Martin Luther King’s quote popped up in this week’s Facebook memory and it got my wheels turning about the blog post on which I should have been working the past few weeks. I have had several ideas floating around in my head but have not been able to formulate any of them into coherent thoughts worth sharing so when this quote came up, I knew I just needed to start and see where it would lead. I have no idea where we will be by the end but let’s see if we can enjoy the ride. My career started as a public librarian almost 30 years ago with one of the first tasks being the automating of the library. Jumping in and taking that first step for this young, newly degreed librarian in a community with an older library staff and community population was daunting yet necessary so we took it slow and steady, and accomplished the goal. Once I made the decision to switch to school librarianship, there was a whole new set of standards out there and going back to school was a very different experience from the few Apple IIe models in high school and bulky desktops and labs in the college library. Professors were balancing previous pedagogy with new expectations of making sure we, as new teachers, would become comfortable adding technology to our future classes. We all needed to take the first step and we all came out with updated skills for that time along the technology spectrum. My most recent years once in the schools have been the most transformative. The rapid nature of technology options now is overwhelming. On which bandwagon do we jump? On which do we let roll by? Yet being given these opportunities - to learn and share the newest trends, help determine the direction of the library program, push through fears and struggles, teach students and teachers what is out there and how to incorporate it in their lives - has been incredibly rewarding. Sharing “makerspaces” and using mobile devices and discovering great apps to use on them, while continuing to share the love of reading, keeps the job fresh and exciting regardless of the methods used to get there. Joining this year’s NextGen Cadre was an exercise in both patience and faith for me. Wanting to do it in previous years, yet not feeling ready to take the first step left me back in that unknown spot; not really knowing what I would gain in the experience and imagining how I would utilize the skills we would hopefully be learning. While the first semester has had its share of challenges, I am glad I took the first step. I am not where I want to or hoped to be but I am a work in progress; we are works in progress; our students are works in progress but we all need to be willing to put ourselves out there and find our place in the world – wherever we are on this technology journey. Exploring, testing, supporting, trying, failing, trying again, succeeding. We model and show perseverance. We have no idea what will continue coming at us as teachers or them as students in regards to advancing technologies and while schools often struggle to keep up, we need to push forward. If you have been a reluctant follower, challenge yourself to step into a small leadership role even if it scares the daylights out of you! Start small but take the first step – have faith! The top of the staircase is waiting for you – and the view is breathtaking! Today's thoughts come to us from Ms. Rochelle Rogan. Rochelle has been the Dennis Intermediate School Librarian since August of 2015 after stints as the Youth/Technical Services Public Librarian & System Administrator and a School Librarian in southeast Wisconsin. She was proud and humbled to be named the Dennis School Teacher of the Year by her colleagues in 2018. Her husband, Mike, is a life-long Richmond-area resident and they have 2 children, a dog, a barn cat and 3 Alpine dairy goats. When not learning new technologies, Rochelle enjoys playing softball and volleyball, riding bicycles and motorcycles, camping, and taking naps.
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RCS district provides all of us with iPads for us to use in the classroom, but when I talk to my fellow teachers, most of us aren’t using them. I wasn’t using them until recently I learned a few things about how to conveniently integrate them into the classroom. Here are some tips to get started: AirServe—Project your iPad’s Screen I had no idea about the AirServe installed on all RCS laptops and desktops, and even if I saw the program, I didn’t know what it did. AirServe is a program that generally runs in the background of our laptops and does nothing—unless we are using our iPads! This program allows us to project our screen on our iPad to our projector. Now, I was typically pretty tied to my podium (where my laptop/laptop dock typically lives)in my classroom before this. However, being mobile in the classroom changes engagement significantly. Okay, I’m Mobile… Now What? There are a million things that you can do once you set up your AirServe and can project your iPad’s screen. I’m just going to share some of my favorite things that I’ve done in my classroom. Google SlidesI really enjoy using Google Slides rather than PowerPoint, because I never have to worry about being on a different device and not being able to access my document. I can also get to my Google Slide presentations on my iPad. When we are