I recently decided to compile some of the blog posts that I have written regarding social media and administrators on my own blog site.  I have created a “page” for these articles that I will continue to update as I write posts that may be helpful, but I just wanted to share this as a blog post to those people who may subscribe to this through an RSS feed or email subscription.  There are so many good articles out there but I wanted to compile the ones I have written to help to continuously develop my own portfolio of work.  Please see the articles with brief descriptions below:

As I have done a lot of work with school administrators on why they should be using social media and some practical ways to use it within their schools, I wanted to compile some articles together that will help schools/organizations move forward.  They will be listed under two categories; the why and the how.  The articles are listed below:

The Why

The Power of Twitter - This was one of my first experiences with the power of the network and how Twitter was an amazing resource that could be used to connect with passionate educators all around the world.

An Open Letter to School Administrators - As I become more familiar with social media and how it could be used to improve our schools, this post was written to give administrators some ideas of how they could get started with some tools, who they could follow, as well as some inspiring quotes.

This is not optional anymore - This post discusses the importance of educational administrators to start using social media and learn openly with their schools.  Here is a quote from the post:

There can no longer be an “opt out” clause when dealing with technology in our schools, especially from our administrators. We need to prepare our kids to live in this world now and in the future. Change may feel hard, but it is part of learning.  We expect it from our kids, we need to expect it from ourselves.

Why Social Media Can and is Changing Education - This post discusses the power of social media across education and makes some points on some of the trends that are happening with schools around the world.

The Power to Kill Innovation - I was disheartened to see a Facebook Page created by a Kindergarten teacher in the states being shut down due to insufficient knowledge on the use of it in the classroom and with the learning community.  This article really shows what can happen to a teacher that will dishearten them if we as administrators are not comfortable with emerging trends and technologies.

#Twitteracy - If we are unable to understand what a hashtag or a mention is on Twitter, are we becoming illiterate?  The short video at the end of this post really shows the power 140 characters can have.

…and this is why teachers should have blogs - I saw a great example of a teacher starting blogging to openly share her learning with her students and their parents and needed to blog it to the world.  This is a great example of what teachers can do with blogs that goes past simply posting homework or assignments.

140 Characters of Kindness - This is a video of me speaking at #140Cuse sharing a personal story of how Twitter and connections I have made over the Internet helped me through a difficult time in my life.

The How

Twitter Hashtags in the Classroom - Hashtags can be used very effectively to help educators organize their classrooms and create an open learning environment.  This post gives reasons why you should hashtags with students that tweet in your class, as well as ways that you can set it up.

What Should A Networked Educational Leader Tweet About? - Many administrators have no idea what to tweet about when starting Twitter so this post on the “do and do nots” of tweeting should help those that are reluctant to begin.

Tweeting for Schools - Many schools are now starting to have organizational twitter accounts and this tutorial offers ideas of what you can tweet out as an organization.  The focus is slightly different from a personal Twitter account but the connections are still extremely valuable.

Figuring Out For Facebook - Many schools are using Facebook to connect with students but I think it is important to provide caution on “friending” students as this can cause some major issues.  This post also provides a link to “Facebook for Educators” which may help many schools get started.

The Blended PLC - As we started our “Learning Leader Project” this year in Parkland School Division, we decided to open our learning up to the world, and share our learning virtually as it happens.  This post provides the rationale and the reasons on why this could be done.

Brand You - “Branding” is something that many educators are looking at not only as schools, but as individuals as well.  Educators need to understand that we have a digital footprint whether we help create it or not so it is important to try and put our work out there.  This is not only to make ourselves marketable, but also to help our fellow educators.  Sharing is something that we teach even before kindergarten and social media helps us continue this practice easily as adults.

I am hoping that you some of these articles that I have written will help you or your organization on your journey to become networked educators.  I will continue to add as articles I write are applicable.

Amongst your students and the staff you work with reflect on who is “Hunting” and who is a “Gathering.”  This awareness will give you a better understanding of how to differentiate instruction, how to teach certain students, see where a parent is coming from, and have empathy for others.  This awareness will create better relationships!

Purpose of hunting and gathering
o    For Both is Survival.  That means there is a lot of intensity and energy around it.
Version
o    Hunting is the masculine. While both men and women can both do this, it’s fueled by testosterone. On average, men have 16x more testosterone than women. Without the same amount of “jet fuel”, women can become exhausted with hunting.
o    Gathering is the feminine. Because it’s Survival driven, don’t think of the softer, gentler spiritual aspects of femininity here.
Focus
o    Hunter is Single Focused. He or she is paying attention to one thing at a time. It could be a complex thing but it’s one ultimate result, like “Win the Game, Pass the Test, Score the Highest on This Exam, Increase API.”
o    Gatherer has NO focus. Diffuse Awareness – meaning it pours out in every direction. Men will often try to translate this into “multi-focus” because “focus” is what they understand. It’s not. Consciousness is intentionally dispersed to be available for all stimuli.
o    One way to help men understand this: – imagine a women or girl’s attention  being pulled by  every pencil on the floor, every crooked chair or desk, piles of disorganized papers, things that are messy or dirty, or someone who is upset of frustrated.
Position
o    Hunter is committed. This is both a way of being and thinking.
o    Gatherer is keeping options opened; again a way of being and thinking.
For
o    Hunter is for a specific result or Mission.
o    Gatherer is for anything edible, useful or beautiful
Vision
o    Hunter has Track Vision. Perfect for throwing a spear or catching a baseball.
•    In general, the faster and object is moving, the greater the difference between a man and a woman’s ability to track it.
•    Think of following a hockey puck or the way men move through traffic.
o    Gatherer has Scan Vision. Perfect for quickly assessing the possibilities on the playground.
•    Scan Vision allows Gatherers to find things more easily. Unconsciously, many men know this and assume we know where things are. They ask, “Where are my keys?” not “Do you know where my keys are?”
Notice
o    Hunter Screens Out Everything Irrelevant to the result they are committed to producing at that moment. This includes vision and hearing.
o    Gatherer Includes Everything. They notice the physical, emotional and mental states of everything in the school environment.
Becomes
o    Hunter becomes Frustrated when they don’t have what they need to produce the result. The gatherer will try to soothe them and it’s very irritating.
o    Gatherer gets Overwhelmed by all the input and all the things there are to do. A Hunter will usually advise the Gatherer to “prioritize” or “do one thing at a time” – both good advice for someone who focuses!
Support
o    Hunter experiences support when others Get behind the plan, Provide Resources and Maintain/Respect Tools. They also experience support when they are Appreciated for the results they produce.  A good question to ask a Hunter: “How can I support your plan?”
o    Gatherer experiences support when others DO something (their way, otherwise it makes more work), provide Pleasant Company, or provide Space (this is a better term than “leave alone” which may be misinterpreted).  A good question to ask a Gatherer: “How can I provide space for you to do what you have to do?”
Worth It
o    Hunter must have a positive return on everything they invested in the result
•    This includes the time, money, resources, connections, mental or emotional energy
o    Gatherer thinks most things are worth it because then they are Done and therefore Quiet! What we get from things being done is peace.

