Recapping ISTE19 through Snapshots and Comments

Hey!

I've said for years that any school or school district who supports Professional Learning with travel funds should REQUIRE a detailed account of how time was spent at conference or workshop. Though my "budget neutral" school district (hate that term) did not support this trip, I am in the habit of providing same. So.

Instead of my traditional rambling post or series of posts, I'm choosing to document this year's International Society for Technology in Education's annual Conference and Expo in Philadelphia with all the photos I took along with notated comments. Comments contain links to places visited, colleagues hugged, and more; including beaucoup resources from events at which I presented or which I attended. My work here is done. All I can say is--Go for it! And enjoy!

Scott's Google Photos from ISTE19

There will be a live recap discussion with Andy Wheelock and yours truly in Second Life on Tuesday, July 16, at http://tinyurl.com/istevenetwork -- join us at 5pm Pacific Time!

English Learners and EdTech

In my school, in my computer lab, over 65% of the students are English Language Learners. I struggle with ways to help them. The best results are when I can literally take a knee, point to their computer screens so that they are doing the clicking, and help them one-on-one. That can't always happen, since there are so many more of them in any of my 8 sections every 9 weeks than there are of me. 

One of my classrooms working on computer programming concepts

But help is on the way: An esteemed colleague at McMurray MS shared this information last week with all our teachers. I highly suggest allotting some planning time to explore this wealth of information about EdTech and ELL. If English Learners are in your classes, and they sure are in mine, it will be a help to you! Copying and pasting his email (from Mr. Jason Smith at McMurray Middle School:

FYI: “This toolkit brings suggestions and resources for educators who want to utilize new technology-based resources to help their EL students gain proficiency in English and meet academic goals. The toolkit offers five guiding principles for educators to apply in exploring new ways of working with and supporting EL students through technology. In addition, the toolkit has a companion—The Developer Toolkit which provides guidance for developers on the needs of English learner students and their teachers, tips on supports to include with their products that may be especially useful for English learners and ways they can communicate about their products with districts and educators of English learner students to facilitate adoption.”

https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-education-releases-study-and-accompanying-toolkit-ed-tech-english-learners

https://tech.ed.gov/edtech-english-learner-toolkits/

Enjoy, and comment here if you implement an idea that helps in this prominent area!

Alike

This incredible short film was shared on Facebook by my dear brother-from-another-mother, James Paige Morrison, and I want to share it out with everyone who might benefit from watching it. That's you.

It's almost a cliche' that the systems which control our growth from infancy to the grave can stifle creativity, almost as if they were designed to do so. They have, in fact, rather evolved to do so. Perhaps with a little more awareness, we can help them further evolve to embrace creativity. LOTS of discussion in the educational arena surrounding this. It's the essential reason that STEM became STEAM. The addition of the A, adding Art to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math is the best development in formal education since the addition of the pencil.

Let's keep the educational trend pendulum swinging in that direction (because you do know it swings, don't you?) and when it gets to its apogee, let's push it a little further! Watch:

Now. New Work. Let's Stay in Touch!

Just popping in here to note that I turned in my keys to the Cohn Learning Center and the Virtual School today. It felt good. It's a long story and to be kind I don't want to tell it. Suffice it to say that though I poured my heart and soul into my work at MNPS Virtual School for six years of my life, I am done and gone. Best of luck to the school.

For all the kind and supportive words from all of my colleagues and friends on social media and other fronts, I have the most profound gratitude. You all got me through this tough spot in my professional career. I thank you, I thank you, I thank you. And to my family, with which I have been blessed despite my own failings, I love you completely and I hold you in my heart always.

Now, to the future. I am completely excited to be returning Monday to the K-4 computer lab, but this time not to an independent school, where I did similar work for 11 years, but to my new home--Warner Enhanced Option Elementary School.

When told the official ask had been requested, I created a blog for families similar to the one I maintained for a decade at University School of Nashville, and I'll likely be more often blogging there than here in upcoming weeks. I hope to to build a curriculum and a future for my  24 classes a week, K-4. I'm on it already. When my students leave for middle school, they will be armed with confidence that they have the skills to deal with the rapidly escalating flood if information. They will know how to stay safe online. They will be able to tell when information is manipulating them, instead of being there to be manipulated by them. We will scaffold all this around the new ISTE Technology Standards for Students, just released last month and exceedingly comprehensive and spot-on. Let's play. Let's be good and have fun. Let's learn, share, and enjoy our time together.

Here's a pano of my dear boy Colin in my newly spiffed up computer lab. Watch for more soon!

Have a great week.

Now I have to make some mouse pads. God bless Google. :)

New Academies of Nashville -- explained in 5 minutes!

So proud to be working to make this happen at our virtual school!

Working in the Space Outside of the Space Outside of the Box

Looking so forward to having dinner with the multi-talented edtech thought leader Andy Wheelock Thursday night and kicking off the Digital Wave conference in West Seneca, NY next Friday morning. If you can be there, be there, and if you can't, watch here for my presentation and keep an eye on #outtheboxdw15 in the Twitdom Friday. Join in if you will and come if you can!

v-TEACH in February! Climb Aboard!

Come join practitioners of the fastest developing field of public schooling: Virtual Schooling. You'll learn more than you can imagine. Calls for proposals also at the site! Click that image above to get started!

NCAC in Washington, DC--Reflections

It was very productive this past weekend to spend some time with colleagues both old and new in the Hyatt Crystal City outside of our nation's capitol. The occasion was the annual conference of the National Career Academy Coalition.

My school will be the first online school in the world, to the best of my knowledge, to gain accreditation under the NCAC National Standards of Practice. This requires satisfying members of a review committee and will likely not happen until at least 2016, when we are currently scheduled to undergo review. There's a lot of work to do prior to that.

But my last post was about an accreditation, so I'm steering clear of that topic for now. What I want to do is briefly detail my experiences at the sessions I attended, all of which, without exception, were in the lecture format. This is not an adverse criticism, though it may sound so. I have thought for years that a format that encourages interaction between the participants/attendees would demonstrate leadership by example in the professional development arena, and after years of providing alternatives in the way of "Playground" sessions at ISTE conferences, I have come to settle for the fact that "this is the way we've always done it" may actually be the best way to do it, at least for educators who can actually do get something out of "sit and git."

