Technology is my PD superhero!

My district has the hardest time getting our secondary schools to agree on PD.  All the schools are in such different places that it is hard to come up with a plan and do "something" together.

On Monday we had a district wide PD day.  The plans for this day changed a few times and finally, on the Thursday before, the district settled on teachers working together at their sites.  So, this meant I needed to be in 7 rooms at once and overseeing 7 different groups.  Here comes technology to the rescue!

First, you have to start the day on the correct foot.  I had bagels and coffee for everyone to enjoy while they visited from 7:30-8:30am.  This was great.  I saw so many teachers in the staff lounge I never see there. Then, the day began.

I emailed staff on Friday what my expectations for the day were.  I set up a schedule for the day.  On the schedule, I included a link to the backchannel run on todaysmeet.com.  I asked departments to post their goals for the day, evidence of their work, and resources other may find useful.  Then, I would comment back on the backchannel when I was in other rooms, always encouraging groups.  As I moved around the school, the departments were doing some great work around reading and incorporating reading in all the content areas.  PE was even working on a video lecture series about health and nutrition for their students to watch in a blended environment.

After lunch, I delivered milk and cookies to all staff members.  A little sugar in the afternoon is always helpful.  I also wanted to make sure people were still on track.  A whole day of PD without a devoted leader can get off track quick.  Everyone was right on schedule and were working towards their goals they set..

In my email on Friday, I also included a link to a google doc.  I asked departments to post their completed products for the day on this document.  Then I asked them to comment of their colleagues work.  I really wanted them to see what other departments were doing, so they can integrate with each other.

The departments did post of the google doc, but no commenting happened.  Upon reflecting on this, I decided to have another go at it.  So, I send out a thank you email to my staff for the amazing day.  I also included the link to the doc and reminded them to take some time this week to comment.  I need to remember that it takes time for teachers to feel comfortable commenting on others work in public.  However, if we want the students to do it, we need to do it as well.  I started the process by making a few comments of the doc, so no one would have to be first.

As I start planning PD for 2014-15, I will remember my #pearlofwisdom from this day.  Backchannels work!  Google docs work! Growing culture takes time, but can be done.

The best staff meeting...

We had a big decision to make at the staff meeting, whether or not to change the cell phone policy.  The seed was planted via twitter one Sunday morning at 7am.  One of my #eduawesome teachers tweeted me about cell phone policies and the remainder the day was a twitter conversation about how to make change in this area.

Making decisions as a large staff is a challenge.  I am always struggling to find a way to make sure all voices are heard.  My staff meeting last week was an example of a ¨principal win¨.

The first step was discussing it at the Principal advisory committee meeting.  I made sure that teacher who started this was there as well as a good representation of the staff.  This committee decide to move forward and take the issue to the staff.

A week before the staff meeting, I had done some research about cell phone use in class for educational purposes.  I sent out the staff meeting agenda with the links and information about different cell phone policies.  I asked my staff to inform themselves.

The cell phone conversation went well.  All 50 on my teachers logged onto google moderator (conversation that occurred is here) and wrote questions.  Then, I gave them time to vote on questions they wanted to discuss as a group.  The conversation was rich and deep, just what I was looking for.  However, the online conversation is what surprised me.  The "quiet" staff members felt open to replying online.  The "quiet" staff members asked great questions.  I finally figured out a way to hear from them!!! SO EXCITED.

I will definitely use google moderator again for staff discussions.  It was a great way for all 50+ teachers to work together and make an informed decision.  Thanks +Sergio Villegas (@coach_sv) for the google moderator tip!

The 4pm call...

We all have experience "the call".  When you answer the phone and you know the person on the other end wants something, they need your help, and you know you have to say yes.  This was my Wednesday call at 4pm.

I haven't been at school for 2 days (Monday and Tuesday) because I was at SIS training.  So, Wednesday was super busy.  To top it off, I had to meet the painter for my home remodel at 5pm.  I live 30 minutes from my school.  And then I get the 4pm call.

We were having a district-wide CCSS day on Thursday.  I am in charge of the math committee for 7-12.  I had worked with my facilitator and we had planned the day.  I also worked with my Assist Superintendent to set up the ELA/History workshop for the day.  I was set to go.  And then I get the 4pm call.