A special thank you to Alison Armstrong creator of Celebrating Men and Satisfying Women, for sharing this with me.

[ Editors Note: There is so much I still need process and want to blog about but wanted to share my quick highlights right away. ]

Photo Credit- Ted Percival CC Liscensed http://bit.ly/IkSrK5

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”   ~Lao Tzu~

We hosted an un-conference last week with a collection of some of our district’s strongest teachers to explore and engage in conversational learning. Sixty or so members of the York Region District’s Literacy@School team gathered for an edcamp-type day and tweeted out using the  #litschool hashtag.

We were happy that our good friend and colleague @shareski was able to join us for the day and were delighted that Dean gave a short talk (an un-keynote if you will) along with our District e-Learning Administrator, @toddedwright. After the day of learning we joined Dean for dinner and a chat with some of our system leaders;  a few school principals and some of our district office folks.

For the most part, during the day and over dinner, the conversation flowed nicely, as one would expect with such an engaged and articulate group of educators. Like many of us, Dean is reaching out to examine the challenges and successes that schools and school systems across Canada are experiencing and considering some themes and patterns for continued exploration. Colin Harris (@digitalnative) made sure the un-conference ran smoothly while I was happy to take on the facilitator’s role for the evening dinner chat.

I spent the day and evening listening, I tossed out a guiding question every once in a while, made sure we heard from everyone and took detailed notes. In both contexts, the educators shared their stories:  their delights, their challenges, their struggles and their joys. I’ve looked over the notes, mulled them over a bit and have three themes, or think-abouts, to share.

Document-  “We’ve been travelling”, to quote my newest, favourite Bruce Springsteen song, “over rocky ground”.  One theme that emerged is the need for us to document these travels and journeys. Learning is an incremental and dynamic process and I think it is important for each of us to have a personal record of the struggles and triumphs that occur daily in our classrooms and schools. We know the ‘experts’ in the media and court of public opinion are happy to document our work with the tools they have: test scores, rankings, sound bites and opinion pieces. Our public schools are an important part of our democratic communities; it is important for us to document the journey of our student’s learning and of ours; it is the best evidence we have of the true value of our work.

Share-  a delicate challenge for 21st century schools is how we can safely and appropriately share what we have documented. Our schools, in spite of obstacles and external forces, are still responsible for unprecedented levels of  literacy amongst our young. But are they reflective of the reality of a connected world where it is expected that information is shared through interactive and dynamic processes? It is important that educators, schools and systems adapt to engage families and communities beyond newsletters and parent nights; to incorporate social media tools into their practice and invite parents to engage in on-going dialogues with their children’s schools through these tools.

Connect-  If  ”isolation is the enemy of improvement” (Smocker, Jamentz, Elmore), then connection is a critical component for any sustained improvement. There was a time when teachers worked in isolation, as did schools and systems. That time is no longer. When knowledge was scarce and confined to one textbook, or one curriculum, we had neither the need or means to connect. The world we now live demands that educators connect because our students (and the much of the world beyond our schools) already have. Our paradigm no longer applies. We need to reach out and use the variety of tools for connection we have available to create dense, overlapping networks. Within and beyond our classrooms, our schools and our networks; face to face and online-we need to connect.

I suppose it never is supposed to be ‘easy’ and we will continue to struggle with this. I’m encouraged that there are educators willing to challenge and question the status quo and remain committed to continue this journey, rocks and all. As the day unfolded, educators from across the world clicked on the #litschool hashtag and joined our conversation, helping to document the days learning, share the evidence of our work and collaborate to connect and extend the network we were hoping to grow in the first place.

CC Image from http://flic.kr/p/5PbHjR

Dr. Jeffrey Wilhelm and I were recently asked by educator and author Larry Ferlazzo to respond to the question: HOW CAN WE  KEEP STUDENTS ENGAGED WITHOUT CARROTS & STICKS?  My response originally appeared at Education Week here and was cross posted at my blog. 

Becoming a father and making the transition to teaching primary students (as a vice principal) has made it very clear to me that our kids begin their lives with an inquisitive mind and an enviable level of excitement for learning.  Primary students seem to have an energetic curiosity and require very little motivation for engagement; however, as these students progress through our system and the focus moves from the child to the curriculum and learning to grades, they often seem to lose that drive.  We, as parents and educators, often influence a shift in this drive by focusing on results and external motivators.  By dangling things such as grades, praise, prizes, awards, and threats of punishment, we unintentionally rob students of responsibility and their intrinsic drive for learning; we alter the focus to what they will get rather than what they are doing.  By the time students reach high school, their inquisitive desire to learn is often shifted to a quest for grades. For those students who do not see relevance and purpose in this quest, they often disengage as learners and then we feel the need to resort to motivating by offering carrots and threatening sticks.

I strongly believe that (to adapt from Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, researchers of motivation at the University of Rochester and written about by Daniel Pink), we cannot motivate students; we can only create the conditions in which students can motivate themselves.  We cannot MAKE kids learn; we can make them behave a certain way, memorize and complete tasks in the short-term when we are supervising them but this does not mean they are gaining the skills and receiving the support needed to be learners.

Even in a system dominated by curricula, scores, and grades, we can still work to tap into that intrinsic drive by focusing on:

1. Relationships – a trusting, caring relationship helps students to understand the learning is about them rather than test scores and curricula. In order for us to make the curriculum relevant to their learning we must build relationships with our students.
2. Ownership – Work WITH students so they have a voice in their learning. Through a focus on Assessment For Learning, we include students in assessments and provide ongoing dialogue around descriptive feedback (rather than grades) based on agreed upon criteria and goals.  Harvard professor and author Dr. Ross Greene states that “all students can do well if they can”; we need to provide the feedback on behaviour and learning skills so kids can do well. Too, we need to include students in this conversation.
3. Choice – Provide students with more autonomy of HOW they will learn and demonstrate their learning.
4. Relevancy – Relate the curriculum to the interests and passions of our students. They need to see meaningful connections and purpose for real learning to occur.
5. Success – Tom Schimmer, a BC author and leader in Assessment for Learning, says that we need to “over prepare ‘em” for that first summative assessment.  Push back those first few assessments and ensure students do well then build on this experienced success. We need to focus on strengths, support the challenges, and help students have a growth mindset so they can experience failure and success as feedback and develop the belief they can all be learners.

Our students arrive at school motivated to learn. Through accountability measures and other structures we are often forced to produce short-term results. Unfortunately, this can lead to the use of extrinsic motivators which place the focus away from the learning and on the immediate result rather than the skills and support needed for long-term engagement and success. As educators, we must continue to work to create the conditions to best support our students so that they can maintain that intrinsic drive for learning and not become someone who only reaches for that dangled carrot.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic.  