So, that said, however inelegantly, here are the sessions that I attended, along with notes and insights gained:

Friday:
9:00 - Teacher Externships: Bringing Relevancy to Student Learning; Dayna Paine, Director of Curriculum and Instruction, Clarksville-Montgomery County School System; Becky Padgett, Academic Coach
This was a most interesting session, as Ms. Paine shared a well-thought-out and successful program geared to fill in an experiential gap not in students, but in teachers. She explained that most of her teachers had come to teaching through the regular pathway, high school, college, then to teach. Many have not had varied experiences in other working conditions, at least not in full-time, career minded ways. My main takeaways were that roles of all sets of participants need to be explicit and clear from the outset, and that the externship relationships are intended to be maintained throughout the school year. The "collatoral skills" teachers experience and maybe even learn can make what they do in the classroom all that much more valid and real for their students.

10:30 - The Academy Model in an Alternative Setting: The Roosevelt Way; Dr. Heidi Houy, Principal, Roosevelt Learning Center; Jennifer Carson, Academy School Counselor, Rockford Public Schools
This session was close to my heart, since as we work toward the brass ring of accreditation, we struggle with many of the same issues of practice that any Alternative school will find. Roosevelt has come a long way in their implementation of the Academies model in spite of that. Clearly their ongoing response to Theodore Roosevelt's call to "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are" informs that. The transience of their student population, their practice of meeting each student where they learn and how they learn, and their robust community partnerships all weigh in toward success of their program. And it is a program, though the school diploma is the same one that students in a regular brick and mortar school receive. That said, with 1200 students moving through their system a year, in one way or another, they are working to give students who rarely get the attention they need the special small learning community that Academies can provide. Dr. Houy came from Special Education into Administration and if she had not told us that I would certainly have been able to guess it. She cares and does so in a proactive way. I was most impressed by her adaptations of the Academies Model to the Alternative School setting.

12:15 - Lunch and Keynote Speaker; Roberto J. Rodriguez, Deputy Assistant to the President for Education, White House Domestic Policy Council; Johan Uvin, Acting Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Education; Portia Wu, Assistant Secretary, Employment and Training Administration
Mr. Rodriguez came in after our Dr. Jay Steele, Chief Academic Officer for our MNPS (and, I was proud to learn, incoming President of NCAC!), had pitched some policy questions to our other guests. The answers were predictable but supportive. Mr. Rodriguez also preached to the choir, though I don't think anyone in the room was expecting anything otherwise. He mentioned that President Obama has visited not only our McGavock High School but several other schools across the nation, drilling down to the student level to help inform policy by what works. Disclaimer: I still believe in President Obama, despite his famously low approval ratings these days. I think history will be kind to his Presidential service, especially in the light of mostly successful opposing partisan blockages. If the country is polarized, I am just left of middle but absolutely nowhere to the right. I like his style and his humor and his effort to do well in a bad system. Watch this and see if you can do so with a dry eye.

2:00 - Melting Pot Marketing; Beverley Flatt, Program Manager (for the Academies of Nashville), Metro Nashville Public Schools
This was one of my favorite sessions, and only 20 minutes long. It was "sit and git," but a modified version since it was one of three sessions that could be chosen during the hour as participants rotated between 7 sessions. I spoke with two presenters who told me they had prepared for one hour sessions, so as you can imagine Bev talked fast. And she had alot to say. Her scientific research into the amazingly diverse Nashville community demographic and the appropriate ways to market to each of them is nothing short of brilliant. Raised eyebrows and smiles announced surprised learning around the table. Here's our Beverley's Prezi so you can learn too.

I was sooo tired of sitting down that I took a long walk down to Harris Teeter during the final session. There were some good ones offered though, with topics covering:

• New software for career and education planning
• Leadership practices for National Standards of Practice
• Georgia Career Academies
• School Counselors in academy settings
• Career Academies and afterschool programs
• Engaging business partners
• and another software demo, from ConnectEd Studios
• Monday morning units
• Critical skills for career readiness
• Lessons learned developing Career Academies
• Developing a State network of Academies

I wish I'd gone to at least one of these, but the excellent thing is that many, if not most, of the presenters have uploaded their presentations for download.  I still have the NCAC conference app and will take a good look at what I can.

From 5:00-6:00 There was a "Speed Networking" session, billed as being like Speed Dating, and it would have been fun to watch but no one I knew went to it. I wonder how it went. Anyone go? Comment here if you did.

Saturday:
  I had room service breakfast, which cost me my entire per diem for the day but was pretty tasty. Then I jumped right into it:

