaries: What part of Leave and Absence don't I Understand?

When I had first requested leave, I told our Asst. Sup. of Human Resources (HR) I'd be willing to do part time work. In early October I was approached with two opportunities within Cambrian, in addition to my BTSA coaching. Both are totally in line with the kind of work I like to do, so, of course, I said yes, and my mother asked my to clarify my definition of part time. 

Steindorf

One of the reasons I decided no to retire, but just take a LOA is the fact that next year Cambrian is opening a new k-8 school, Steindorf STEAM School. I've been on the teacher steering committee for the past two years and was hoping to keep my fingers in the pie. I was invited to attend the first planning meeting this year and was happy to make time to attend.  A couple of weeks later I was approached by Steindorf's principal, +Kristi Schwiebert and asked, since I had some time on my hands, if I could help with the website and communications for Steindorf.  It is by no means a guarantee of an offer to teach there, but it's a great opportunity to stay involved with this exciting project. 

Film Club

I was with Kristi at the DO (district office) being trained on the intricacies of Schoolwires, our website platform, by our new Director of instructional Technology, +Dr. William Jenkins . I'd been on the hiring committee and was happy that's he accepted our offer.  Will complimented me on the work I did facilitating last years' Digital Media Academy. Then he asked if I would be interested in leading the transition of the work from a teacher focused academy to student focused Film Clubs. He also suggested I might be tapped to lead some sessions at Cambrian University, our new voluntary teacher tech training program. How could I say no? I love this stuff!

More Coaching

Then just this week I was asked if I could coach two more teachers, new long term subs, through assessments, report cards and conferences...Just. Say. No. But since I need to do the same thing for my new teachers...

I am not at all complaining about the opportunities presenting themselves to me. In fact, I am thrilled. They afford me the opportunity to keep my skills fresh, stay in contact with people i enjoy working with and provide me with a little extra spending money. Perhaps my new title should be Teacher-At-Large. When I decided to "not work" this year, I was so worried about having too much time in my mind, now I'm not sure I'm getting enough time to just sit and be.

LOA Diaries: BTSA

About two weeks before school started I received a call from the district HR department asking if I'd consider being a coach for new teachers. A BTSA Supporting Teacher. BTSA stands for Beginning Teacher Support and Induction.  It's a great program designed to help teachers navigate the first two years of teaching. I had an amazing mentor, +Kristi Schwiebert who I'm lucky to still have as a colleague and friend. 

I did my research and determined it would generally take one day a week which was about how much time I wanted to commit. I felt it would show good faith to a district that had treated me well when I needed it most. I said yes and the following Monday attended training and on Tiesday met two of the three teachers I'd be supporting. I meet with them individually once a week and have complete flexibility in my schedule except for required monthly meetings.

I have found the work to be incredibly rewarding. The teachers' enthusiasm is infectious and they are eager to learn and grow as educators. I get to spend some time with students as well. I support a kindergarten, fifth grade and middle school teacher in our small k-8 district. I knew I was making a difference when I arrived on campus last week and one of my participating teachers threw open her arms, greeted me with a big hug and whispered with relief, "you're here!"

Kindness Matters: Writing with StoryLines Pages & Edmodo

I partner teach 36 fifth graders with +sheila monger , our inclusive education teacher (some would call her an SDC teacher, she would not). We encompass rooms 7 & 8 so we call ourselves Team Seight. If you were to come in when we are all in the same room, you would not know who was officially assigned to each teacher.  +Edmodo has been a great tool for connecting our students in authentic ways, and preparing them for the world of social media in a safe and controlled environment. This year a theme at our school has been kindness, so using StoryLines Pages, an app in Edmodo, we created a Kindness Matters Book for each student.  

StoryLines Pages is a collaborative classroom activity where students learn the power of compliments and encouragement. Inspired by the story "All Good Things", by Sister Helen Mrosla, StoryLines Pages has each student in your class creating a page for each other student, expressing something he appreciates about his classmate.With this app, each student writes a “page” (one sentence) about every other student in our class. We read the short, true (verified by Snopes) story by Sister Helen and then the kids got to work. Some of my findings as we worked on this project:

• All students participated, and I had a quick snapshot of who was or wasn’t working on their pages, using the overall status page

• As I went through and reviewed students’ pages, I was able to see common mistakes, trends and areas of need. For example, this student consistently used capital letters incorrectly. Many of my students are still misusing the contraction of you are, spelling it Y-O-U-R.  Several of my students had difficulty writing in the first person, present tense.

• It was extremely rewarding for me to read the comments that my students made about all of their classmates. Never once was a comment checked “It is not nice” because it was mean. Some of our ED kids did have challenges differentiating between a statement (You play with me at recess. vs I like when you play with me at recess.) However, overwhelmingly, the students really had surprisingly nice things to say about each other.