@MrWejr

Below is my talk from the day.  It was amazing to be able to share stories about people I have connected with across the world and to honour my dog Kobe.

I hope you enjoy it:

Of the many books that I have read in the last year, Mindset by Carol Dweck has caused me to think and question my long held beliefs more than most. According to Dweck, our intelligence and our basic frame of mind can change. We can have either the fixed or growth mindsets.

N.B. I read the kindle edition before kindle included page numbers, so I have included the kindle location number. While reading, I highlighted passages and made some notes. The passages in italics and the main bullet points are direct quotes from the book. The sub-bullets without italics are my thoughts. Those notes proceeded by “Note:” I wrote while reading the book.

• Many adolescents mobilize their resources, not for learning, but to protect their egos. And one of the main ways they do this (aside from providing vivid portraits of their teachers) is by not trying. Location 991
• This low-effort syndrome is often seen as a way that adolescents assert their independence from adults, but it is also a way that students with the fixed mindset protect themselves. Location 996
• John Holt, the great educator, says that these are the games all human beings play when others are sitting in judgment of them. “The worst student we had, the worst I have ever encountered, was in his life outside the classroom as mature, intelligent, and interesting a person as anyone at the school. What went wrong? . . . Somewhere along the line, his intelligence became disconnected from his schooling.” Location 998
• teaching them this mindset unleashed their effort. Location 1004
• Note: Should we teach the growth mindset early and often and explicitly in school?

• Jaime Escalante (of Stand and Deliver fame) taught these inner-city Hispanic students college-level calculus. With his growth mindset, he asked “How can I teach them?” not “Can I teach them?” and “How will they learn best?” not “Can they learn?” Location 1090
  • Note: We’ve got to get every teacher thinking like this about all the kids.
• This means there’s a lot of intelligence out there being wasted by underestimating students’ potential to develop. Location 1097
• What any person in the world can learn, almost all persons can learn, if provided with the appropriate prior and current conditions of learning. Location 1122
• Remember, test scores and measures of achievement tell you where a student is, but they don’t tell you where a student could end up. Location 1127
• But some teachers preached and practiced a growth mindset. They focused on the idea that all children could develop their skills, and in their classrooms a weird thing happened. It didn’t matter whether students started the year in the high- or the low-ability group. Both groups ended the year way up high. It’s a powerful experience to see these findings. The group differences had simply disappeared under the guidance of teachers who taught for improvement, for these teachers had found a way to reach their “low-ability” students. Location 1134
• In contrast, when students were praised for effort, 90 percent of them wanted the challenging new task that they could learn from. Location 1214

Becoming Growth Minded

• “You have to apply yourself each day to becoming a little better. By applying yourself to the task of becoming a little better each and every day over a period of time, you will become a lot better.” Location 3378
  • Note: Wisdom from Wooden…(as quoted by Dweck)
• The critical thing is to make a concrete, growth-oriented plan, and to stick to it. Location 3742

This book is a quick read with a lot of practical and relevant advice for anyone in a leadership/management position. I also see great value in reading this book for anyone who works with other people both in your professional and/or personal lives.

The monkeys that Todd refers to in this book are referring to responsibilities and duties. The more monkeys you have, the more responsibilities and duties you have, and as such it’s extremely important to keep track of how many monkeys you have, as well as how many monkeys you may be passing along to others…

As a leader or manager you are bound to work with a few employees who are more than willing to share their monkeys with you. Todd argues that when a leader or manager allows weak and under performing employees to “pass off” their monkeys, they will eventually become inundated with the responsibilities of others, thus never being able to do what they were originally hired to do. Additionally, a leader needs to protect his/her best performing employees, who because of their willingness and helpful nature, can get overwhelmed and discouraged when weak employees are allowed to “pass” their monkeys and ultimately get away with doing less.

The business of sharing and shifting monkeys to the backs of others can be quite devastating to any team or organization, and as such the monkeys need to be put in their place!

Though Todd did a great job of addressing many of the questions I had as I read along, I still find the practice of “shifting the monkeys” to be much easier said than done.

I have and continue to struggle with the fine line of being helpful or being too naive and taking on the responsibilities of others. Todd says that you should be helpful, but when you sense that someone is taking advantage of you, it’s time to make sure the monkeys stay where they belong. Furthermore, it’s in everyone’s best interest to make sure the monkeys are evenly distributed. Without an even distribution of monkeys, members of any organization will begin to feel resentment toward each other, and ultimately the wrong kind of competition will emerge.

Recently, I was invited to participate in a webinar titled, Using social media to enhance school-community relations. The webinar was spearheaded by Dr. Scott McLeod, professor at the University of Kentucky and the author of the phenomenal blog Dangerously Irrelevant, and his colleague Dr. Wayne Lewis. The primary audience consisted of 18 preservice administrator students at the University of Kentucky. Contributing to the discussion was Dan Cox, principal of Hoover Middle School in Waterloo, Iowa and doctoral student at Iowa State University as well as the renown Burlington High School principal of Burlington, Massachusetts and 2012 NASSP National Digital Principal Award Winner, Patrick Larkin.

Dan Cox began the discussion by sharing his dissertation results from a study centered around how school principals and superintendents use social media to communicate with parents, students, staff, and community members. The following are four emerging themes from twelve qualitative interviews with school principals across the nation.

 Social media tools allow for greater interactions between school principals and their stakeholders.

No longer is newsletters, calendar of events, e-mails and other one-way communication enough for schools. Great school communities inspire great conversations. Dr. Scott McLeod states that robust ecosystems of multiple communication channels are better than more limited analog-only print/phone channels. In other words, there is a need for two-way, real-time communication allowing for engaging conversations with parents. However, being cognizant of your cliental and providing a menu of communication tools is key. As principals, we must ensure that groups of parents do not get left behind. Patrick Larkin remarked, “Everything I blog also shows up on Facebook, Twitter, School Website, and Google Plus – it’s not hard to have things post simultaneously.” Remember, a hardcopy is still necessary for some families.

 Social media tools provide stronger connections to local stakeholders,to fellow educators, and to the world.

The most important thing about communication is to hear what isn’t being said. Patrick Larkin emphasized the importance of being transparent and engaging in open and honest dialogue. “Basically my newsletter is my blog,” he commented. Connecting through social media allows opportunities for stakeholders to have a voice and speak about the issues and concerns they may have. As leaders, it is important to respond to feedback in a timely and appropriate but honest manner.

Mr. Larkin pointed out two powerful advantages of social media. (1) Positive Public Relations – Principals should take advantage of social media by sharing and promoting all the amazing things happening within their school with the world. (2) Learn From One Another – If principals would begin to share all their great initiatives and success stories, schools could begin to learn from one another.

 Social media use can have a significant impact on a school principal’s personal and professional growth.

