#NASSP15 day 2 reflection

Day 2 was equally as fabulous as day 1.  I started my day with Todd Whitaker talking about What Great Principals Do.  My favorite take aways of his presentation were:

• Treat every student with respect and dignity every day, all the time, 10 out of 10 days. Great principals.
• Great principals know they have to teach the teachers.
• Great principals know that people are the problem and the solution.  Programs will not fix this.
• Great principals don’t let things happen randomly.
• Great principals know to teach all the teachers at once so “They know that THEY ALL KNOW”. This way they hold each other accountable.
• Great principals know that they are responsible for the culture in the school.

Such powerful thoughts about what are role really is as a site principal.

Then, I attended a workshop about online PD. The ideas I got were amazing. Creating teacher written online PD for teachers to participate in an a cohort using sophia.org or google classroom. I am inspired to spend some time working with my district to create this.

There was a makerspace workshop. I saw the potential of what the library could be. I can't wait for my library to be a place for students to collaborative, creative, critical think, and communicate. It is a place for students to tinker, play, relax, think and invest.

The final presentation was by Jason Markey (@JasonMMarkey) and Jimmy Casas (@casas_jimmy) about Leading Change in School. The big take away was this quote “You will either step forward into growth, or you will step backward into safety.”-by Maslow. We need to be gentle disruptors to the system. We do this by:

• Be Courageous
• Embrace Failure
• Model Expectations

I also appreciated Jimmy's quote "You can’t let anyone take away our excellence.

You also get it back every morning." No one got into education to just be "good", everyone wants to be "great". As leaders, we need to help everyone get to their great.

Jason also talked about this concept for staff. Concept: Start, STOP, share: Tell me something you are going to start this year, stop this year, and share with your PLN. With everything we are adding to teacher's plate, the need to take items off their plate. This is a good reminder for them.

We need to remember that the only barrier to our own learning is our own willingness to learn. This is what we, as site principal, need to remember

#NASSP15 #Ignite15 day 1 reflection

So, I haven't posted in a while.  I was using all the excusing we use when we are trying to avoid things.  I am "too busy", "overwhelmed", "no one reads this", "there are more important things to do" and "I suck at this".

Well,  I am currently attending #NASSP15 in San Diego and Eric Sheninger (@E_Sheninger ) reminded me that is is important to blog.  He also reminded me the importance of not making excuses, but making time.  So, I am making the time.

The lineup for today has been amazing.  I started the day with the #NASSP15 digital principals.  They were talking about mission and vision. The hit on the importance of communicating the vision to all the stakeholders.

Eric Sheninger was in motivating self.  He really hit on how are we evaluating the tech we use is helping the learning.  The three big questions I need to reflect on about my school is: How is technology being integrated with purpose? Collect assessments and see how tech integrated in the learning. How do you currently measure the effectiveness of technology integration to support student learning? Now, how do we do this.

I also got some great tips about sortd for gmail and evernote. It reminded me that someday I will learn evernote.

I attended a forum by Linda Darling-Hammond about a variety of educational topics. She talked a lot about the "Why" regarding CCSS, 21st century skills and technology in schools.

I ended my day with @daisydyerduerr presenting about Digital Tools for Digital Leaders. She talked about zite and flipboard.  I am so bad about using a curation method to gather research and information.  She inspired me to look into this.  I had also never heard of Touchcast.  It is a quick video making app for your Tablet.  I can't wait to try this when I get back.

It has been a great day of learning for myself.  I have to remember to fill myself with ideas and tools to support my staff.  I also have to remember to do the things that make my practice better.  I can't be full of excuses any longer.

Going 1:1... and not going gray! Staff PD

So, after attending #NASSP15 today, I opened by blogger for the first time in months.  I have been "too busy" to blog.  I just haven't made the time.  But, I found this blog that I wrote in August that I did not publish.  SO, I decided this was step one.  Publish what I have.   So, here it is.

Have you ever had a day that went so well, you wonder if it really did?  That is how our 1:1 PD session went for day one.  Here is a link to the agenda, however, the agenda doesn't tell you the details.

The teachers that we are training are at all different levels.  We have some pioneers who have been 1:1 or 2:1 in their classrooms for a few years to teachers who still you a chalkboard.

Our first challenge was organizing a day that would be thought-provoking, interesting, challenging, and not too overwhelming for everyone.  We started the day with the teachers walking around and answering questions about how 1:1 would affect the classroom, teacher, student, school and community.  This gave the teachers the opportunity to share fears, challenges, and hopes for the program.  Next was a guest speaker, who has been 1:1 for 3 years, talk about her challenges during the first year.  This allowed teachers to ask her questions about how she managed, changed, and created lessons for the classroom.  They also got to ask the classroom control questions.

After a short break, we did chromebook bingo.  I created a bingo card with squares to challenge my experts and squares that were not as hard.  Teachers worked together to figure out how to do these functions on the chromebook.  Of course, we had cheesy prizes to make it a little more energetic and fun!

After providing lunch, we went over the SAMR model and talk about how it was ok to be in substitution phase at the moment.  We also discussed that our goal was a blended learning model.  Paper and pen should go with the technology use in the classroom.  Then, teachers had about 1.5 hours to create a lesson.

After all of this, we went back to the posters from the morning.  Teachers marked items they still had questions or concerns about.  Over half of the items listed were no longer a question or concern.  For day 1 of the PD (out of 3 days) that is a great result!

The "we" is the PCS 1:1 team of +ReneeSemik (@ReneeKSemik), +LoriDeen (@lorideen), +JaneEscobedo (@jescobedo101) and me (Emily Dunnagan).