• I next attended (Innovation) Developing Workplace Internships: PG&E Energy Academy Summer Internship Program; Geneve Villacres, Community Relations, Pacific Gas and Electric Company; and Jerry Winthrop, Lead Consultant, California Department of Education. This session was an engaging look at a big program, statewide, really, and uniquely designed to deal with the rapidly graying demographic of their current skilled workforce. Though we don't have an Energy Academy, learning the way this huge project was implemented and has developed was heartening. I'm sure there are similar situations in Business and Marketing and that we can help provide skilled workers in this field and I will keep those methods in mind as we proceed. I was sure to leave my card with the capable Ms. Villacres since they did not upload their presentation and they promised sharing with those who reached out in that way.
• I tried to attend the "Recent Research on Career Academies" but it was very slow paced "sit and git" describing research solely conducted in California and I needed something more "git up and go." So I went to what had been my first choice anyway, something unfortunately typo-titled in both catalog and app as "Managing by Manage: Team Work in Nashville" Huh? Just goes to show that no matter how many sets of eyes you get on a document things can slip through. However, this was my friends and colleagues and I wouldn't have missed it even if the data talk had been more hands-on or broadly based. Whitney Weeks, VP, Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce; Chaney Moseley, Director for the Academies of Nashville; and Matt Seaton, Director of the Pencil Foundation, tag teamed around the topic of the big overarching Leadership Councils they have created and improved to further focus the work between Business and Education Community Partners who support the Academies of Nashville. I was interested to see the reactions of attendees from Montana, Illinois, Hawaii, and a couple of other places, to the suggestion that this really effective system might be helpful in their settings. First of all, none could summon up a local organization that might fill the role(s) filled by Pencil Foundation in Nashville. Some seem to have strong disconnections between what their students need and what the community can provide, and imho I feel that Leadership Councils could help with this. Nonetheless it was fun to see these three more or less sardonically play off one another and I could tell that their presentation was both entertaining the attendees and challenging them to think. I'm grateful to work with them if not daily, at least regularly.
• Lunch was on your own ("Who doesn't serve lunch at a conference on Saturday?" was the question posed by one of my fellow lunch explorers) and we met at Italia Cafe Italia in a quaint strip of mostly ethnic restaurants on 23rd Street, just a few long blocks away from the hotel. I don't think the food was all that good--my "Caesar salad" was iceberg lettuce and dry sliced chicken breast but the Calzone was reportedly good. The best thing was that my nephew Ed drove down from his home and met us and I got to chat for an hour with him and have him meet four of my Academies colleagues. 
• Back at the conference playing field, I hit "Teaching Game Development in High School;" Eric Preisz, CEO, GarageGames, LLC. This vendor-delivered session surely enlightened me and I learned a bit, and though we don't have an IT academy (yet) we do have a Gamers' Club and this might be something of interest to them. I know the development structure I learned may be of great use in any development project. I'm pretty sure it flew over the heads of some in attendance, though, and when it was just about to wind up I headed out for a bio break.
• By then we were down to the last session, and since I was somewhat sleep deprived from a great night eating, laughing and hiking 4.79 miles (yes, Beverley measured it) I went upstairs and took a power nap, which turned out to be a good thing since I was about to have a very decent roasted chicken dinner at the NCAC Awards Banquet, ending with Nashville receiving the first ever Model Community award, all 50 or so of us onstage (will add pic when I can find it!), then walk to Bar Louie with my colleagues to have tasty adult beverages and play "HeadsUp" on our iPhones. Another late, but fun night

Hiking to the Lincoln Memorial from the Washington Monument

The conference was over, and so am I.

Happy 2014-15, Educators and Students! Celebrations!

Wow. Just wow. This has been a whirlwind startup this semester. In many ways, it reminded me of our infant days. Now entering our 4th year as a honest to golly public school, our 5th year as a working collaboration, I'm amazed and pleased at where we stand at MNPS Virtual School. This blog has always been a chatty mishmash of the personal and the professional, and this post will lean toward the latter.

To begin with, we celebrate a new team member! Ms. Kelby House, our new v-School Counselor, has come on board to join the illustrious and ultra-valuable Adrienne McNew in serving the Counseling needs of our growing student body. Kelby is clearly a fantastic choice for this position on the team. I accompanied her to last week's Middle School Preps rollout at the Discovery Science Center and if anyone left there without her business card in hand I would be amazed. She'll be strong ammunition in our efforts to struggle out of the box if misunderstanding. Hello!!! We are NOT the commercial option. We are a tried and true Public School, part of the 42nd largest public school district in the nation and one that is gaining national attention as a model for school improvement on a district scale.

We celebrate growth. Currently we have 137 full-time students in grades 7-12, an accomplishment we can largely credit to our Ms. McNew's refinement and faithful delivery of a rigorous interview process designed to make sure we are enrolling students who can succeed in online learning and who can benefit from the move over to us and away from daily bricks and mortar schooling. Around 750 students around the District are taking one or more classes with us this semester while attending their school of zone or choice. The latter, by the way, has been made much more doable with the district-wide implementation of free breakfasts and lunches for all MNPS students. Wow, just wow.

I'm celebrating in advance because communications went out from Pencil Partners last night inviting our business and post-secondary Partners at our Virtual Academy of Business and Marketing to sign a little agreement that they'll work with us this year. You can read more about that at the Academy page on our website. Once those are concrete, I'll share it all right here, an on Facebook, and everywhere else I can. The Academies model has done wonders for the students in the district, and its innovative implementation at our school will help pave the way for other online K12 schools to adopt it. Hey, we're workin' here! I'm so looking forward to attending the NCAC national conference in D.C. come
late October!

Hey, that's enough for now. More celebrations later. Thanks to my PLN, to ISTE, and to my students and teachers and staff for making every day I work my best day ever.

Oh, and I want to celebrate this fish. May I catch him again after he's put on another pound or two, but four pounds was my biggest catfish ever on Marrowbone Lake!

THE BEST ISTE EVER: Day 5, Wednesday, Reflections

Another up-early morning and I had to finish packing and stow my luggage at the front desk before hitting the Hyatt Ballroom A yet again for EdTech Leaders' annual Online Learning Institute. My plan, which worked well, I may say, was to take a cab out to the airport and pick up a reserved rental car then return to the hotel for my bags before driving to Lake Conroe, north of Houston, a 3 and a half hour or so drive, in order to spend several days relaxing and fishing with my brother, Ed. Ed does important work with The Augustus Group, his consulting company focused on risk analysis and compliance in heavy industry.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again--though this eats up all day (8-3) the final day of ISTE, it's time well allocated if one is in the distance learning field. You can see why if you check out all the available round-table sessions at the online agenda, and I'll just elaborate a bit here and we'll be done.

The program began with welcomes and agenda by the dynamic and capable Barbara Treacy from ETLO and moved right into David Rose's keynote. David's organization, CAST, serves students with disabilities with technological support for their learning experiences and is the source for UDL--Universal Design for Learning. If you are not in tune with UDL, you really should pop out and read this. From that website:

Universal Design for Learning is a set of principles for curriculum development that give all individuals equal opportunities to learn.
UDL provides a blueprint for creating instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments that work for everyone--not a single, one-size-fits-all solution but rather flexible approaches that can be customized and adjusted for individual needs.

His keynote did not ring my bells the way Dr. Chris Dede's did last year, but his message was well taken. That said, it ran over a bit into the scheduled time for the first roundtables, causing us to play catch-up the rest of the morning.