I have often said that the five people who influence me the most and on a daily basis…… I have never met. At no other time in my career have I had immediate access to experts with only one click of a button. A 140 character tweet at times has caused me to think differently even more so than a 140 page book. Every thing I read has been produced within 24 hours. After one year of engaging in Twitter, I feel as if I have received a whole new education.

It is important to diversify your PLN. Put people around you who cause you to think differently. People who are straightforward and willing to connect in uncomfortable conversations. Those who say what they mean and mean what they say. Look for educators who take time to comment and to grow your knowledge.

Social media use is an expectation; it’s no longer optional.

Principals must move beyond communication to “community building and collaboration” using social media the way it was designed. Not taking advantage of this type of technology is education malpractice. It is simply irresponsible of any principal in this day and age. Patrick Larkin suggests that principals take the leading role in modeling collaboration so that students will have the “know how” to set-up their own learning network built around their personal interests by the time they graduate and move on to college or careers.

As principals, the time is now to unleash our leadership skills and take advantage of social media. Leaders such as Patrick Larkin, Lyn Hilt, Eric Sheninger, Dr. Jusin Tarte, Ron McAllister, Chris Wejr, Jeff Delp, and Jessica Johnson are leading the way by modeling, sharing, and collaborating both internally and externally. How do I know this? Because of social media!

A special thanks to Dan Cox for his permission to share his extensive study.

“Teaching more than virtually any activity (aside from parenting, perhaps) depends on quick instinctive habits and behaviour, and on deeply held ways of seeing and valuing.”         ~Deborah Meier~

When you spend a few hours in the classroom of a skilled teacher (as I did today) the gravity of Deb Meier’s quote becomes apparent.  A skilled teacher makes is all look so easy that the old cliches about how ‘any one can teach’ become almost believable…almost.

It is important for me to remember that, although it is the teachers who are seen, what must be observed is the practice, not the people. Failing to observe and describe the practice, and ascribing credit to the personality, or aura of the person is a risky and ultimately unproductive endeavour.

Let me give a contextual example. If you walk into any K-12 classroom and ask a student to tell a bit about themselves it is unlikely that they will tell you that they are a ‘student’ or launch into a complicated description about how the task they are engaged in defines who they are or what they value. Kids are able to separate who they are from what they are doing (at least in school). It would be great if teachers adopted the same disposition.

Often, in my supervisory capacity, I work with teachers around changing their practice and often this is taken as a personal or evaluative challenge to who they are (as opposed to what they are doing). This is why I spend a lot of time and effort building trust and using precise, non-judgemental, descriptive language when working with colleagues.

It is, after all, about the practice, not the person. Our challenge is that we have evolved a culture in our schools that places too much emphasis the ‘personality’ of the teacher and not enough on the practice. It is easy to see how this can be, things move so fast in classrooms that there exists a steady blur between the teacher and the teacher’s practice.

Let’s work on changing this, let’s lead in a way that helps our skilled and dedicated teachers know that we want to use processes like Action Research, Lesson Study and Co-teaching to capture the best practices so we can build a body of professional knowledge that all of us can draw upon.

After all, the people are important…and so is the practice. We need both.

Cross-posted with my blog thesmalleroffice.

(This is a copy of a my guest blog post published this week for the World Innovation Summit for Education – WISE, Qatar – on re-designing spaces for learning: http://www.wise-qatar.org/content/stephen-harris-redesigning-spaces-around-collaborative-teaching and slide show:

There is a clear movement occurring in education globally right now – a movement that is seeking to shift the epicentre of educational paradigms from an industrial-era experience to something more relevant to the ever changing and dynamic contexts of the 21st century. In the first decade of this new century, much great work has been done articulating what 21st century skills might be – www.p21.org is a great example of this.

My focus is the key importance of spatial awareness in redesigning spaces for learning. I hope the second decade of this century will be marked by an awareness that redesigning spaces will be as important to change processes, as describing the new skills deemed necessary for learning and career creation in the last decade. I will focus on our journey of change as a case study for education redesign.

Northern Beaches Christian School (NBCS) is a co-educational K-12 school of 1300 students in the northern region of Sydney, Australia. The school draws from a range of socio-economic backgrounds, is located within a site that was built to support an industrial-era education philosophy and like most other non-government schools in Australia, it is funded through a combination of Federal Government support and parent fees. In the Australian context, we would be regarded as an upper range, low fee school.

In 2005 NBCS planted a research, development and innovation unit within the school – the Sydney Centre for Innovation in Learning (SCIL). It was a means by which to support educational innovation at the grassroots. Seven years on and SCIL (http://scil.com.au) is now the public interface of the school with the global education community.

As part of its focus on leading the change in learning, SCIL has deliberately grown its understanding of the interplay between spatial concepts as a means to accelerate change. Much work has been done in the last two decades revisiting pedagogic space. Many schools have created virtual spaces to support face-to-face learning, enabling transitions from the real world to virtual spaces and back again, seamlessly in diverse contexts. Likewise attention has been focused on the key role that relationships play in engaging students into learning – with the social and emotional spheres of school life being under focus. The area of least attention has arguably been the key to global change – the importance of physical space as the cohesive component that facilitates global change.
What change has NBCS nurtured and why?

The industrial-era experience of education is centred around ‘separation’ as a key concept. Separate teachers working in separated classrooms on separate programs, created separately by individuals. Regrettably many tertiary institutions reinforce this in their education courses assessing the worth of teachers as potential separate deliverers of curriculum and engaging as behavior managers in solo contexts. It is a recipe for emotional meltdown. Why has it taken so long for the educational community to work this one out? Why do universities that offer MBA courses where students are expected to work in networked teams ignore this key element for pre-service teacher education?

Our experience has been that change comes from these key elements:

- Redesign spaces around collaborative teaching,
- Retrain teachers to work collaboratively and
- Empower and resource teachers to be the agents of change in any context

As a result the learning experience changes rapidly – leading to improved academic outcomes, greater alignment with the skills that will be valuable in post-school contexts and a far more obvious and positive culture of engaged learning will be evident.

We have learnt that space is both a fixed and fluid notion. It has an enormous impact on how we feel and think – the very core of our experiences of life. The challenge for schools is to identify the different spaces it inhabits – virtual, pedagogic and real, and to draw these together in meaningful ways so that learning can focus forward, enabled through technology.

NBCS has created some new spaces for learning:

- The flowing ‘nooks and crannies’ of the SCIL building
- Design and Production suites of the Undercroft
- Multimodal agile spaces of the Marina Prior Centre for the Performing Arts.

We have renovated existing spaces:

- The Zone (an open learning environment for 180 students and 6 teachers)
- Rhythm & Blues (a shared space for music learning) and the Hub.