doing guided notes, I can actually walk around my room and use proximity to motivate kids to do their work, as well as be closer to answer questions for my students. Quizlet.live and KahootEveryone knows what Kahoot is at this point (if not, check out this article for a good break down), but not everyone knows about using their iPad, so that they can walk around and ensure that everyone is actually on the website they are supposed to be on! You can create your Kahoot on your laptop or iPad, whatever is most comfortable for you, and project your Kahoot on your projector using AirServe. Quizlet.live is another platform like Kahoot that creates groups for you, and students break out into their groups and work together to answer your quiz questions. How do the groups work? On every student’s screen, and on the teacher projected screen, the question is posed to the students. Each student has a selection of different answers on their screens. No student has the same answers, so they all have to look at their own answers and each other’s screens to pick the correct answer.If one student gets an answer wrong in their group, the entire quiz is reset and they have to try again. The first group that finishes “wins” and the Quizlet.live is over. This leads to some pretty hilarious competitive situations.Being able to walk around the classroom while doing the Quizlet.live helps to monitor your class, plus it lets you hear some of the thought processes going through their heads, becoming a mini-formative assessment. Something to Take Away We all know that students perform better when proximity is a factor. Using a projector or a chalk board both can force us to be removed from our students. AirServe plus our issued laptops can help fix that distance and be closer to our students! Today's thoughts come to us from Mrs. Tia McCargish. Tia is a first year English teacher at Richmond High School. Tia graduated on the Dean’s List from Indiana University East. While in University, she was the president of Sigma Tau Delta (English Honors Society) for one year. She also was president of the IUE Tabletop Gaming Club and was a member of the writing club. As a teacher, she now hosts a Tabletop Gaming Club at RHS. In her free time, she loves reading science fiction. After spending one day a month together, I would say that the members of the cadre and I were good acquaintances. We shared a common interest in working hard to make blended learning happen in our individual classrooms across the district. We worked each month under Megan’s guidance to sharpen our skills in canvas to help make our goal of blended learning easier. Fast forward to March, I got an email saying “Are you in?” The email stated that I was being invited to Keystone, Colorado to attend InstructureCarn. It is a major Canvas conference. I had heard rumors about this conference, so without hesitation, I replied YES! Fast forward again to July, I am getting packed up for Keystone. I have mixed emotions! I am super excited to head to Keystone, but slightly nervous to be with 12 fellow cadre members that I really do not know that well. We arrived safely (after a VERY scenic ride up the mountains)! We have lunch before the first session begins. I can already tell that this is going to be a game changer for me. The next two days we continue to attend keynote speakers, breakout sessions, share meals, enjoy the activities planned for us, and even ride the chairlift up the mountain to enjoy the breath taking views. As I sat to write a post about InstructureCarn, my biggest take away was that I can now say instead of 12 acquaintances that I met with once a month, I now have 12 friends I know I can call on for whatever I need. As I had that first thought, I pondered if that was enough. Was strengthening relationships enough of a take away from a major conference? It wasn’t until I met with a brand new teacher in my building did I decide, YES, of course it is. The new teacher’s first question was about classroom management. He wanted to know how to be successful. In my opinion, building relationships is the single most important piece to classroom management. It is worth your time to spend a few days at the beginning of the year to get to know your students. Why then, would I doubt that this is not also important for teachers with their colleagues. After the four days we spent together, I know just who I can call, text, or email when I am trying to set up a blending learning lesson that just will not work out right, or set up a technology station that just isn’t working, or a lesson that I spent so much time planning falls short. I wish that each and every teacher out there has other colleagues they can call upon both inside their building and outside of it. If you do not, I encourage you to reach out to someone in your building you maybe do not know yet; someone in another grade, or a different subject. Work on a common project together, or eat lunch together, or work on a school project together. Teaching can be lonely if you let it. Take the time to get to know your colleagues. Keep positive and keep working together for the kids! **Disclaimer- in addition to getting to know my colleagues more, I also learned TONS about Canvas. I learned about using outcomes instead of grades, mastery paths for choice options, and using