My team and I presented our session at Table 3, right up front, and we had interested and interesting participants there. Our 45 minutes went by quickly as we shared our development of policies and procedures toward scalable best practices in K12 online learning at MNPS Virtual School. I look forward to seeing our evaluations, since it was so very informal, but I think that we made contact with some new colleagues who we will value over the next couple of years.

Andy Wheelock, participant in a 2 million dollar grant just awarded in New York to deliver Advanced Placement courses online, took notes for the table at this Google document. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about the notes or the presentation.

For the second session I honestly wanted to visit Georgia Virtual School's presentation on their new teacher education tool but that table filled up immediately. That was fine, because the three of us from MNPS Virtual School sat down at the iEarn/Global Nomads table and learned a great deal about their global outreach in the form of project based learning and collaboration. I can promise that we will be learning more. This is just the thing for a capstone project option in our Freshman Academy, under development, and it could be an option in just about any of our courses. Learn more at http://iearn.org/. Since no one at the table was assigned to take notes, I'm going to pop in the session description here so we all have the info. Thanks to Kristyn and Syed for an engaging 45 minutes.

Exchange 2.0 Advocacy and Implementation – Using Technology to Create a Global Classroom

Our Michael Terry attends the iEarn Global Nomads roundtable

Join this roundtable discussion with co-facilitators, Global Nomads Group and iEARN, to learn more about creating a global classroom. Modern technology has made the world an undeniably smaller place; in order for our students to be successful in this inter-cultural world, educators and administrators must look for ways to create accessible global classrooms. Physical international exchanges that involve people meeting face-to-face are widely acknowledged as being among the best ways to foster cross-cultural respect and understanding. Exchange 2.0 allows face-to-face, cross-cultural connections to take place virtually in a traditional classroom, making the interactions a part of the classroom routine and allowing more students to participate and gain a deeper understanding of the world. Exchange 2.0 describes curriculum-based, virtual international exchange programs that focus on cross-cultural awareness and critical thinking skills. The aim of Exchange 2.0 is to increase the number of young people gaining cross-cultural experiences in educational settings, turning local classrooms into true global classrooms that can help students develop 21st century learning skills. Through the use of technology, Exchange 2.0 allows this type of international exchange to occur without the expensive costs of traditional physical exchanges. This session will give educators and administrative professionals the tools and resources to implement Exchange 2.0 in their schools, and advocate for Exchange 2.0 on the public policy level. Global Nomads Group (www.gng.org) Founded in 1998, Global Nomads Group (GNG) is an international NGO whose mission is to foster dialogue and understanding among the world’s youth. GNG engages and empowers young people worldwide using media, including: interactive videoconferencing, webcasting, social networking, and participatory filmmaking. GNG operates at the intersection of international and peace education, striving to serve as a vehicle for awareness, bridging the boundaries of cultural misconceptions, and instilling a heightened appreciation and comprehension of the world. GNG Facilitator: Kristyn Mohr, Program Associate, collaborates with colleagues on GNG programming in the Middle East and North Africa and manages GNG’s largest program in this region, Youth Talk. Youth Talk is a yearlong civic engagement program which harnesses the power of virtual exchange, an online platform and a project-based learning curriculum to build cross-cultural awareness and global citizenship among high school students across the United States and high school students in the Middle East and North Africa. iEARN (www.iearn.org) Since 1988, iEARN (International Education and Resource Network) has pioneered on-line school linkages to enable students to engage in meaningful educational projects with peers in their countries and around the world. iEARN empowers teachers and young people to work together online using the Internet and other new communications technologies. iEARN is a non-profit organization made up of over 30,000 schools and youth organizations in more than 130 countries. iEARN Facilitator: Syed Muhammad Abdullah is a YES Program Alumna and currently employed at SIE/iEARN-Pakistan as a Project Manager. Among other work, he was an organizer of the 2012 Youth TechCamp in Islamabad, and is the Editor in Chief of Youth Voices International - a blog created by YES alumni for all State alumni http://youthvoicesinternational.com/. He also is the founder of Karachi Tips, a social venture.
- See more at: http://oli.etlo.org/content/oli-agenda-2013#sthash.4fUClbM1.dpuf

We had a sit-down lunch in the adjacent ballroom, which was good though my chicken was a bit dry (great spicy ranch dressing on the salad though); and the cheesecake dessert was universally devoured. My neighbor said "I never finish desserts, but I am finishing this one" just as I was about to utter words to the same effect. Kecia flitted in (Ms. President, you'll recall) and asked me to have dinner with her after her required Pearson meeting, which she anticipated finishing up by 5 pm, as I understood. Then we adjourned (before anyone at our table was served coffee, which we all needed) back to the room for a panel discussion. There's that hurry-up thing again.

The discussion was interesting--featuring Julie Evans, Project Tomorrow CEO, Angela Smith, Texas Virtual School Network Operations Director, and Winnie Bracco, iLearn NYC--

Julie Evans, Project Tomorrow CEO

Angela Smith, Texas Virtual School Network Operations Director

Winnie Bracco, iLearn NYC

- See more at: http://oli.etlo.org/content/oli-agenda-2013#sthash.4fUClbM1.dpuf

but I have to agree with someone I heard while exiting say "sit and git--they should have just gone straight to the roundtables and finished early enough for everyone to make the Adam Bellow closing keynote." I agree, and I hope conference organizers hear that here and in my evaluation. It's a particularly sensitive area for me, since we are looking at my school at re-configuring our student and teacher orientations to steer away with lecture type experiences. It's practice what you preach time for all of us.

As is is, my party had to leave even before lunch to make it to the airport by the brutal flight time of 3 pm, and I caught one roundtable (about Texas' implementation of Intel's teacher education courses) and headed for the door without catching the final roundtable (along with what appeared to be about half of the attendees. I felt bad for the roundtables scheduled at the end and I made a note to request the first session next year, should I decide to apply to host a roundtable.

