PD that Motivates

Recently I worked on an idea for collaborative professional development among competing schools. Seems crazy - schools that compete for the same demographic coming together to collaborate and train their staff, but actually it is brilliant! Collaboration is not a cookie cutter concept, but rather an opportunity for people to work on an idea and then go off and develop it at your their school with their own flavor. Then, come back to the group with your piece and together the pieces make a creative collaboration.

I have often said teaching is a learning profession - a group of interested and inspired people that learn from their students while they teach them..  When I think about teaching I don't really care much about the tools that are used or that my students use the tools, instead I am excited to witness students learning, synthesizing and conceptualizing ways to share what they know - using the Web 2.0 tools I share with them is just a plus.

This is especially true in the arena of Professional Development. According to an article in the New York Times today teacher morale is at an all time low. How can we motivate teachers that feel rejected by the system designed to support them? What motivation can we offer? There are many theories about motivation ranging from Aristotle's Seven Causes to Dan Pink's Drive. We can apply them all but I believe ultimately it is intrinsic. People are inspired to change, try, become, do from inside. There are so many stories about people that had nothing, down on their luck and then they make one small change and it is like the Butterfly Effect - it changes everything around them and they are moved from one "life" to a completely different one.

I believe the learning begins not by showing the teachers the Web 2.0 tools they can use, but rather as they begin to conceptualize and share their lessons with the idea of a new conveyance... one that may further engage their students.

Powerful Learning Practice

A simple, small disruption can bring about monumental change. It is my hope that by bringing together educators that share a similar goal but different persuasions, each will become inspired by the other. Ideas will flow, challenges will be met and overcome, and through this disruption will come creation. We decided to work with PLP Network to achieve this goal and we set about writing a collaborative grant with the hopes that we will be able to reach all these educators and bring about great things in every school. I am holding my breath that and keeping my fingers crossed that we get the grant. Even without the grant, this methodology (PLP Network supporting collaborative learning among our faculty) is one we are excited to explore.

Making the Blended Classroom Work

In our lower school we have launched two online math programs side by side in different grades. I thought this would be a good way to get the teacher's input about how they use the programs and which they prefer. In grades 2 and 5 we are using a deployment of IXL and in grades 3 and 4 we are using MangaHigh.
Each program has it's own set of benefits and I am still waiting for the teachers to compare their experiences - I will write more about that in the future.

New Ideas for 2009 - 2010 School Year

New ideas are brewing as we return from the summer and I would like to share them with you.

In the Middle School one of the faculty has spent the better part of this summer preparing for a paperless school year. Focusing on Adobe Acrobat and PDF technology, he has prepared all his Judaic Studies classes to be run through LAN School (I prefer this to Synchroneyes - easier to use, simple user interface and much, much, less expensive)and Adobe Acrobat. He learned all he needed through online classes at Lynda.com and ended up with over 100 pages of notes to share with other teachers. This idea is inspired and the application is incredible.

We are using VoiceThread throughout the school in both General and Judaic studies to enhance student engagement and, parental involvement. Through a grant, our Middle School Judaic Studies will be thoroughly enhanced with VoiceThread, document cameras, and collaborative learning programs.

With the addition of an iPod Touch cart and specialized training for the faculty everyone is a-buzz about using this new technology in the classroom. Tony Vincent has a fabulous Podcast tp help you with technical ideas and projects. Between iTunesU and the plethora of educational apps in the online store I am sure we will see a growth in student and teacher podcasting.

We have deployed 125 laptops for student use and Trapeze points throughout the entire school, but flooded the Middle School with MP in many classrooms. Teachers will be able to sign out laptop carts through our SchoolDude managed IT program and the carts have been re-designed inside by "yours truly" to enhance distribution and minimize confusion and delay.

The Tech Staff has been re-named "coaching" staff and have been assigned to the faculty for technological support as well as curriculum development. Engaging tech savvy students as coaches is just another way of providing real life education for the students and support for the teachers. Students have been hand selected to support the IT Department as student coaches. Teachers have a list of students with their schedules so they can find someone quickly when the IT Department is otherwise engaged.

Good wishes to all as the new year begins and I will keep you posted of new tech integration solutions as we go along.

Virtual Jogging

Have you ever wished you could walk your students through some websites to share ideas with them? Did you ever just want to share a few links with someone without having to send the links but, rather, show the page. Well, why not jog there?

That's right! Send someone a bunch of web pages and let them "jog" through them. Give this "jog" a try and let me know what you think. It is easy and fun.

Now that summer is around the corner you can start putting some of these together for your lesson plans for next year. Students go to live pages - they can pause, research and annotate pages to Diigo and then continue. As a teacher you are engaging them and offering a content rich experience that is sure to keep them working!

Check this out!