canvas for the greater school needs. I feel extremely lucky to be part of the group chosen to represent Richmond Community Schools at InstructureCarn this year. Today's thoughts come to us from Ms. Katie Belanga. Katie is a 7th grade math teacher in her third year with Richmond Community Schools. Katie received her bachelor’s degree from The University of Toledo. She has previously taught in Columbus, Ohio and Nashville, Tennessee. Katie was honored to receive Teacher of the Year for Test Intermediate and Secondary Teacher of the Year for Richmond Community Schools for 2018. Katie and her husband Chip have three children, Logan, Gavin, and Addie, who keep them busy. The family also has a one year old golden-doodle named Oakley. Katie likes to be outside in both the summer and winter in her spare time. Prior to this current school year I’d have to define my knowledge of technology as limited. Now, don’t get me wrong, I was pretty darn good at the basics. Internet, word processing, excel, and of course Facebook were no problem. That being said, I can’t say that I was using technology in my teaching. Yes, I let my students play the occasional computer game but I was not using technology to improve my teaching or my students learning. The reality is that I didn’t really know where to start, what to do, and I wasn’t completely sold on if it would truly be worth my time. Agreeing to be a part of the Next Gen Leadership Cadre meant choosing to have an open mind, to learn, and to TRY. It meant choosing to get out of my comfort zone, to try things even when I wasn’t really sure what I was doing, and often it meant asking for help. Starting out, there was a lot of apprehension. Maybe even a bit of reluctance. I know, I know – I signed up for this, but how could I use something with my students when I wasn’t even good at it yet? Ah, there’s that word. Yet. I wasn’t confident in the beginning but have become much more so and continue to improve. I have become comfortable with trying something new with my students even if I’m still learning it alongside them. (Well, mostly. Hey, still a work in progress here.) What did I learn? I learned that my students are completely okay with me learning things right alongside them. I learned that there is an overwhelming network of support that I can call on when I need help. I learned that all that help truly wants the best for me and my students and will offer support in a safe, non-judgmental way. I learned that using technology can offer so much to my students. I learned that I’ve only scratched the surface of using technology in my teaching. I still have so much to learn. Has it been easy? Nope. Is it worth it? Absolutely! So for that, I will continue to choose to be a work in progress. Today's thoughts come to us from Ms. Kelli Barnes. A special education teacher for 13 years, Kelli has enjoyed learning from and working with a diverse population of students in grades 1 - 6. Being a mom of three young children has given her a renewed sense of patience and understanding of her students, as well as a lot less sleep. She generally runs on sunshine, coffee, and chocolate. Kelli has been married to a farmer for eight years and enjoys her life in the country. Stop. Look. Listen. Smartphones are everywhere. Literally. According to the Pew Research Center, about 77% of U.S. adults say they own a Smartphone, which is 42% more than just 7 years ago. Even in an article more than two years old, teenage ownership of Smartphones is reported at nearly 80%. These are what we call realities. The same was true when horse drawn buggies were replaced by automobiles. Wagon trains replaced by locomotives. Bus and car travel replaced by airplanes. Food cooked over an open fire to microwaves. I think you get the point. New technologies became prevalent and the old ones faded into history. It’s called evolution. When processes and products change as a result of evolution, a person has two options, ok maybe three. Option 1: Adapt and try to ride the wave Option 2: Fight back Option 3: Bury your head in the sand and pretend that things are not fundamentally changing In education, I feel that we have an obligation to first and foremost be informed. We have to know what changes have occurred outside the walls of our school as well as try to anticipate what is coming next. Here’s the reason: we have dozens, or even hundreds, of students counting on us for that each year. You may not like that technology plays such a predominant role in our lives...ALL of our lives. If you are reading this right now, you are benefiting from advances in technology. You might think that it is devaluing relationships, making us apathetic, and is wreaking havoc on the employment landscape. These can certainly be true - but only if we let them. I understand that not everyone will embrace the evolution and role that technology plays in our lives, but the fact of the matter is, it's not going to stop or slow down. It’s is only going to escalate. What is your role as a teacher? I mean REALLY, what is your role? Don Wettrick cites this role quite often as he interviews thought leaders, entrepreneurs and change agents on his StartEdUp Podcast. By the way, do yourself a favor and load some of those episodes up in your library! As he states, and I wholeheartedly agree, our job is to