Brian and Kecia introduce the closing keynote by Adam Bellow

I made my way to the convention center, hit a restroom and changed into my shorts and New Orleans House of Blues tee-shirt, and hit the main hall just in time to see Kecia and Brian opening up the closing keynote. When Brian announced a surprise ad hoc "speed panel" preceding Adam's talk, I confess that I headed out, got my cab, and had myself delivered to the airport. The good thing is that Brian's keynote (plus the excellent ad hoc panel) is archived and I have enjoyed reviewing it at my lazy leisure. If, like moi, you missed Adam's live talk you MUST catch it right here, right now:



I had to drive back into the city anyway to get my luggage from the Westin Riverwalk, so I did so and found a parking space on the street down from Kecia's hotel, the Hyatt. I was amazed to find that for 5 quarters I could get a 2 hour parking meter just a block away from the hotel. You certainly can't do that in downtown Nashville!

I headed to the bar. I sipped one beer for over an hour waiting for Kecia and once it became apparent that her meeting was going long with no end in sight, I finally decided to book it. I was tired and not really looking forward to driving through Houston at night anyway. By chance, I had sat at a high table in the bar with a young entrepeneur (he was at the table with the electrical outlet and my iPhone was threatening to die) and had a wonderful conversation with him. John Marcato is the dynamic techno-force behind Poindexter Technology in Marina del Ray, California. He had some Starbucks cards left over from the vendor booth and handed me a 10 dollar card as he left: People can be so nice, and if it's true that I can "have a conversation with a rock," as Dr. Witty said at one point in the conference, it's because I believe that at an event like ISTE, you need to take advantage of networking possibilities, and they are legion. Start a conversation with anyone you sit or stand with. That's why you're there. You're also here to collect ribbons for your name badge:

ms.harris.the.math.genius has quite a collection

My annual Me and Dave pic!

Thanks, ISTE and thanks to all my ISTE friends and family for THE BEST ISTE EVER. We're done here.
See you in Atlanta, where I just may take my much admired buddy David Warlick's advice and choose not to present. How fun might that be?

Exchange 2.0 Advocacy and Implementation – Using Technology to Create a Global Classroom

Join this roundtable discussion with co-facilitators, Global Nomads Group and iEARN, to learn more about creating a global classroom. Modern technology has made the world an undeniably smaller place; in order for our students to be successful in this inter-cultural world, educators and administrators must look for ways to create accessible global classrooms. Physical international exchanges that involve people meeting face-to-face are widely acknowledged as being among the best ways to foster cross-cultural respect and understanding. Exchange 2.0 allows face-to-face, cross-cultural connections to take place virtually in a traditional classroom, making the interactions a part of the classroom routine and allowing more students to participate and gain a deeper understanding of the world. Exchange 2.0 describes curriculum-based, virtual international exchange programs that focus on cross-cultural awareness and critical thinking skills. The aim of Exchange 2.0 is to increase the number of young people gaining cross-cultural experiences in educational settings, turning local classrooms into true global classrooms that can help students develop 21st century learning skills. Through the use of technology, Exchange 2.0 allows this type of international exchange to occur without the expensive costs of traditional physical exchanges. This session will give educators and administrative professionals the tools and resources to implement Exchange 2.0 in their schools, and advocate for Exchange 2.0 on the public policy level. Global Nomads Group (www.gng.org) Founded in 1998, Global Nomads Group (GNG) is an international NGO whose mission is to foster dialogue and understanding among the world’s youth. GNG engages and empowers young people worldwide using media, including: interactive videoconferencing, webcasting, social networking, and participatory filmmaking. GNG operates at the intersection of international and peace education, striving to serve as a vehicle for awareness, bridging the boundaries of cultural misconceptions, and instilling a heightened appreciation and comprehension of the world. GNG Facilitator: Kristyn Mohr, Program Associate, collaborates with colleagues on GNG programming in the Middle East and North Africa and manages GNG’s largest program in this region, Youth Talk. Youth Talk is a yearlong civic engagement program which harnesses the power of virtual exchange, an online platform and a project-based learning curriculum to build cross-cultural awareness and global citizenship among high school students across the United States and high school students in the Middle East and North Africa. iEARN (www.iearn.org) Since 1988, iEARN (International Education and Resource Network) has pioneered on-line school linkages to enable students to engage in meaningful educational projects with peers in their countries and around the world. iEARN empowers teachers and young people to work together online using the Internet and other new communications technologies. iEARN is a non-profit organization made up of over 30,000 schools and youth organizations in more than 130 countries. iEARN Facilitator: Syed Muhammad Abdullah is a YES Program Alumna and currently employed at SIE/iEARN-Pakistan as a Project Manager. Among other work, he was an organizer of the 2012 Youth TechCamp in Islamabad, and is the Editor in Chief of Youth Voices International - a blog created by YES alumni for all State alumni http://youthvoicesinternational.com/. He also is the founder of Karachi Tips, a social venture.
- See more at: http://oli.etlo.org/content/oli-agenda-2013#sthash.4fUClbM1.dpuf

Exchange 2.0 Advocacy and Implementation – Using Technology to Create a Global Classroom

