Challenge Accepted!!

Mr. Brett Clark has given me a Blogging Challenge.  I didn't want to get into the whole process because it is becoming very much an altered form of a chain letter.  However, I do not want to let my friend down (I mean, he did let me live in his basement).  Unfortunately, in my last post, I decided to do many of the things in the challenge so I am only left with the 11 questions that were asked of me:

11 Questions From Brett:

1) What is the most rewarding professional experience you've ever had?  I am very fortunate that I have had many of these over the years.  I have yearbooks with comments from students expressing their gratitude and colleagues that I have been friends with for my entire career despite having changed schools several times.  But, I think one that will always stick out in my mind will be the AP Chemistry student I had in my first year who earned a 9 for her marking period grade.  She barely passed her senior year of HS.  After working for a few years at a Barnes and Noble, she realized she was wasting her life.  She went to community college, then transferred to Rutgers.  She is currently finishing her Masters in Biochemistry.  When she started her MA, she messaged me on Facebook to tell me about everything that happened to her since HS.  She said that one of the reasons she chose biochemistry was because of how much my AP Chemistry class had helped her in college.  She is the perfect example of why not everyone is meant to go to college right after high school and how some people just need time to find themselves.  

2) If you were made the emperor of education, what would be the first 3 things you would change?  First, I would do away with the term "Emperor of Education."  It implies that one person's opinion is more important than everyone else's.  Second, standardized tests that involve scantrons and one right answer would be replaced with meaningful tasks to measure understanding and true learning.  Third, I think more schools need to adopt the academy model of education similar to what you find in Magnet and vocational programs.  Programs that are designed to train you with particular skills.  There would still be a "general studies" program, but gone would be 'home ec' and 'foods' to be replaced with culinary arts.  Those wanting to become engineers would take mechanics classes, electrical design, and team building.  Those not wanting to go to college would do apprenticeships and study to pass their licensing exams in whatever area they choose.  Schools need to find ways to tailor the academic offerings to the students instead of a 'one size fits most' mentality.
3) What was the last book you read for fun? for work?  I always reading several books at a time.  Currently, I am listening to (35 min commute) Ape House by Sara Gruen, reading In The Woods by Tana French, and Flipping 2.0 by, well, a bunch of awesome people.
4) Who is your favorite director? (If you say Brett Ratner or Michael Bay, I may unfollow you.) Steven Spielberg.  But, I was just having a discussion on Facebook about what an amazing director Michael Bay.  He may not produce Oscar worth films, but you cannot deny both his an Ratner's gift for turning our childhood fantasies into reality.
5) If you could be on any TV show, what show would you want to be on?  Big Bang Theory.  I would fit in so well there.
6) Paperback, hardback, or eBooks?  As much as I am in favor of digital textbooks, I cannot read for long periods of time on a digital device.  I love the feel of hardcover books; reminds me of my mom who always felt like reading hardcovers was a status symbol (even though hers almost always came from the library).  In the end I always wait until paperback for a good book.
7) Who's your favorite celebrity to follow on twitter?  I only follow 2 celebrities on Twitter:  Steve Martin and Alton Brown.  Alton Brown's tweets are hilarious because he writes his tweets on post-its. sticks it to the computer monitor under the tweet he is responding to, then takes a picture and tweets that.  
8) How close or far away are you right now from where you thought you would be at this point in your life when you were a kid?  I have wanted to be a teacher since I was 8 (got ya beat Clark!).  Mrs. Platt in 2nd grade is who inspired me.  So I am exactly where I wanted to be.  The adult version wants more, though.
9) What's the most embarrassing hair style you've ever had?  When I was in HS, I used to comb my hair across and it produced this wave effect.  When my hair got too long the wave was more tsunami size.  I definitely have pictures around, but I don't want my students who read this blog to see them.
10) I always loved how baseball players have a song they walk up to when they bat. What song would you pick?  Wait and Bleed by Slipknot.
11) What's your favorite browser and how many tabs do you have open? (I'm really looking for affirmation that I'm not the only one with an addiction to tabs.)  I am Mr. Google (currently on a Chromebook) so it is only Chrome for me.  I have 5 tabs open.  I have an unconscious thing about groups of 5.  My wife, on the other hand, is a tab junkie.  She doesn't close anything, not even programs she is no longer using.  Her phone will easily have 30-40 tabs open and her computer will have the same.

Now, if you want to participate, feel free.  You can answer the 11 questions Brett asked of me, the 11 questions that I stole in my previous post, or the 11 that I have below.  If you do decide to do the Blogger's HW, please leave a comment with a link to your post.  Thanks for reading and sharing!

