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).

Going 1:1... and not going gray! The Roll out

Our chromebooks arrived really late.  Three days before schools started, to be honest.  There was no way we were going to get the 900 chromebooks unboxed, taken out of the plastic, scanned into google's management system, organized and to the schools without some help.

Help came in the form of our amazing admin team.  Elementary, Junior High, High School, Alt Ed, and District office all came together for 7 hours and unboxed, took out of the plastic, tagged and loaded into the management system 700 chromebooks.  As you can see, we even made 4 years help us!

There was no way we could have done this without the help of Ron Everett, Steve Bolman, Mila Kell,   Deb Richardson, Fran Hansel, Linda Scheele, Bennett Holley, Becky Lofton, Sheila Garvey, Catina Haugen, Amy Fadeji, Emily Kleinholz, Ashley Williams, and Nancy Emanuale.

Then it was time to roll out the chromebooks to the kids.  It took us 2 days to organize 476 chromebooks. The first day was spent organizing the chromebooks into classes (they arrived not sorted).  This took 3 people to complete.  The second day was checking to see who had not attended a chromebook orientation meeting and marking those chromebooks.  Students did not receive their chromebook until they attended. (My last 2 chromebook meetings were packed!) The last step was putting the chromebooks into the cases and putting labels on the cases.  We did all hands on deck for this part.  We had 3 hours and 8 people working on this.  We hit the target.  At 3pm on Friday we were done.  Roll out started Monday at 8:30am.

During the actual roll out, our Assistant Principal, Mr. Holley, addressed the students.  He reminded them of the rules about the chromebook, where you could use them, to charge them, and to be careful.  Then students were taken into a classroom where we passed out the chromebook.  We made sure every student could log into their account and wrote their email address and password on a piece of paper  with also had the chromebook rules on it. They left ready to go!  Four months into the process and the kiddos finally have the chromebooks.

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

My summer part 1

Every year I take at least 4 weeks off to vacation and recharge.  However, for the first time, I don't get this.  My summer is packed with work stuff and I am struggling with my feelings  about it.

I was asked to help my district plan a 1:1 pilot.  Part of this planning process was attending ISTE in Atlanta.  I went to ISTE in 2012 and was overwhelmed.  This time, I knew what to expect and how to navigate it.  I went with a focus, to attend all the 1:1 workshops I could.  It just scared me more.  It hit me like a ton of bricks that what we are doing is changing education.  I walked away with a lot to think about.  Some of the quotes from ISTE that inspired me were:

1. 1:1 does not meet the learners' needs, the learning it can provide does.

2. Technology is not the silver bullet.  It is a tool to enable and support great learning.

3. Collaboration is the new normal. Education is an individual sport in a team base world.

4. Iteration is the new failure.

5. Remember your end goal is to change instruction and develop thinkers!

Now, I have to work with my team to do this really big thing and act like we "got this".  The quotes above are driving my thoughts as we plan PD and the roll out of 1:1 in the 8th grade.  

After attending a bunch if 1:1 workshops, I went to a couple to inspire me (and I needed this!). I got up at 6am to make sure I had a seat for Jamie Casap (@jcasap).  I have heard him speak a few different times and he always motivates me.  I needed to connect 1:1 to my love for education.  He did this.  As I am now working with my colleagues to impliment 1:1, a quote from him runs through my head "disrespect for the impossible."  Because we are educators, it is our superpower, and nothing is impossible!