Join this roundtable discussion with co-facilitators, Global Nomads Group and iEARN, to learn more about creating a global classroom. Modern technology has made the world an undeniably smaller place; in order for our students to be successful in this inter-cultural world, educators and administrators must look for ways to create accessible global classrooms. Physical international exchanges that involve people meeting face-to-face are widely acknowledged as being among the best ways to foster cross-cultural respect and understanding. Exchange 2.0 allows face-to-face, cross-cultural connections to take place virtually in a traditional classroom, making the interactions a part of the classroom routine and allowing more students to participate and gain a deeper understanding of the world. Exchange 2.0 describes curriculum-based, virtual international exchange programs that focus on cross-cultural awareness and critical thinking skills. The aim of Exchange 2.0 is to increase the number of young people gaining cross-cultural experiences in educational settings, turning local classrooms into true global classrooms that can help students develop 21st century learning skills. Through the use of technology, Exchange 2.0 allows this type of international exchange to occur without the expensive costs of traditional physical exchanges. This session will give educators and administrative professionals the tools and resources to implement Exchange 2.0 in their schools, and advocate for Exchange 2.0 on the public policy level. Global Nomads Group (www.gng.org) Founded in 1998, Global Nomads Group (GNG) is an international NGO whose mission is to foster dialogue and understanding among the world’s youth. GNG engages and empowers young people worldwide using media, including: interactive videoconferencing, webcasting, social networking, and participatory filmmaking. GNG operates at the intersection of international and peace education, striving to serve as a vehicle for awareness, bridging the boundaries of cultural misconceptions, and instilling a heightened appreciation and comprehension of the world. GNG Facilitator: Kristyn Mohr, Program Associate, collaborates with colleagues on GNG programming in the Middle East and North Africa and manages GNG’s largest program in this region, Youth Talk. Youth Talk is a yearlong civic engagement program which harnesses the power of virtual exchange, an online platform and a project-based learning curriculum to build cross-cultural awareness and global citizenship among high school students across the United States and high school students in the Middle East and North Africa. iEARN (www.iearn.org) Since 1988, iEARN (International Education and Resource Network) has pioneered on-line school linkages to enable students to engage in meaningful educational projects with peers in their countries and around the world. iEARN empowers teachers and young people to work together online using the Internet and other new communications technologies. iEARN is a non-profit organization made up of over 30,000 schools and youth organizations in more than 130 countries. iEARN Facilitator: Syed Muhammad Abdullah is a YES Program Alumna and currently employed at SIE/iEARN-Pakistan as a Project Manager. Among other work, he was an organizer of the 2012 Youth TechCamp in Islamabad, and is the Editor in Chief of Youth Voices International - a blog created by YES alumni for all State alumni http://youthvoicesinternational.com/. He also is the founder of Karachi Tips, a social venture.
- See more at: http://oli.etlo.org/content/oli-agenda-2013#sthash.4fUClbM1.dpuf

Exchange 2.0 Advocacy and Implementation – Using Technology to Create a Global Classroom

Join this roundtable discussion with co-facilitators, Global Nomads Group and iEARN, to learn more about creating a global classroom. Modern technology has made the world an undeniably smaller place; in order for our students to be successful in this inter-cultural world, educators and administrators must look for ways to create accessible global classrooms. Physical international exchanges that involve people meeting face-to-face are widely acknowledged as being among the best ways to foster cross-cultural respect and understanding. Exchange 2.0 allows face-to-face, cross-cultural connections to take place virtually in a traditional classroom, making the interactions a part of the classroom routine and allowing more students to participate and gain a deeper understanding of the world. Exchange 2.0 describes curriculum-based, virtual international exchange programs that focus on cross-cultural awareness and critical thinking skills. The aim of Exchange 2.0 is to increase the number of young people gaining cross-cultural experiences in educational settings, turning local classrooms into true global classrooms that can help students develop 21st century learning skills. Through the use of technology, Exchange 2.0 allows this type of international exchange to occur without the expensive costs of traditional physical exchanges. This session will give educators and administrative professionals the tools and resources to implement Exchange 2.0 in their schools, and advocate for Exchange 2.0 on the public policy level. Global Nomads Group (www.gng.org) Founded in 1998, Global Nomads Group (GNG) is an international NGO whose mission is to foster dialogue and understanding among the world’s youth. GNG engages and empowers young people worldwide using media, including: interactive videoconferencing, webcasting, social networking, and participatory filmmaking. GNG operates at the intersection of international and peace education, striving to serve as a vehicle for awareness, bridging the boundaries of cultural misconceptions, and instilling a heightened appreciation and comprehension of the world. GNG Facilitator: Kristyn Mohr, Program Associate, collaborates with colleagues on GNG programming in the Middle East and North Africa and manages GNG’s largest program in this region, Youth Talk. Youth Talk is a yearlong civic engagement program which harnesses the power of virtual exchange, an online platform and a project-based learning curriculum to build cross-cultural awareness and global citizenship among high school students across the United States and high school students in the Middle East and North Africa. iEARN (www.iearn.org) Since 1988, iEARN (International Education and Resource Network) has pioneered on-line school linkages to enable students to engage in meaningful educational projects with peers in their countries and around the world. iEARN empowers teachers and young people to work together online using the Internet and other new communications technologies. iEARN is a non-profit organization made up of over 30,000 schools and youth organizations in more than 130 countries. iEARN Facilitator: Syed Muhammad Abdullah is a YES Program Alumna and currently employed at SIE/iEARN-Pakistan as a Project Manager. Among other work, he was an organizer of the 2012 Youth TechCamp in Islamabad, and is the Editor in Chief of Youth Voices International - a blog created by YES alumni for all State alumni http://youthvoicesinternational.com/. He also is the founder of Karachi Tips, a social venture.
- See more at: http://oli.etlo.org/content/oli-agenda-2013#sthash.4fUClbM1.dpuf

ISTE 2013 Post 6: Arrival

We're heeeeere, y'all. I flew in today with my team from MNPS Virtual School and yes, I should be going to bed in my lovely Westin Riverwalk 12th floor hotel room, but I remember that I promised a blog post daily. Here's today's.

We all arrived fairly early at the airport and spent some time over beverages and nachos at O'Charley's before boarding the plane. We had a last minute gate change and arrived as the B Group for Southwest was boarding and I hoped into line since I was assigned B2. An alarm went off and the attendant said, Uh-Uh, you're going to San Antonio, you don't want to get on this plane--this plane's going to St. Louis.

Ha. Embarrassing but at least the system works. I'm not in St. Louis. I've never experienced that particular situation, since the plane at our new gate was boarding right when we should have been. All sorted out, we waited for that plane to board and ours to arrive, disembark passengers, and got loaded in around 15 minutes late. We arrived in San Antonio just that late and I missed my first event, a SIG appreciation event that included Riverwalk boat tours. We headed down to the Hyatt, past the convention center, stopping in there to pick up our registration materials, and ran in to my first dear friend, Marianne Malmstrom, in front of the Hyatt. After chatting for a while we parted, but not after more hugs and handshakes from Sarah Rolle, Chris Luchs, Kae Novak, Adam Bellow, Andy Wheelock, and Jan Zanetis. It has begun.