We are now about to challenge school design thinking with a current sustainability project in the making – the Marketplace, which seeks to combine social and learning space as one concept, breaking down any concept of ‘separate’ classrooms.  The Marketplace is an active glass canopy positioned over old spaces in order to radically transform the heart of the original school from industrial-era design to agile spaces suited to community life, engaged learning and enhanced through mobile technologies.

We have seen that if you place vision at the heart of school’s operation, and then share and grow that vision with high purpose, then innovation becomes a natural by-product. People are encouraged to take risks and condense any ideation and action phases of change into an accelerated journey that embraces failure, as much as it values success. We learn by doing – and if schools wish to transform, then they need to adopt this philosophy in tangible ways.

At the heart of our transformation has been the shift to collaborative learning. This has necessitated a lot of unlearning by the teachers, in order to build their new skills as collaborative designers of curriculum delivery. The trade-off for them has been the rapid decline in the required role of behavior manager, as this becomes a minor component of their daily function. We have watched a new creative energy emerge as teachers across the campus have all embraced the change process. No longer is it 20th century ‘push’ for change, rather 21st century teachers are ‘pulling’ in the new paradigm. Our role as educational leaders becomes one of facilitating new ways of learning. It is a powerful and exciting process. We also believe it is highly replicable and scalable. It is innovation at its dynamic best.
Examples of spaces for new learning

The Zone: the Zone is simultaneously a space and a project. The Zone is represents the learning program for 180 Stage 3 students (10-12 year olds) with 6 teachers. It is one group, not six groups. Learning is differentiated to the needs of every learner, every day, in a personalized process that tracks individual development. A day in the Zone involves sustained focus on:

- Literacy skill development
- Numeracy skill development
- Integrated studies (where students can create their own journey through a matrix of activities and select the spaces and teachers that will best support their learning)
- Specialized learning of foreign languages
- PDHPE and sport.

The benefits are well captured in this equation:
180 students + 6 teachers + one agile space + collaborative learning + BYOD (bring your own device) = engaged learners + zero behavior issues.

Rhythm and Blues: At the end of 2011, secondary music teachers requested that a wall with an operable door be completed removed between their two larger teaching spaces. This would enable them to teach two music classes in the one space, regardless of the level of musicianship or age. The space became like a large living room with immediate and obvious high engagement, across the age range of students. Again, a radical shift in thinking, led to a radical and highly effective shift in learning engagement.

Zone - The Sky

Immersive gestural French: NBCS language teachers tackled the issue of gaining total student engagement in language learning who are undertaking the mandated 100 hour course in a foreign language in early secondary grades. The challenge of addressing student engagement in a mandated course was to adopt a Canadian approach where language is acquired in a fully immersive context, using signing gestures to reinforce vocabulary and the structure of the spoken sentence. The beauty of this approach is that it can be located anywhere.  And it is. Visitors to the school will commonly come across a group of 26 students focused intently on second language acquisition through high kinaesthetic activity.

The greatest challenge to change in learning is our reticence to simply take action:

- change the space
- change the program
- expect high outcomes.

The formula – do, then think!

(Authorial note: This is a edited copy of the same blog post that appears as a ‘guest’ blog post on the website of the World Innovation Summit for Education - http://www.wise-qatar.org/content/stephen-harris-redesigning-spaces-around-collaborative-teaching . The original blog post on the WISE site also contains a sequence of images illustrating the different spaces.)

My activity on my blog as well as on Twitter have diminished as of late. I still find an incredible amount of value/entertainment by engaging in the online discussions, I just find it harder to make time to write and send out 140 character tidbits.  My participation in these discussions has ebbed and flowed over the past four years and I am sure I will get more bursts of blogging energy.  As I contemplate these little facts, I am really surprised that I have been at it so long.  Time is passing at what seems like an ever increasing rate.  I would swear that every year I live gets shorter! One question that has surfaced in my mind of late is how have these “practices” changed me?  Changed our school?  Has there been a real value created for the teachers and students at PCHS?

1. I have discovered a wide range of educational bloggers, created an RSS feed for my favorites, and read the ideas and thoughts of my favorites everyday.  I think carving out a part of my day to read about what others are doing in their schools has been one of the most productive changes I have made.  View my Google Reader feed.
2. I have made presentations to administrators across the state about using social media to connect to one another and to inform their practice.  (an example)
3. I use Youtube to inform my school community and Board of Education. (example)
4. Attended ISTE 11 and met many educators who share similar passions about making public education stronger by using modern technology to engage and connect students. (Live From the Blogger Cafe)
5. Committed myself to lead my staff by being a transparent learner.  I have been become a SMART certified trainer, a proficient user of Google apps, a regular user of Evernote and Diigo to catalogue Internet resources, as well as a Twitter and Facebook in the classroom proponent.
6. Have been a regular user of an iPad and iPhone to make my daily work more efficient.

“So what?” You may ask.  Well, so what is what I say as well.  Because none of that means a thing to anybody but me.  If all I have done is taught my self how to use these tools then I have failed to lead.  I have failed to make much of a difference in the lives of students and the learning experiences they have a on a daily basis.

So what has changed at PCHS?  

There… is… a… lot… out… there!

As a result, I think some real gems are being missed. Here are 5 Educational TEDx Videos that I think deserve to be paid attention to:

Kim Cofino: Mobile, Connected, Collaborative

Watch it with a group and then either tackle one of the ideas together or break into smaller groups and tackle them all. Kim took the best part of her K12 Online Conference Keynote and delivered it as its’ own presentation. If you don’t think education is changing, you haven’t seen Kim’s insights yet! [Watch on YouTube]

- – -

Diana Laufenberg: How to learn? From mistakes

Diana works at SLA and she brings her curriculum to life! “It was theirs, it was experiential, it meant something to them.” ~ That’s one of many great quotes from this talk that looks at both students and teachers learning from their mistakes in meaningful ways. [Watch on YouTube]

- – -

Kiran Bir Sethi teaches kids to take charge

Kiran, Director of School Riverside, eloquently delivers this message: “If learning is embedded in a real-world context.. then children go through a journey of ‘aware’, where they can see the change; ‘enable’, be changed; and then ‘empower’, lead the change.” ~Wonderful! [Watch on YouTube]

- – -

Chris Kennedy – Students Live! Real-world Learning at the 2010 Olympic/Paralympic Games

These student reporters had full access to the games and they delivered real-time news and special interest stories. Chris‘ story is about, “…real world learning, supported by technology, but it was not about the technology at all.” [Watch on YouTube]

- – -

Dan Meyer – Math Curriculum Makeover

Although Dan‘s talk has been viewed far more than the other talks above, I think it has probably made it around Math circles when actually it has wonderful implications for all educators. His 5 suggestions transcend all subject areas! [Watch on YouTube]

- – -

Watch them on your own or as staff… the conversations you have will be rich and rewarding.