prepare students for their future. Period. It's not to prepare them for a future that you wish could be. It’s not to prepare them for jobs of the past. Its for their future. Although there are many, many unknowns, the one thing that we know with 100% certainty is that their ability to effectively use technology to create, collaborate, communicate, and automate will be essential to their survival in the workplace. How do we accomplish this? We start by cutting back on the time we give kids to use to technology to consume and increase the opportunities for students to create and innovate. There are a number of studies that are drawing correlations to the increase in teen smartphone usage to depression and suicide. As a parent and teacher this is terrifying. I will leave it to you do the reading for yourself, but some of the correlations I have read stated that this is a result of everything from body-shaming to cyber bullying. A recent Time article even referenced a clinical explanation of link between, “media multitasking—texting, using social media and rapidly switching among smartphone-based apps—with lower gray-matter volume in the brain’s anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a region involved in emotion processing and decision making.” Back to Don, he had a conversation with Seth Godin about the recent school shooting and Seth said something extremely insightful. He said “a cat can’t be curious and angry at the same time.” He went on to explain that if we are engaging kids in meaningful, authentic, validating work that fosters curiosity, maybe, just maybe, they can stay out or come out of the darkness. The kind of darkness I’m talking about is the kind that makes mass shootings and suicide seem justifiable and the only option to kids. If we refuse to give students opportunities to learn how to effectively use technology to create meaningful content, make connections, and illustrate their learning, then we are truly doing them more harm than good. In his book, Launch, John Spencer does am amazing job of illustrating the new “digital divide.” It’s no longer the division of students that have technology and those that so not, but its now a “Creative Chasm between those who passively consume and those who actively create” (p. 18). Ask yourself this: which student is better positioned to meet the employment needs of the workforce once they graduate? Better yet, which student is going to be able to carve their own path in a workforce where freelancers will make up more than 50% of the workforce. So how are you handling technology’s evolution? Are you flourishing, fleeing, or fighting against it. But, before you answer on behalf of you children and students, maybe, like me, you need to put your own phone down and work on improving communication with those that matter. Today's ideas come to us from Mr. Kevin Schamel. Kevin began teaching in 2006 and become one of RCS’s eLearning Specialists, where he has been helping to support and coach teachers, students, and administrators since 2014. He received his Bachelor’s Degree from Miami University and his M.Ed from IU East. Kevin comes from a family of educators, is married to a middle school math teacher, Kristin, and has two wonderful boys at home, Jaxon and Greyson. Time to Play Play is the key to learning. Young children experience the world through play. Skills needed throughout life are developed while playing. Play promotes inquiry, experimentation, investigation, excitement, imagination, and collaboration. Play encourages risk-taking! Children use play to try new things. They’re not worried about making mistakes or messing things up. They jump right in! Somewhere along the way, learning becomes serious business. Once we understand our strengths and weaknesses, we doubt our success at anything new. We question whether or not we can manage. We worry about exposing our insecurities. In order to change, we have to shift our thinking. We need to shift the expectations we have of ourselves. It’s okay if we don’t have it all figured out! It’s okay to try and fail—the best learning happens in those moments! We can depend on each other to build on our weaknesses. We need to become more childlike in our approach to learning. So…how to start?
Let go of your fear. It’s time to PLAY! Today’s thoughts come from Brandi Jackson. Brandi is the Instructional Coach at Dennis Intermediate in her 15th year of teaching at Richmond Community Schools. She has earned a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education from IU East and a Master’s Degree from Ball State University. She recently completed the Principal Licensure Program at Indiana Wesleyan University. Brandi has previously taught Reading Recovery as well as multiple elementary grade levels. She and her husband, Daniel, have two children, Lydia and Benjamin, who keep them busy. In her spare time, Brandi enjoys spending time with family, reading, and enjoying the outdoors. I sometimes have brainstorms about technical solutions to make the bureaucratic aspects of education more efficient and meaningful. I call these “edtech puzzles”. But when I sit down at the card table to put together the puzzle pieces, I often get stuck wondering “Is this puzzle worth the effort?” I wonder if my little time-savers and shortcuts are where I should really