• One of my students on a 504 has significant challenges starting work.  He will sit and stare into space. I was very worried about what other students would say about him, there just doesn't seem to be much 'there-there' from a 10 year old’s perspective, or so I thought.  I was delighted to see pages such as “You respect others, You are smart and funny (he is, when he speaks), You are a good listener, You are good at sitting still when others are talking. You are polite, respectful to others and very quiet in class.”  None of these things are untrue and I just loved seeing how they took a behavior that can be difficult and saw the positive in it! I learned a lesson myself from these kids (well,honestly they teach me something every day)

• The app was incredibly easy for me to use, and even easier for the kids.  Because often the same child would make the same errors repeatedly, I could cut and paste my review comment, and they got practice correcting these problem areas.

• I did have a few students think they could just cut and paste and make the same comment to multiple classmates. Because I would review all of the pages by a given student at one time, it was pretty easy to catch this and comment back to them to be original and be specific.

• Once most of the Storylines Pages ages are done, we will go ahead and publish the book. Students will receive a link that they can choose to share outside of Edmodo.

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I am eagerly awaiting the smiles and happy sighs when the students read the kind words said about them. As a parent, I know I would cherish seeing the kindness extended toward my child through such a project.  As a teacher of students with a wide range of abilities, it was great to find an activity that all students could participate in equally. This activity also served as a great formative assessment and gave me insights into student needs. Finally, it was just sweet and this time of year, in fifth grade, we can all use a little sweet!

Technology and inclusive education practices

co authored with Sheila Monger

More often than not, students are asked to read, discuss and write about their studies at school.  I ask, “what about those who do not read, do not use a common language or cannot write?” Demonstration of knowledge in the classic school room is narrow and predictable.  Those who did not participate have traditionally been marginalized. 

Until now.

This year, the two of us, Ms. Monger and Ms. McConnell, joined the teaching staff at Bagby.  Ms. Monger teaches a 3-5 combo and Ms. McConnell teaches 4th grade.  Between the two of us we bring a depth and breadth of experience working with students with unique learning needs.  In the first staff meeting of the year, we both signed up to be on this new committee that no one knew much about, called CreaTV.  We soon found out it would be a wonderful way for us to spotlight the collaborative work that our students were doing.  Since the beginning of the year, our students have been learning together about PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports) as well as all academic areas.  Ms. Monger also co-teaches with teachers in 5th and 3rd grade so that all students have access to their own grade level content and peers. We have created CreaTV segments highlighting some of our kids' projects, such as Squash Day, Stream Tables, Stone Soup with Ms. Montes’ class, literature study with Ms. Makinson's class and Smoothies with Ms. Lauck's class.   All of these segments, and more, have been broadcast on DirectTV channel 28 to communicate with our community about the exciting programs happening Around Bagby.

In April, we were accepted into to the Cambrian iPad Academy, a 1:1 program where each student is assigned an iPad. We are investigating apps and processes helping to set the stage for developing 21st century students and leaders throughout the district.  We were both a little worried that our kids would bury their heads in their iPads and never interact again. We were surprised and excited to learn that this was far from the truth.  It is inspiring to see students from our classes working together to create projects, to teach each other, to learn and to share.  Students are storytelling, teaching, and creating using this innovative tool.

Technology has been a great way for us to engage our students and provide them with differentiated tools to allow them to create, collaborate, problem solve and inspire!

Bagby, along with Cambrian School District, has reinvented what it means to demonstrate knowledge and share experiences within the community.  By using technology such as SMART boards, Podcasts, CreaTV, and the co-teaching model in the iPad academy, Bagby has proven that all students are learners and contributors to success.  These tools help provide a vehicle for learning, collaboration and demonstration of that learning in unique and creative ways.  

Lead3.0

This weekend I went to a two day conference, Lead3.0 put in by TICAL, CUE andACSA (my cousin, George Manthey is the  the Assistant Executive Director of Educational Services, of ACSA and the event co-organizer, an amazing guy).  

The first session I attended talked about Common Core Standards. The second session was near and dear to my heart.How Two Superintendents Collaboratively Launched an Initiative to Maximize Classroom Effectiveness in the Digital Age

Dr. Jacqueline M. Horejs, Superintendent, Union School District & Dr. Deborah L. Blow, Superintendent, Cambrian School District: Aware of the importance of collaboration as a 21st Century skill, Dr. Debbie Blow.. and Dr. Jacqueline Horejs, ... decided to initiate a 21st Century Digital Media Academy to provide professional development for teachers in both of our districts.  Teachers from each district applied and were selected to participate in a year long academy to learn how to effectively use digital media in their classrooms.  ...  Management team members are also collaborating on book studies including Trilling and Fadel’s 21st Century Skills, and workshops on the effective classroom use of iPads.

It was so cool to hear Dr. Blow talk about what we are doing and I honestly have never felt more proud of my school district! It was interesting to hear some of the background behind the thinking of the Academy concept & design, which basically is "feeding the rabbits" or as my previous Superintendent called us, "fire-starters".  Find the people who want to use it, they will use it and thus excite and teach others.