Bonus

Sometimes there just isn’t enough time in a meeting for a 10 to 18 minute video. I put together this 3-Minute Conversation Starter: Let’s Transform Education that I think can do just that… start a conversation about education today. The video is comprised of clips of other videos and both the above YouTube version and my blog post have links to the videos I used clips from, (including 2 of the Tedx videos I share above).

Know of another great must-see video? Please share a link!

[Cross-Posted on David Truss :: Pair-a-Dimes for Your Thoughts]

There’s no doubt that the release of the documentary Bully will lead to some deeper discussion on bullying and what we can do to reduce the number of incidences of bullying in our schools and communities.  Discovery News posted a great article on the topic last week titled Why Do People Bully? and I think that this a question that we miss sometimes after hearing the horrific endings to some cases of bullying on local and national news.

While the uproar leads to a renewed focus on punishing bullies, I think it moves us further away from the solution.  In order to reduce bullying, we need to see what causes it and ensure that our schools educate students and establish cultures of care which do not tolerate the mistreatment of any student.

Here are a few of the excerpts from the Discovery article that we need to keep in mind:

• “But now we’ve shown that there is a peer socialization process — that bullies tend to have more friends,” said bullying expert Dorothy Espelage, a psychologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

• experts agree that peer influence is crucial in accounting for bullying. “If your peer group says that pushing and shoving and spitting on people or spreading lies is O.K., even though you may have been taught differently in your home, you lose your moral compass,” Marlene Snyder, Development Director for the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program in the United States, based in Clemson, S.C.. 

• Indeed, experts agree that peer influence is crucial in accounting for bullying. “If your peer group says that pushing and shoving and spitting on people or spreading lies is O.K., even though you may have been taught differently in your home, you lose your moral compass,” Snyder said.

Finally, the most important statements from a district-wide or community-wide perspective are the following:

• “The reality is we’re not talking to kids early enough and long enough about bullying and healthy relationships,” Espelage said.

• Snyder emphasized that the definition of bullying is important: “It is not just kids being kids,” she said. “A person who bullies intentionally picks out someone that they know is weaker than themselves so that they can intimidate, harass or humiliate them to do their bidding. It is a misuse of their power. This behavior is usually repeated and of course this power differential is there.” 

All this reminded me of a great anti-bullying video (below) I saw called “The Price of Silence.” While my initial thinking was that I would be proud to have a playground occurrence like this happen in Burlington, the real victory would be if we never had to have a student actually stand up to a bully!

For all of the school administrators and/or school policy makers who are hell bent on making sure that resources that can assist in learning remain off the table in their schools,  you may need to add to the ever-expanding list of things to which you deny learners access if Google’s latest innovation (see video above) or anything like it hits the market.  Then again it really isn’t a matter of when these types of technological advances will become available, it’s really a matter of how soon.

Is there  a point in time that you will be embarrassed at the opportunities that you denied learners due to your narrow-mindedness?  Isn’t the job of school administrators to add to the list of resources that our staff and students have access too?  When will you realize that we are blessed to be in our positions at such a wonderful moment in history?  Obviously, I have a lot more questions than answers.

The following statement from Richard Halverson has been stuck in my mind since reading More Districts Are Rewriting Acceptable Use Policies, Embracing Smartphones and Social Media in Schools by Heather Chaplin:

“It’s a historical hiccup in the history of learning,” said Rich Halverson, a learning scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the lead researcher on KidGrid, a mobile app that helps teachers study and analyze student data. “Here we had the most sophisticated advances in the history of learning banned from schools out of fear.”

Imagine looking back on your career and having to admit that you denied your students access to innovative resources?  Now that is something to really be afraid of!

I left this one day workshop with a headache…a good one, because I learned so much! I took a great deal of notes, but will now share with you what I found to be very important as I learned about the CCSS and questions I still have. They are in no order of importance.

Important ideas that I took away from this workshop:

• The CCSS require us to teach students to read complex text independently, whereas, in the past we may have shied away from complex text due to having a variety of learners in our classrooms. We have learned ways to differentiate in our classrooms for our struggling learners (ex: teacher reading complex text to the class, rely on visuals, etc.) We need to scaffold our teaching for students to be able to learn how to read complex text and make meaning from it. As school leaders, we need to scaffold learning about the CCSS and instructional strategies for our teachers.
• The CCSS force us to provide our students with standards-based instruction and NOT standards-referenced instruction. What’s the difference, you ask? If you create a fun lesson or plan to teach your favorite unit on apples and then find standards that might fit into it, that is standards referenced. We need to start with the standards to plan our instruction.
• The Lexile level expectations have been upped. What used to be a 10th grade reading level expectation is now in Middle School. Yikes!
• Literacy in Math: Mr. Buehl stated that “if you have the inability to read math, then you will have the inability to figure out math.” He then modeled how to read a math definition from a math textbook. He modeled his thinking as he read through the paragraph on integers, picking apart each work he didn’t know the meaning of right away, but pulling his background knowledge to make connections and build his understanding of the paragraph. This took a lot of time, however, he says that if students are never taught to read this then they’re basically carrying the equivalent of a rock with them when they bring the textbook home. They will come back the next day acting like you’ve never taught them about integers. Basically, we need to prepare our students to be able to read/learn on their own.
• You may be a highly confident reader in one area, but not another. The longer that you are taught a discipline by hands-on and visuals and NOT asked to read/inform yourself, the lower your reading ability in that area would go down.
• Many English teachers chose their profession, because they love literature, but can no longer continue to teach units on their favorite novels. They need to be teaching the skills for students to be able to independently read and learn.
• Elementary teachers can’t wait for students to have basic literacy skills before teaching with informational texts. The well-known phrase “learning to read and then learning to read” is a myth.
• In the report “Reading Between the Lines” on what the ACT reveals about college readiness in reading, you will find that the 2005 ACT shows that only 51% of our high school students are ready for college level reading! What’s worse is when this study looked at data on reading levels in 8th and 10th grade, students were on track for being college ready in reading, but then declined. What happens in high school?! This is why our students need the ELA standards for disciplinary literacy.
• We cannot hide behind the “they should be able to do this by now” thinking. Especially with the gaps we will have as we implement the CCSS, yes they should be able to do this by now, but now it’s our job to scaffold their learning and get them to where they need to be. Think of where our students will be after a few years of the CCSS!
• The CCSS no longer allow us to “cover” curriculum each year. We can no longer “cover history,” but teach history. No longer can we do “drive-by” teaching. The CCSS give you the permission to not have to teach everything that the book/curriculum says to cover.