Speaking of beginning, if you haven't registered for this year's Leadership Summit (this year called "Epic Leadership: Beyond the Hype of Gamification," I understand there are a very few seats left. It starts at 9 am at the self-same Hyatt adjacent to the Convention Center and I'll be there by 7 or so to help organize and set up for success. If you have attended these events in the past I can say one thing: This will be like none other. Don't miss it! A talk by opening keynoter Jane McGonigal, direction from the incomparable Peggy Sheehy, and an event that is really, well, a game--there, I've given you a few clues. Here's another:

After a darned good dinner at Durty Nellie's Irish Pub, we hit the Hyatt again for an MNPS  ISTE attendees get together at our incoming President Kecia Ray's lush Presidential Suite. It's only fitting, and it was interesting to meet several new local colleagues and to fetch a hug from Kecia and one from the lovely and personable ISTE Board Member Gwyneth Jones. 

 It has begun. I'd better get to bed. Blog you tomorrow. G'night.

Happy Presidents' Day and a bit of news re MNPS Virtual School

Things move apace here at MNPS Virtual School. Though it's a holiday for students and a Professional Day for teachers, our whole team (5 dynamic individuals) are each and every one of us in to work today, working working working. We are providing a valuable service to district students over this upcoming Spring "Intersession" the first week of the district's first two-week long Spring Break and Spring Break itself), providing "Bridge Math Intensive," our first real foray into the world of Blended Learning. Students, for a nominal registration fee, will complete in two weeks a course normally running a full 18 week semester. It will be online, but every morning of the 9 days the students attend our physical School, they will work mornings with two stellar online (and classroom) math teachers, then after lunch they will attend intense Math Lab and continue working in small groups with yet another wonderful teacher.

Bridge Math Intensive--and the intensive effort it will require on the part of teachers, administration, and students--will be of particular help to Seniors who may only lack that 5th math in order to graduate on time.

This is what continually amazes me about the teachers with whom we work. Sure, it's an opportunity for them to pick up a little extra money over their Break, but believe me, they are not doing it for the money. They care. They care deeply. In addition to customized registration procedures for BMI (no, not the songwriter's licensing agency--Bridge Math Intensive), we're working this week to open registration for our Summer Success Program, an 8 week fee-based (and no, funding does not happen for summer school locally or, to my knowledge, anywhere in the state) during which students will complete a half-credit course (often one semester of a year long class) for credit. This will require its own set of procedures and mechanisms for registration and delivery. Finally, we're working on new mechanisms and procedures for registration for school year 2013-14. I posted on Facebook last week a status that may have sounded a bit smug or facetious, but I meant every word of it. To quote:

Scott Merrick -- February 13 in Nashville

I'm so glad to be in a workplace where all team members are recognized for their contributions and talents and where continuous improvement is more than a buzz phrase--it's an ever-present challenge and imperative. Thanks MNPS Virtual School and Metro Nashville Public Schools.

Be sure to tune in to Newschannel5+ (Comcast channel 250 locally) Wednesday night at 7PM until 8 to watch our esteemed Principal, Dr. James Witty, and our similarly esteemed District Superintendent of Schools Dr. Jesse Register answer community questions about Virtual School and the way we're doing it here in Nashville Public Schools: We believe we're constantly improving the right way to do it.

 Back to work, y'all. No rest for the innovative. Happy Presidents' Day!

Advocate for Public School Social Media Access

Disclaimer: These opinions in no way reflect those of my employer nor of anyone else. They are personal, informed by my 17 years of experience as an educator and by my fervent desire to see potential come into line with reality. Feel free to copy any of this and adapt the message to your own location. 

Our school system here in Nashville is no more stringent about restricting in-school access to social media than are the vast majority of public school systems throughout the country. I understand the reasons that social media were blocked in public schools when they were first developing. I also realize that the decision is largely a matter of policy in concert with that of the State of Tennessee.

Now, comma, it is time to bring policy into the 21st century. MNPS has already begun the process, with its own social media feeds, maintaining a Facebook presence and a Twitter feed; but if history is any indication it will be a good long while before students, teachers, administrators, parents, staff, and other community members find themselves able to access and nurture whatever online communities they belong to, within the workplace they share.

Let's accelerate that process. Right now, take a minute to call, email, or write the Metropolitan Nashville School Board to advocate for access to Facebook, Twitter, and other social media within the walls of the school buildings for the MNPS community. Charge them with the responsibility they have as a Board to facilitate this important change at the State level. Be nice: These people navigate rough waters these days, all in the name of doing the right thing by our students. They need to know that we want this; and if enough voices are heard, change will be implemented.

Board Office 
Phone: (615)259-8487
Email: Board.Adminstrator@mnps.org
Snailmail:   2601 Bransford Ave. Nashville, TN 37204

Want some further motivation to do so? Read this: http://www.edutopia.org/science-leadership-academy-social-networking. After you read, ask yourself this question: "Why cannot our own teachers and administrators in Nashville, Tennessee use the tools at hand to innovate in the right directions the way that Chris Lehmann and his supercharged faculty at Philadelphia's Science Leadership Academy have?"

Chris Lehmann flanked by two of his social media savvy students

A couple more links with more information for the effort:

ISTE Discussion: Should You "Friend" Your Students?

and

Social Media Guidelines for Schools

and

Straight from the DOE: Dispelling Myths About Blocked Sites

Just sayin'...

NewsChannel5 in Nashville Covers Virtual School

We'll be at the Mayor's First Day Celebration today, Sunday, August 7 to share the developments at MNPS Virtual School. This piece from Nashville NewsChannel5 helps explain our excitement! Yay, Gabby and Barbra. And yay to the rest of the team who's been working so hard for nearly a year to make this happen!

I'm a Slacker (Not Really)

Wow, I can't believe I haven't posted since July 6. This is some kinda record. I just want ya'll to know that I'm not clinging by my fingernails to the edge of the earth since ISTE11. I've just been working like a madman to get our Virtual School off the ground here in Nashville, and it sometimes seems like every day is more packed and (thankfully) more productive than the last. 


