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: Edmodo - Judging the Hackathon

Allison kicks off the presentation of projects

I was honored to be included on the judging panel for our Hackathon. I loved hearing about the amazing things these teams had accomplished in just 24 hours. I am always willing share my opinion, when I feel safe to do so. I do think most of the engineers valued a teacher, their customer's perspective. Chris presented a project to filter and block malicious links from being posted to +Edmodo. It occurred to me that there is much that goes on behind the scenes that we customers never see. From the judges table I pointed out that teachers, really any customer, will not be shy in letting you know when your product does not meet expectations, doesn't work, is slow. But there is much work engineers do to protect our students and keep them safe, without us even knowing. I thanked him for that.  And the most adorable thing happened, he blushed! Working in safety and security, he usually only hears about from customers when something doesn't work. It may very well be the first time a customer had thanked him for his work. This was a good reminder to me to show gratitude more often. 

In addition to Zach's formatting project, as each group presented I realized how many of the projects were designed to enhance the user experience, from giving us bigger video viewing area to more content in Spotlight, to helping new teachers get comfortable with Edmodo, the customers really are foremost in Edmodo's work, even in their passion projects..

The Judges (yes, bribes are on the table, chocolate and wine)

Despite jokes about accepting bribes, I did recuse myself from deliberations regarding my team and our category of Company Culture. And yet, our project, Humans of Edmodo, won!  So in addition to experiencing this inspirational event, our team won $500 for each member! That never happens in public education.  Even better, +Zach Rutta, who had done his initial presentation alone and had asked for engineers to help him create something teachers had been wanting for years, won the grand prize!  So really I felt like I won twice!

As I was drinking a celebratory plastic cup (recycle able of course) with the judges, we explored the idea of bringing the Hackathon concept into staff development days and classrooms on campuses. It would be interesting to see what could be accomplished. I'm not sure the union or parents would approve of a 24 hour project but imagine if we gave teachers and/or students a focused, dedicated block of time to pursue a project they thought could make a difference...whatever that means to them! I'm still working on how to implement it, but I think there is potential there. Participants develop perseverance, creativity, communication and collaboration which are all critical skills for future ready teachers and students.

I am a Human of Edmodo

                             

LOA Diaries: Edmodo - The Hackathon

I admit I had no idea what a Hackathon was. I thought a bunch of people sat around eating stale pizza, drinking Red Bull and hacking into other people's software. The term definitely had negative connotations, and after a very unscientific poll, many of my contemporaries have the same impression, but we couldn't be more wrong. "A hackathon is an event where people with diverse skill sets work collaboratively to create solution-oriented technology," writes Claire Shorall, of the Teaching Channel.

Our hackathon started at two o'clock on a Thursday and ended 24 hours later.  It's a 24 hour period when everyone can set aside their usual work and create a passion project. I normally skip the all hands meetings but was intrigued, so I sat through the kick-off, MC-ed by +Allison Laureano . I was interested to hear the wide variety of projects that mostly fit into four categories: features, monetization, culture and fixes. Of course I listened with a teacher's ear and I couldn't help myself but cheer out loud to +Zach Rutta's proposal of giving +Edmodo  users (mostly teachers) the ability to use bold, italics and underline formatting in our posts. It seems like a simple thing but it's funny how much you miss it when you don't have it. And currently Edmodo doesn't have it. Zach's was the project that directly addressed something I as a user want! Between my background in Customer Service and the fact that I am a customer of Edmodo, I felt heard.

Speaking of feeling heard... I've met a few times now with a coworker named +Kul Wadhwa, yes, pronounced cool and he is. He has been asking me what I think about a certain Edmodo product and I have been at times brutally honest with him, and he keeps coming back for more. Teachers are not often asked what they think about products nor given a real voice, outside our classrooms, so it's been refreshing to be asked. After I met with Kul one day, another man came up and asked if I'd be willing to give my input about some changes being made to Edmodo. Of course I said yes, I am always happy to give my opinion. I knew he was some sort of manager but I found out - after we spoke - that he is the General Manager, Manish Kothari. I love how accessible everyone is at Edmodo. There is no overt sense of managerial hierarchy that prevents anyone from talking to anyone else...quite refreshing.  A few minutes later Manish introduced me to CEO Vibhu Mittal and they asked me to be on the Hackathon judges panel, since I was a teacher! Talk about feeling heard!! I was thrilled to accept and rearrange my schedule to be in the office the next day.

Cheers to our hard work!

I'd pretty much already decided I was coming in when my Director, +Kevyn Klein intrigued me with her idea for a project, Humans of Edmodo.The excitement was almost palpable in the office that afternoon. Some people work at the office throughout the night. When I left at 6 p.m. to catch my train so I could get home to let the dog out, the GM was pouring people wine and IT was making dinner. We worked on our project well into the late hours, communicating with +HipChat  and I was excited to see what would be accomplished by all the teams overnight!

#twittertuesday for Elementary School Students

For the last several years, my co-teacher, +sheila monger and I have been using +Twitter with my fourth and fifth grade students. It provides and authentic writing experience with practice in succinctly capturing a main idea or essence. We encourage their parents to follow us and they work really hard to do their best work for this wider audience. I try to keep an eye on the twittersphere for trending hashtags and use them if applicable to link to current events. For example  On #GSPD we _________________ (global school play day) .I limit them to  ½ 140 or 70 characters...they have to fit it on the paper and I have to be able to read it from across the room.

Logistics

Before the school year starts, I laminate 30 pieces of paper that fit on my back cabinets.  I create a handle for each student using the first few letters of their first and last name. For example Sandra McConnell would be SanMc. I write their handles and glue them to a name tag with an Egg, showing they are a new user on twitter. As the year progresses, some students created new avatars for themselves.

Be sure to start the year with digital citizenship lessons. We rely on +Common Sense Education lessons. We also use the acronym RAMENN with our kids. When posting make sure it's
R - relevant
A - appropriate
M - meaningful
E - edited - and our students added the last two...
N - is it nice?
N - is it necessary?

Each Tuesday I post the prompt and give students time to generate ideas and write. Sometimes the prompts generate a lot of reflection, other times not so much. After most of the tweets are posted to the wall, my tweeter of the week, a classroom job, chooses one to five posts that they want to have represent our class.  They rewrite the prompt in their journal (or take a picture with their iPad) and bring it to my computer to type into our class account in twitter, @mrsmccsclass. Often I will have them include photographs of the students’ tweets to include in the tweet. I have them do it at my computer because I do not want the students to have unrestricted, unsupervised access to twitter.

Although I am not in my classroom this year, our account is still active and you can see what other types of things we post.

General Student Instructions

1. write a draft of the tweet in your journal. Be sure to include a hashtag summarizing or emphasizing your main idea. Proofread.
2. have your post checked by an adult
3. make edits, then with pencil, write your tweet on twitter paper
4. go over letters with a marker (no more than two colors)
5. post in the wall with blue tape at your @handle

Have fun with it! For sample prompts, visit this google doc.