be focusing my energy. Do they help me build relationships and transport me and my students toward bigger goals? I have journeyed on the thought tracks pondering methods to assess my own ideas by comparing the estimated input cost of developing and teaching a new tool or procedure against the estimated impact of the tool. But these routes are merely spurs that always lead back to the main line on which this train of thought chugs into the terminal station asking, “What are my big goals in education?” Many authors have written about the critical value teacher-student relationship hold in education. I certainly agree that is one of my “big goals”. Relationships build trust. Relationships give us knowledge of students’ backgrounds. Relationships open our being to transformation. I needn’t resurrect a phoenix that has already risen on the wings of others’ good writing. My concern is what do we do with those relationships? If we succeed in building a positive relationship with students, we have made ourselves vulnerable and accepted the responsibility of faithful stewardship of students’ trust in us. Without a lot of to-do, I humbly offer these big goals for education as what we could be doing with the relationship we develop with our students:
Today's thoughts come to us from Mr. Christopher Blinn. Christopher teaches students with special needs at Richmond High School. He enjoys working with those who are developing their vision for life after high school. Outside of school, Christopher parents a four-year old and a two-year old with his wife Kate. He enjoys cooking, biking, gardening, and tea. As a Kindergarten teacher I spent my first year with Canvas in a love-hate relationship. I saw all the new and inventive things other teachers were doing and wanted to do the same with my young students. I spent most of Year 1 getting frustrated because I couldn’t do what others were doing. Then Year 2 came. I decided to stop trying to have my 5 year old students do what 10, 12, and 14 year olds were doing and just focus on the basics. This was a game changer for me. I stopped the negativity and only focused on the positives. The “what would work” instead of the “what wouldn’t work.” So I started at the most basic task-logging into Canvas. Some may underestimate how difficult a task this is. Students must be able to match numbers and letters as well as be able to identify what is an uppercase letter and what is a lowercase letter to know when to use the shift key. (Anyone who thinks this sounds easy are welcome to stop in a kindergarten room in the fall!) We spent months learning how to log in independently, but we finally got there! Every single one of my students can log into Canvas on their own! (You’re welcome 1st grade teachers!). With that hurdle crossed, we could move on to actually using Canvas! Yes, my kindergartners are using tools in Canvas. Are we using all of the wonderful parts and pieces? No way. But that is where I stopped worrying about using everything and focused on just a small portion. With the help of our e-learning team, my students can now record themselves reading their weekly book ,which saves me so much time from before when I would frantically try to get to every student. Now I can listen to them read at my own time and be able to plan small group lessons based on the type of errors they are making. My students also record themselves reading sight word lists during our center time. Being able to use the media recorder and learning how to upload and submit their assignments has been the game changer in my room! For everyone that says the little ones can’t use Canvas-they are so wrong. Canvas just needs to be used at an appropriate level for them. It’s really about just giving them the opportunity to try. My goal was to give them a foundation to build upon as they move through the grade levels. My advice to those hesitant to put devices into their young students’ hands is to focus on what they can do and the rest will follow. Melody Williams is a kindergarten teacher in her 9th year of teaching at Richmond Community Schools. She has earned a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education from IU East and a Bachelor’s Degree in Middle Childhood Education from Wright State University. Melody has previously taught Reading Recovery and Special Education although her passion lies in kindergarten. In 2015, she earned REA Teacher of the Month and in 2016, was named Crestdale Elementary Teacher of the Year. Melody and her husband, Lee, have two young children, Kyson and Kynsie, who keep them very busy. In her spare time, Melody enjoys spending time with her friends and family. THE PAST How did I get to this point in my career? I always felt like I was born to teach, and I worked hard in the testing grade levels of 3rd and 4th grade. I was devastated and nervous when my principal of 10 years retired and we’d be getting someone new. Little did I know, that new principal was moving on from the eLearning Team and would push me in new ways. My classroom became a place that was truly becoming student-centered, I was shifting to let students teach me, and we teamed up with Test to have a technology day. It was empowering for me and my students! I saw students become leaders in technology when they weren’t leaders in “traditional” ways. We