Questions that I still have:

• I’m grappling with literacy in math. Our school has been using an old math textbook for quite some time that doesn’t lend well to hands-on math for younger students to develop solid number sense and also to develop problem solving skills (which our math book lacks). We are moving to adopt a new math program that has had successful results in many districts (I’ve never heard anything bad about it). I’ve been told that it is different, because it is not just “turning the page in the math book.” I had this thought in the back of my mind as Mr. Buehl spoke about literacy in math and should have asked if he was speaking more to the 6-12 teachers?
• Grading. I learned some great strategies for teachers in the content areas to implement that allow students to be actively engaged in the content and learn through reading, writing and then speaking with their peers. For many high school teachers strategies like these are going to be very different than traditional methods of read the textbook, take notes in a lecture, and complete a multiple choice test. One of the first questions I know that will come up is on grading…what will they put in their gradebook when students are engaged in a discussion? Yes, I do realize that grading is an entirely different topic that takes up several blog posts (and books), however, how do we get teachers started on implementing these practices if they don’t think it will work (and then get to the grading practices later)?
• I went to this workshop feeling like our district was far behind on implementation of the CCSS, however, I learned that we’re not in comparison to other districts. We have spent a great deal of our PD time this year as a district focusing on what reading and writing looks like across the grades and disciplines and we’re working on developing common expectations. After hearing from people in other districts, I am confident that this was time well spent. I would love to hear what other districts are doing in scaffolding learning for their staff about the CCSS and how are you moving to implementation?

This is a cross-post from my blog, Reflections from an Elementary School Principal.

We’re always looking for new ways to bring together our many distinct but valued cultures. At school, it’s easy – students are blended into classrooms in all grades. To connect the parents, however, is a bit more difficult. By hosting a meeting at the local mosque, it provides an opportunity for extended relationship-building, perspective sharing, cultural competency and overall home-school engagement. I am incredibly thankful for my Home & School Association leadership, as well as the leadership at the mosque for their commitment to connecting our cultures and in turn, role-modeling these efforts for our students.

To learn more, here’s a link to our Home & School 2.0 page

Ira reminded me of my post: Question Everything that I wrote, while still in China, to start off 2011.

Little did I know that within a year of writing this I would be part of the design and development team for a new school, the Inquiry Hub opening in September of 2012. Reading my post again, I am just thrilled to see that we truly are questioning everything! Here are my questions from the post, and a look at what we are working on with the Inquiry Hub:

Why fill a new classroom with individual student desks?
Why have a unidirectional ‘front’ of the room? Why not have everything on wheels?

We will have two primary learning commons rooms, one being the previous school’s library and the other a double-classroom with the false wall between them open. We also have some smaller conference rooms, and a kitchen/lounge that students can use. The entry to this school is also a unique space and we’ll be using it as a learning hub as well. I’m currently reading The Third Teacher and we know that the use of our learning spaces will be far from traditional.

Why have the whole day set up with classes in blocks?

We aren’t going to have structured blocks or classes. We will have seminars, some of which will include all students, some of which will only be for students doing a specific course, or studying a specific area of focus. It would be unlikely for a student to do more than 2 seminars in a day, and if they do participate in 2 seminars, that would account for 1.5 to 2.5 hours of their day.

Why design a teacher’s schedule based on instructional time?

Our teachers will be spending a lot of time conferencing with students, rather than ‘in the front of the room’.

Why have the whole day divided by age-grouped classes?

Students will often work in groups around themes of interest and not their grade level. Also, some students will work through online/blended sections of different subjects faster than others and it is highly likely that even in the first year we will have students across grades working on the same subjects at the same levels.

Why a fixed curriculum in every subject? Why fixed subjects? Why textbooks?

We will be comprehensively examining the curriculum in the coming months. We will be figuring out what learning outcomes students can achieve through personal or team developed inquiries and what parts of the curriculum we should support through online/blended course instruction. Sometimes a course will occur over more than one school year, sometimes a course will be finished in less than a semester. Depending on the inquiry questions being asked, two students with the same course load could have a completely different curriculum, and yet meet most if not all of the same outcomes. We probably aren’t going to be textbook free, but textbooks will be digital, and hopefully less and less like a traditional textbook. I’m excited about the possibility that digital textbooks can be tailor made, interactive, and most importantly, responsive to learning needs… See #3 in my post: The future of education will be open and distributed.

Why grade all subjects? Why grade at all?
Why a focus on testing? How best do we ‘test’ a student’s understanding?

We are currently developing two ‘requisite’ courses that all students will take: Principles of Inquiry and Applications of Digital Learning. It is likely that these will be Pass/Fail courses and all feedback will be anecdotal. It is necessary to have final grades for most courses, since we do not want to put our students at a disadvantage when applying to universities. That said, assessment practices will not be primarily test-based and a lot of what we do will be portfolio driven.

How do we un-school schools?
How do we give students appropriate credit for things done outside of school and classes?
How do we shift to be focused primarily on learning?

I think the best way to un-school school is to: a) Have students develop their own questions around their own interests and passions; and, b) “Blur the lines between living and learning”, (a great quote from my Principal, Stephen Whiffin). We are going to be working with parents and community groups to see how we can make the work students do meaningful within the community. With no block schedules, there is a lot of potential for a student to be ‘out there’ in the community doing ‘stuff that matters’ and getting credit for it too. Also, the best way to keep a focus on learning is to have our staff focus on learning too. We are working with local universities to see what kind of research grants we can get. We aren’t pretending that we have all the answers, we are digging in and learning as we go too.

How do we integrate technology meaningfully? What’s coming up next? How do we prepare for this?

This is an excellent example of where we are continuing to explore and learn. What is the best learning platform for us? What will student portfolios and teacher dashboards that monitor student progress look like? We are still exploring possibilities and invite you to share your thoughts with us! One decision we have made is that students will bring laptops. They are invited to bring in other devices, but we think a laptop is still a necessary tool. (More on this in a future post.)

Where is school being done ‘right’? What models are working? Who should we be paying attention to?

We have been examining Neil Stephenson‘s research and work at the Calgary Science School; Reading about and watching interesting videos on models like SCIL in Australia; And, embracing the ideas in great resources out of High Tech High. We have been looking into Reggio and even have a Reggio school opening in our district. Also, I’ve been looking at innovative, blended learning models and curating links on my ‘Shifting Learning’ Scoop.It. There are many great programs to explore and learn from! So we aren’t starting from scratch, but rather we are looking to the future and adding our own flavour to existing models that we think exemplify 21st Century, student-inquiry centred learning.

What will you question about your practice or the practice of schools in 2011?

Not in a million years would I have guessed when I wrote “Question Everything” that within a year I would be doing so to such an extreme… not just on my blog, but in developing a new, innovative school. And we are also having discussions with teachers in our district who are excited about brining inquiry-based learning into their schools. We are just beginning to learn of where this is already happening in classrooms within our district, and our province.

The learning curve has been huge. I’ve had to question a lot of my own assumptions and have even found barriers in my own beliefs about what school ‘should’ or ‘needs to’ look like. It has been humbling, challenging, fascinating and engaging. The interesting thing is that much of what I’ve been learning can happen in most every school, and I find that very exciting.

Do not go quietly into your classrooms and into your schools! Let’s start the conversation. Let’s Transform Education… TOGETHER!