In my former life, before I crossed over to the dark side (administration) I was a Middle school science and math teacher.  So, the idea of the Next Generation Science Standards were interesting to me.  I thought that integrated science in the middle school makes so much sense and would help students understand science better.  However, I had not spent much time with the standards and hadn't even read them through.  My life had been about CCSS math and ELA.  And then I get the 4pm call.

So, the 4pm call.  My awesome Assist. Superintendent calls and says she needs me to run NGSS science training for middle school tomorrow.  My thoughts were "What? Are you kidding me? I have a painter in an hour!  I don't have time for this!  I already did my thing, ask someone else."  Luckily, my filter was on and none of that came out of my mouth.

Fast forward 24 hours to 4pm Thursday, I finish my NGSS presentation to the jr high science teachers. I feel they walked away with a better understanding of design, expectations, changes is instruction and came up with good next steps.  It was very successful.  I could barely remember my stress from that 4pm call!

The pearl of wisdom, it is about relationships and people.  My assist sup knew she could ask and I would say yes.  I knew that most of the science teachers need help and I could lead them.  I knew my people could take care of the school so I could work on this. And my painter was understanding on why I didn't have my colors chosen yet!

Trying to find my groove!

Today was a great day! I am struggling getting my groove back after the Winter Break.  Wow, January has come in full force.  I came back to school running and can't seem to caught up.

What is truly getting to me it the lack of time I am spending in classrooms.  All of my tricks are not working.  I schedule time for it and an emergency happens. I am walking out the door of the office and something needs to be dealt with right now.  There have been 9000 meetings I have had to attend at the district office.  I am going crazy!!!!

Today, I managed to do it all, however, I am not sure how I pulled it off.  I got all by paperwork done by 8:29am.  Had 25 6th grade parents come and tour the school, It is shopping season.  Then at 10:3am I observe one of my fabulous new teachers that I want to clone.  He is so common core it hurts and the students drink it up.  I was in heaven for 45 minutes.  Then, I was only in my office for 15 minutes to send out my weekly parent newsletter before student lunch.  At lunch it was "name that tune" Disney style.  The junior high kids were singing and dancing.  Kenilworth became the happiest place on earth.

Before 1pm I had see more classrooms then I had in a month.  Now the challenge, how do I do this again tomorrow?

So, I am calling out to my PLN, help!  Any share any thoughts, ideas, tricks you do to make sure you get in the classrooms to drive instruction. Please!!  I need a repeat of today before any more gray hairs show up.

Sacrifices we make...

This week was the #gafesummit in napa.  I love the #gafesummit.  It is the best PD I have experience in my professional career.  I have attended two summits in the past 18 months.  I was honored to attend the first #gafesummit ever in July of 2012.  I am all about learning and being a life long learner.  I am a google freak.  I can't get enough of google and all that it what's done to change education.

This week I sent 11 staff members to #gafesummit.  They had a blast and learned so much.  I chose to stay behind and make sure the 925 students were ok and that the school survived 1/4 of the teaching staff being gone.  Someone needed to stay, so I put on my big girl pant and did it.  I had to take one for the team.  At first I was bitter, I mean really bitter.  I refused to go on twitter and didn't want to answer text messages from people at #gafesummit.  I wanted to distance myself from the whole thing.

What I discovered after talking to my friend, I needed to get over it.  I was only hurting myself by avoiding my PLN and going into my cave.  So, I went over twitter.  I learned so much from what people were posting on the #gafesummit hashtag, it was great.  

I was reminded about two things from this experience:

1. I need to get out of my own way. (My pearl of wisdom)

2. You can learned anywhere with the technology we have now.  I am sure I would have learned a ton at summit, but I still got something out of it on my sofa at night.

But, I will be at the next summit, I can't miss two in a row!!!

And @mrsfadeji, thanks for the sunshine award.  I will work on that next :-)

A life long learner, I am

We never stop learning. One of my goals with the blog is to have time to reflect on my learning and record ways I can use it now and in the future.  There are many ways I have been expanding my learning opportunities this year that have helped me with this.

1. Twitter: I have become more active in curating content off twitter.  Finding a system to save and organize this information was a challenge at first.  It also took a few failures before I found a system that works for me.  Don't be afraid to try a few different curation tools before you find your fits. I suggested my method to a colleague and it did not work with her style.  What she does, did not work for my needs.