utilized our LMS, Canvas, spheros, Sway, and more. I couldn’t wait to start this year doing it all from the beginning. I had no plans of leaving, until I did. THE CHANGE A retiring librarian position was not being filled, so it was listed as an eLearning position. I took a huge leap of faith and pushed myself out of my comfort zone, and applied. I interviewed, and the rest is history. Not only did I change positions and buildings, but I joined the Cadre. THE CADRE The Cadre pushed me into redesigning this for the classroom, but I no longer have a traditional classroom. Thanks to a first grade teacher in one of my buildings, she took on Canvas assignments and creating weekly tasks for her higher groups to record themselves on their weekly phonics check. We even presented this at our January PD day. From there, I have done weekly Canvas discussions in my media center classes. I have learned to embed Flipgrid, use Chatterpix, and completed an iMovie project with O365 documents and Canvas assignments. I have worked with the district eLearning Team and am headed to Colorado this summer to present with Cadre members at Instructurecarn! THE TAKEAWAY So, what has been my take-away? Or what do I hope your take-away is? Well, I hope that you take a leap of faith. Try one new thing with technology each day, each week, each month - just try it! Things have not worked flawlessly, but my students and I persevere and problem-solve together. I would have never dreamed a year ago that I'd be doing what I'm doing now. Making one change continued to push me and has enabled me to become the leader I am today. If I can be of assistance to you, please reach out to me. Today’s post comes to us from Mrs. Sarah Vance. Sarah is in her first year as an eLearning Teacher with Richmond Community Schools. She runs two Elementary Media Centers, in addition to visiting classrooms to support technology. This is also her first year in the Cadre. Sarah is in her 11th year with Richmond Community Schools, where she spent 10 years as a classroom teacher in grades Second thru Fourth. Sarah earned the Rising Star Award her first year teaching, along with the No Excuses Award. She was the Charles Elementary Teacher of the Year in 2017. She earned her Bachelor’s Degree from Indiana University East and her Master’s Degree from Earlham College. Sarah and her husband, Adam, have 3 boys. In her spare time, Sarah chases after her 3 year old twins (aka “the twin-ados”) and watching her 6 year old play soccer and t-ball. [email protected] @MrsSaVa5 I have a confession to make. There have been times that I’ve thought to myself, privately, that the teachers that weren’t trying new things were bad teachers. I’m young, fairly tech-savvy, quick with technology. I had failed to empathize with teachers who had been here much longer with much more experience. I had failed to recognize that change can be overwhelming. Sometimes, when we’re overwhelmed, human beings have a tendency to behave like turtles. We retreat into the safety of our shells, because that’s what we know how to do best. I think it’s something that we don’t empathize much with because we’re so focused on growth mindset right now while failing to recognize how many of us grew up in a fixed mindset culture based on internal beliefs. We grew up in a culture of inherent skills and traits, even though we are trying to teach our students to think differently. I have colleagues who are in their turtle shells right now because we’re in the middle of an education revolution based firmly in technology, and they’ve self-labeled as “not a tech person.” And, in turn, I had labeled them in my head as a “bad teacher.” This is neither fair nor right. We need to change how we talk about reaching out to our co-workers. I say this because I’ve seen people that I thought of as rigid, old-school teachers start to change. If someone else—someone who hadn’t written them off—hadn’t helped them out, pulled them out of their turtle shell, then maybe they would never have seen the light about new pedagogical methods. There’s a reason for this empathy. This was the semester that I feel like I found my limits. (I’ve said that for several semesters in a row now, but bear with me). I haven’t done a good job of integrating technology in the classroom as I feel like I have in past semesters. I’ve regressed to lesson formats that may be engaging, but don’t necessarily empower students to take learning into their own hands. And recognizing that? It’s made me take a step back. So what’s my plan when I get back from spring break? Reaching out. I plan on reaching out to the teacher who says, “Until someone can convince me this is better than what I’m doing, I won’t do it.” I plan on reaching out to the teacher who is more open to technology than expected, but is afraid of messing up. Not just in my building, but in this ever more interconnected world of education. By dismissing people as being “set in their ways” or saying they’re “never going to change,” we’re enabling the fixed mindset that we rail against. Let’s unite and reach out to show that growth really is possible for anyone. Today's thoughts come to us from Mr. Hunter Lambright. Hunter teaches various math courses at Richmond High School and is the varsity track coach.
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