Here's where we stand:


We were granted the first official Virtual School number from the State of Tennessee. Our MNPS Virtual School (named by the school board over our own recommendations, but that's how things work in big school systems and it's growing on me) is as of today accepting enrollment requests. We'll have seats for 100 Full-Timers and up to 1000 Part-Timers this year as we begin hiring adjunct teachers to facilitate the Florida Virtual School "Easy Start" content and we search for a district Learning Management System (by committee, of course) to serve it up in. We've been interviewing for adjunct teachers to teach our core courses and looking at other options for our kids, and we truly look forward to making this happen. I promise to be a better blogger soon, but I wanted to share our new banner/logo here, just to note that it's really happening!

We'll be setting up shop in the historic Cohn Adult Learning Center, taking over a tasty wing of the top floor where we'll administrate, consult, collaborate, and facilitate our way into the future. I've been working on the website all week, and though it's not "there" yet it's certainly "getting there." 

For a good rundown from a local perspective, see Nashville City Paper's July 26, 2011 article "Metro Nashville Public Schools prepped to open virtual school" which does a good job of summarizing!

Don't be a stranger!

Congrats to Our Pioneer Class of 2011! AGAIN!

This is what I'm talking about. Congratulations to our seven graduating seniors amongst the class of 39 graduation seniors at Middle College High School! Thanks also to our parents for support and to our legislators for opening up the path to our actually being a SCHOOL. And what a school it will be. Stay tuned!



and watch them walk!

Congrats to Our Pioneer Class of 2011!

I'm proud enough to bust, and I'll be shaking the hands of these 7 pioneering virtual learners onstage on Monday. They're off into the world(s) after that! I've been building out a space in ReactionGrid, not yet available to our learners, but it will be. I took a few minutes to add a lasting tribute to these students that their future schoolmates will enjoy for years to come:

Adam Taylor is a Two Foot Giraffe

I had a great work day, culminating in a "Conversation with Karen Cator" at the SITE Conference over by the airport at the Sheraton Music City. I have to say this is my first experience with this annual conference which according to my boss and dear friend Kecia Ray is the only one of its kind, focused as it is on the two fields of Teacher Education and Technology. Its prominence was driven home when I ran into another friend, Wesley Field, of Skoolaborate fame, in the lobby, he having flown from his native Australia just for this conference!

MUCH more later on that, because right now I want to share a post from my school district's newsletter that highlights another innovator I'm VERY proud of, Adam Taylor at Overton High School. Here it is, from http://www.mnps.org/page66932.aspx :

From the MNPS Children 1st Newsletter, Wednesday, March 09, 2011:

Teacher Blog: Using Twitter to connect students around the world

Posted by: jabass at 12:23:40 PM

Adam Taylor

Here in the MNPS Communications Office we don't play favorites. But we're quite fond of Overton High School teacher-innovator Adam Taylor.

Adam is a Teacher of the Year Finalist who never stops looking for ways to engage his students. Lucky for them, he's a self-professed technology nerd who has been using social media and mobile devices to increase class participation and even hold classes and lectures after school hours and on snow days!

Adam runs his own blog where he shares his techniques and best practices with educators around the world. Here on Children First!, we will occasionally repost his stories in order to help share his innovations with the community.

This week's entry shows just how far his social media reach has taken him. Adam and his class have held two class-to-class meetings with students in Pakistan - over Twitter. Each class gets the chance to find out what classroom life is like on the other side of the planet. Below is Adam's account of these meetings and how they came to be.

In October of 2010 someone suggested making a list of educators willing to have class to class online Twitter discussions. So I put out a survey to my Twitter educator colleagues to see if any of them would be interested in having online discussions with students. In a relatively short amount of time we had a couple of dozen on the list. Immediately, I scanned the list to see where the different educators were from. Most were from the US but there were a couple form Canada and the UK. Then I saw one from Pakistan and Serbia. So I sent her a message and waited. For those who misunderstand Twitter, it is so much more than checking to see what a celebrity ate for breakfast. Twitter is an awesome way to connect with thousands of educators across the world. We are constantly sharing ideas, web sites, articles, policies, and many other tools. For me, it has been the most valuable professional development tool ever! While trying to connect with Katherine Maloney in Pakistan, I was able to connect with Mr. Akerson from St. Louis. Mr. Akerson and I were able to get our students connected. He is a junior high/middle school teacher. His students do not have Twitter accounts, so to participate in the discussion his students took turns using his computer to answer and ask questions. My students (at Overton High School) all have Twitter accounts and were having a blast talking with the younger kids. The discussion was about life in high school. The conversation went really well. The students were mature and polite. I later came in contact with Jesse Moland, an educator in Baton Rouge, LA. We decided to have the discussion using an online application called Today's Meet. It is a microblog/chatroom site that allows you to make a chat room with a specific URL to share with all those who want to chat. Individuals simply go to the URL, type their name in the box, and click join to get in. This is a great tool because it updates quickly, and the chat can be archived by copy and pasting it into a document. Unfortunately because of snow day conflicts we were unable to have the discussion with Mr. Moland’s students. We hope to reschedule in the next couple of weeks. Finally, Katherine Maloney (teacher in Pakistan) and I were able to work out a discussion time. In fact, the first discussion was three days ago. The topic voted on by students was “student voice and say in the school.” Because the Lahore American School in Pakistan is 11 hours ahead of us, my students came in early that morning before school to have the discussion. As a result of the time change one class would need to be at computers outside of class time. Katherine asked if we could have another discussion two days later during her school’s technology open house. For the second discussion, we decided to address cultural stereotypes. The principal of the school and a parent also participated in the conversation. It was really cool to see the excitement in my students as they were able to have a discussion online with students on the other side of the planet. I can see this project going a long way to helping my students understand different parts of our country and the world. With the right online tools students are not limited to learning from a book or the teacher in the room. The world and the people living on it become the classroom and the teacher.

To learn more about Adam and his classroom you can read his blog, 2FootGiraffe. You can also follow him on Twitter (@2footgiraffe). Thanks for the post, Adam!