2. More twitter: Connections I have made from twitter have be huge in my professional life. They have answered questions, provide information and asked questions that have caused me to rethink or look at a problem differently.  Some even have come to my district/school to visit and help. Thanks to @mistersill, @awesomecoachv, and @frontrowceo.

3. Conversations: talking out issues with trusted colleagues is the answer.  Having a critical friend or two to chat with is powerful.  Thank you @lorideen for being this for me.

@awesomecoachv came to do a site visit right before fall break.  The conversations we had during the visit we powerful and force me (a good thing) to reflect on practices we are using at my site and how to reframe them.  Sometime having the face to face connect allows for those deep conversations that you can't have in 140 characters (even though I have seen a lot of powerful and meaningful tweets).

4. Conferences: Obviously the more traditional method of PD.  There is something about the energy of a conference that makes you excited, renewed and so tired all at same time.  You return from a conference full of ideas and want to implement them.  Then, the energy of the people and the collaboration about it ends and you don't get everything done you had hoped for.

This weekend I attended the #elearns conference.  I walked away with so many ideas to take back to my staff.  I also went to see some speakers I know are great (@CtuckerEnglish) just to hear new things and feed off their energy.  

5. Time:  What was great about this conference was it ended in the early afternoon and we stayed until the next day.  The gift of time to share with colleagues, socialize and have work sessions was great.  We were able to discuss a #PDparty we are having on December 16 and plan it in person. Other members learned how to make a GHO on air and other tricks.  

So, my #pearlofwisdom is blending twitter and conferences is the way to go. It helps keep the energy alive and the ideas following.  It also gives you access to help who were at the conference and may not live near you.  Using technology to move your own learning forward it just one of the many benefits of tech.  How do you blended technology with another resource to improve your learning?

I am going to add to my job description, Head of PR!

As I travel along this roller coaster ride of a job, I realized there is a lot I need to do that I am not "trained" to do.  In April, I had to learn really quick about spinning a message and PR.  Our school was one of the first schools to outlaw "leggings as pants" on campus and it was a media storm.  I spoke to ABC, NBC, the local papers, the TV stations, Time, and many more.  I was in Glamour Paris (which makes me laugh because I feel I have no fashion sense) all about leggings.  What I learned from this very trying experience is that we must create the message about our schools and get it out there.  The press only puts out the negative, we need to work harder (and smarter) to get the positive out to the public.

This year I have been on a "PR train".  We have Facebook, twitter, and instagram accounts for our school. We publish on them almost everyday (and usually more then one time per day) to get our message out. We blog weekly about events on campus and information to help parents navigate Middle School.  We are actively bringing community members, parents, and others onto the campus to show them what an awesome place school is.

Besides the social media sites, the other key item on the "PR train" has been using my iPhone.  It goes everywhere with me.  I can take a photo, post it to instagram and keep going.  I also have used ifttt.com to help with only having to post once.  I have set up recipes to have my instagram auto-post to Facebook and twitter.  Saving me more time. (Thanks @digitalroberto and #fallCUE for the tips)  I know there is so much more my phone could do to help me get the message out, I will be learning and experimenting more.

Today the PR train was on overkill!  @frontrowceo came to visit.  He saw our TV station, how we are using his products, helped out with a few issues, and gave us ideas.  Then a Professor from UOP came to tour classrooms and see what learning looks like in a middle school.  Finally, our city's Mayor came with the Public Access Channel crew and filmed a segment about the Woodshop making 175 Toys for Toys for Tots. I came back to my office after this third visit and told my secretary I was exhausted.  This was more exhausting then working with kids and teachers.

We get to do it all over again tomorrow when Chris Angotti, the director of the Young Writers Program of NaNoWriMo comes to visit our English classrooms as our 390 8th graders work on their novels.  I have let the local paper know this is happening.  Hopefully, they will send a reporter, but my iPhone will be with me to take lots of shoots and post them on social media.

The pearl of wisdom for the post is, get your message out there.  Show the world, one person at a time, how awesome schools are.  Use all the social media that is out there to put your message out, meet others who can help you and learn from others.  I went to a SCOE workshop last week by Matt O'Donnell and he share this Google Drive folder with helpful hints about Facebook and blogging. Remember to ask questions to those doing it already and learn from their mistakes too. Jump in feet first, it will be ok.