The keynote speaker at lunch was Alan November. If you ever get a chance to hear him speak, DO IT! Here are some notes I took, but doesn't really do him justice. If you have time - watch the video recording they made.http://novemberlearning.com/

• Teach by asking not telling
• Unlearning misconceptions is a phenomenally difficult thing to do.
• Math train.tv 6th grade teacher site .for kids to make movies about math.  We so have to do this
• Teach not only content but courage.  We have to teach them to be fearless learners.  Global publishing.
• Children would prefer content provided by children when they are learning something new.
• Unleash an army of creative problem solvers creating problem solving across the curriculum.   Kids work for free.
• Check out Prime factorization by bob on Mathtrain.tv.  She says she learns more doing the videos that the kids watching because she "really has to learn it."
• Kid who per teacher is not a Good 6th grade because she is lazy, as to why she is not doing school work but literally publishing content to a world-wide audience, "I have to decide, do I publish for my teacher or for the world?"
• What is the proportion of work that has purpose and adds value to the world vs work that is done for a grade?
• YouTube Dan Pink drive rsa animate   3 motivators...purpose, autonomy and mastery
• Seed and tree. ...how did it get there?  Kinder give same answer as harvard grads.  And they went to school between then!
• If they don't have internet access, download to DVD and send home.
• Mrs. Cassidy classroom blog   In Moose Jaw, 1st graders reaching a global audience creating documentaries of how they learned something.

Later I attended Technology Tools to Support Academics in RTI by Sheri Wilkins, Program Manager, Desert/Mountain Special Education Local Plan Area.

This workshop will provide participants with opportunities to explore technological solutions that will extend the effectiveness and efficiency of a Response to Intervention (RTI) model. The session will focus on tools for assessment and intervention in the areas of reading, writing, and math. Participants will be given time to explore the tools that are shared in the presentation.  I was hoping to find some good technology sources for reading intervention. This session focused mostly on assessment and not strategies.  I did talk to a vendor who has something similar to SuccessMaker but it runs on an iPad, so I might trial it.

I also attended a session with an innovative PD model between San Bruno Park SD and the Krause Center for Innovation.  I am a MERIT graduate so was interested to see what they did, which was produce an accelerated program to create tech savvy teachers. Creating Affordable and Timely Professional Development by Skip Johnson, Principal, Steven J. McGriff, Teacher-in-Residence, KCI, Gay Krause, ED, KCI and two teachers from the district: Providing high quality professional development to promote the use of technology is a challenge. In the San Bruno Park School District we created a partnership with the Krause Center for Innovation housed on the junior college campus of Foothill in Los Altos Hills to provide low cost professional development through the establishment of the Danford Center for Innovation.

The final highlight of my day was collaboration time with Jason and Martin.  We did some brainstorming about apps, they gave me encouragement about being laid-off, again, and then we went to the Apps for Apps mixer, where it was like speed dating but with iPad apps.  We learned about some really cool apps. I'll add links later.

• App. Home 3d. To build a mission
• App. Reflection can display whatever is on your iPad onto the computer, than project it.  Not as big a deal if you have appleTV
• What we then brainstormed is to use a free app...Join me. It shares my screen with the kids they sign with a code.   Can also log in remotely.  This might be the solution Sheila and I were wondering about if we want all of our users on the same "page" at once, for example with a read along.
• App. Classroom management. Can assign Badges, kids see how they are doing..they get points.  Could display using 2 windows so kids cn always see their status.  It can also be set up to send parent emails.  Maybe useful for 'that kid'.
• app.  Educreation.  Just like show me. A little simpler. can't download videos with show me so if you want to embed them in something else, you may want to use Educreation ..both are free.
• App Explain everything. 2. Cool app to annotate presentations, images, etc.
• Doceri 3 versions can edit with the video then record   Export to an mov. Free $25 no ad, $30 also controls computers
• If you are going to make movies, there is a Case/tripod mount/adapter for lenses. $64 Makayama. iPad 2. You can attach a 37 mm lens.  Kinda cool.  You can also attach external mic with $20 dongle
• Cosmonaut. Stylus. A bigger handle for little kids. http://www.studioneat.com/products/cosmonaut
• App and web based tool  take notes and store them in the cloud for anywhere access..  It is where imam typing this!  Evernote. Shared folder so you can share assignments with kids that they can access anywhere...maybe much the same as Google apps though frankly docs is super slow and awkward.  Jon from Minnerette high school.   Taking notes in the cloud. 
• Assignment: using Ask a friend three questions and record. (t has a voice feature) Then write summary. They have to stay on task because they have to produce soemthing!  

I am so happy I went to this event. It was engaging and re-invigorating. Will post later about the closing session with Steve Dembo 

Re-united and it feels so good...

Yesterday we were able to sort out why my student iPads weren't syncing. It was simple, IT had disabled them to add or delete apps, which totally makes sense. But when toggled off, I can't sync! So we fixed that. Then decided instead of syncing, we'd make a student master then just restore all the machines to that image. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love our IT guys at Cambrian! While he was there, my Magic Man solved another mystery we've been having on our CreaTV Mac. Moving from windows to iOS is quite the learning experience. But what fun!

We are on spring break this week, but five of us were able to come together to sort out the syncing, talk about and try out apps, and share ideas for classroom management and projects. It is an amazing, exciting opportunity to collaborate with colleagues on a program that is so meaningful and important to me. I feel energized!