PS. If you happen to have a course program with specific Learning Outcomes around Applications of Digital Learning or Digital Literacy, please share them with me… I too promise to share what we come up with!

Please share your thoughts on any of these questions and let us know what insights you have come up with. Thank you!

[Cross-Posted on David Truss :: Pair-a-Dimes For Your Thoughts]

Allow me to explain.

About two years ago, after using Twitter for a while as a fun and casual way to connect with family and friends, I happened upon some Tweets from an educational leader who went by the Twitter handle @NMHS_Principal. I started following him, and was blown away by the incredible amounts of high quality education and edtech resources he was sharing. The names of people he was retweeting were not familiar to me, but as he mentioned them, I began to follow them as well.

Thus began my journey into the world of a PLN (Personal Learning Network). I was soon following and making connections with many educators from around the country and beyond. At the time, I did not realize that @NMHS_Principal, known in real life as Mr. Eric Sheninger, Principal of New Milford High School in New Jersey, was an education administration rock star. It was really only after I got a chance to interact briefly with him at last year’s ISTE Conference, and to see his packed presentations in action, did I see how far of a reach he has.

You can imagine my excitement then, when my good friend and fellow Yeshiva University Community of Practice facilitator Rabbi Yehuda Chanales informed me that he had arranged a visit to Eric’s school, and that I was invited! What follows are some of my initial thoughts and observations about what I saw at New Milford High School. Eric is doing some incredible things there to move the school forward, and I think that there are many applications for our own schools as well.

Time for Sharing: One of the most striking aspects of our visit was how much time and attention Eric gave to us. This is an administrator that clearly works at a frenetic pace, and yet, he gave us an hour and a half of his own time! I thought that maybe we’d say hello, get 10 or 15 minutes, perhaps a conversation with a teacher or mid-level administrator that he would hand us off to. No such thing. We sat for a while in his office, asking him questions and learning about the culture of his school. He then gave us an extremely comprehensive tour of the campus, which included introducing us to several faculty members and some detailed discussions on how certain classrooms were set up. Eric is clearly proud of his school, as well he should be, and that pride shone through in his tour. But for an administrator in his position to be so sharing and open with two individuals who are not even in the same public school universe as he is, well, I think there is something different at play. I think that this tendency is a real world manifestation of the connections and spirit of sharing that exist among educators online. Eric is a member of “Connected Principals,” a blog made up of many thought leaders in the world of educational administration. This culture of sharing with and wanting to learn from others is very much present in Eric’s online persona, and it was wonderful to see this play out in the real world as well.  It is important for us to remember that we are modeling this culture of sharing every single day, and that we have to be a cheerleader for it when talking to our colleagues and staff who are not yet on board with the concept of connecting and sharing. Especially in our world of Jewish education, the attitude of looking at other educators as competitors and not worthy of sharing with and learning from, still exists. Social media helps break down these barriers, but we can do it face to face in our schools as well.

Tech is not the solution:  One of the themes that Eric kept reiterating on our tour is that “I don’t mandate tech in the classroom.” He wants the faculty stretching themselves, always improving, and making the classroom a truly student centered experience. While EdTech tools are often quite helpful in accomplishing those goals, they are not the only way to do so. So in New Milford High School, a lot of the school looks like, well, a regular high school. It’s not some futuristic wonderland. Sure, there are plenty of smartboards, but there are even more regular whiteboards.

It was very interesting to speak to several teachers who are integrating technology in their classrooms. The ones that we spoke to had not completely overhauled their entire classroom. Rather, they were using one or two simple tools, like Poll Everywhere or Twitter, to enhance their existing framework of teaching. It is this recognition that technology is only a tool towards achieving a much more significant goal of improving instruction, that makes New Milford High School a place that is at once moving quickly to the future, and yet at the same time, very well grounded. Those of us who are real tech enthusiasts (and I certainly include myself in this group) can sometimes get caught up in the technology itself, and forget that it has to be utilized with a plan, on top of a solid foundation of good teaching.

Change must be supported, not just championed: Eric was clearly very proud of his school and the building, but he was particularly proud of the purchases he had helped initiate: Carts of netbooks and iPads, a set of digital SLR cameras, and even non tech items like resurfacing the old chalkboards with a material that turns them into whiteboards. The source of his pride, however, was in the fact that he was supporting his teachers with the proper equipment that they needed to teach the class and to grow as educators. The message was clear: in order for any change to occur, it cannot just be talked about, or even mandated. It has to be actively supported. That was why it was so important that all of the classroom computers be new models, because, as Eric said, “how can I ask my teachers to integrate technology with tools that don’t allow them to get the job done?”

Another concrete way that Eric fosters innovation among faculty members is by giving them as much as 3 periods a week from their schedule to work on whatever they feel passionate about that will help them improve as educators. This is loosely based on the Google 20% approach, where software engineers are encouraged to use up to 20% of their time to work on projects they are passionate about (which has spawned such Google products as Gmail). At New Milford, staff members are asked to document their progress in their area of focus, and share their findings with other faculty members in a presentation at the end of the year. This not only provides the staff with time and resources to develop themselves and grow, but it also encourages faculty to learn from one another.

Don’t be scared of new ideas: Finally, under Eric Sheninger’s leadership at New Milford, there is a culture of embracing change a willingness to experiment with new ideas. When we were sitting in Eric’s office, he showed us one of his newest toys, what he called a “Smartboard in a Bag.” Basically, it is a projector, Apple TV device, and an iPad. It allows a teacher to wirelessly present the iPad content on the projector, wherever he or she may be in the classroom. It has much of the functionality of a Smartboard at a fraction of the cost. It’s not a kit that is sold by any retailer or education company. It’s a configuration that Eric recently learned about from fellow educators online, a mere few weeks ago. He went ahead and made the investment because he believed in it.
Eric showed us a new classroom that had just been converted from a computer lab. It was a wonderful prototype for a 21^st century classroom, with a long conference table to encourage collaboration, computer workstations along the wall, large projector screens on either side of the room with integrated webcams for videoconferencing, and smaller stations for groups of 2 or 3 students to work together.

One of the programs that New Milford has embraced has been a Holocaust education class. In the class, the students and faculty have made connections with Holocaust survivors throughout the world and frequently interview them via Skype.

These are the types of ideas and initiatives that are often talked about in education circles in wistful tones, as ‘if only we could do this.’ At New Milford, these ideas are implemented in reality. Not every new program will work, but Eric is showing a remarkable willingness to try and experiment.

New Milford High School is an exciting place. There is a buzz in the school, and a sense that faculty and students alike are committed to learning at the highest levels using 21^st century tools. The bold vision of their principal is clearly an instrumental component of this culture, and we are grateful that he took that time to share with us!

For more pictures from our trip to New Milford HS, click HERE.

Cross posted on Dov Emerson’s Blog