11 Questions for You:

1.  If you were going to get a tattoo, what would it be and where on your body would you put it?

2.  You find a old, tarnished lamp on the beach.  You rub it and a Genie pops out.  What's the 2nd thing you ask for? Don't forget about the 3 rules of wish giving

3.  What is your favorite TED Talk?

4.  Puppies:  cute or ugly? (please include a picture as part of your defense)

5.  Deep Dish or NY Style?

6.  If you could be an educator anywhere in the world (besides where you currently live), where would it be and why?

7.  What is the best blog post you have ever read or written?

8.  What piece of technology do schools need to use or use better?

9.  What one politically correct term should be banned?

10.  How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop?

11.  What's the coolest thing about science you have ever learned?  (thank you to my wife for suggesting this one)

My thoughts on #flipcon12

There is so much to say that it is difficult to decide where to begin.  I finally got to meet some of the amazing people with whom I have only ever conversed in 140 character conversations (each of the previous words links to someone's twitter profile).  There were fantastic conversations with people from all over country (and Canada!) who are looking to transform what education will look like in the future.  There will be lots of blog posts talking about what everyone learned or took away from this experience, but I want to focus on something a little bit different.  I want to talk about the sponsors.  No I am not kissing up.  Each of the following companies represent a small group of people who realize that 1) teachers are people who need individualized attention, 2) education is no longer about making cogs in a machine, 3) need our support in helping them help us make significant change in the way education happens in the future.

1.  eclass4learning

One evening, each of the sponsors hosted a dinner at a different restaurant.  I had already been to a dinner with TechSmith at ISTE11, and as much as I love those guys (more to come on them later), I wanted to hear what one of the smaller, lesser known sponsors had to say about their company.  Tammy Stephens was our host and she brought us to this fantastic tapas restaurant.  Food was outstanding!  But eclass4learning is a way for teachers to get training on Moodle and for schools to host their Moodle site for a low cost.  While there is a few, eclass4learning helps school districts by taking the administration of Moodle and the need to have extra serves to host it out of the responsibility of the district.  The cost is relatively low considering that private hosting companies are charging $6-$10 per month per site.  The company is based out of Wisconsin and they seen the need to make things as easy as possible on the teachers involved.  They provide webinars and on-site training to get the school up and running.

2.  MentorMob

This was the first time I had the chance to use MentorMob even though I had seen information about them before.  MentorMob was one of the conferences main sponsors and we had the opportunity to visit their offices (2 rooms) in Chicago for pizza and beverages.  The site is a great way for all of the presenters to host their presentation materials in one common location and for conference organizers to disseminate handouts and other information in a paperless environment.  Now, I honestly don't know if I would use it in my class on a regular basis, however, I am definitely thinking about them for TeachMeetNJ in a couple of months.  What struck me about this company was they are just a few people in literally 2 corner offices (the entire company crammed into the small space), but they conduct themselves as if they are giants in the software world.  The employees were extremely friendly and were so gracious to have us there.

3.  TechSmith

I have talked about TechSmith before.  Their products (Camtasia Studio, Snagit, Jing) are all in the top 5 programs that get opened on my computer.  The company sponsored my presentation at NJSTA last October and the Middletown Web Challenge this past February.  I cannot say enough great things about the conferences number 1 sponsor.  Oh, they also gave all attendees a free copy of Camtasia AND Snagit.  At the end of my 2nd presentation, I guy walks up to me and starts talking to me about some of the things I said and how I use TechSmith products in my classroom.  We are talking for awhile, he hands me his card, and I realize he is one of the Directors of the company.  So I am not just sitting with some sales rep, this is a guy who sits with the CEO and advises him on how to run the company.  But most importantly he is really listening to my ideas.  At the end, he asks me to email him and offers to come to my school personally to train my students in how to use Snagit.  How many companies would do this?  Sure they might send you a free software, but how many would volunteer their time to help out teenagers better use the software for learning?

Like I said, there will be lots of people who blog about what they learned from the different presentations, but I wanted to highlight some of the caring companies who are not big names that are truly supporting teachers and students, and trying to help schools really teach 21st century skills.

My students as producers

Tonight's #edchat topic was about how to convert students from consumers to producers.  While many of the suggestions were great in theory, the main problem is the educators that are on Twitter represent a very small minority in the education world.  Too often we are combating long ingrained preconceptions of what is expected of both the teacher and student in the classroom.  It is tough to get students to become producers of learning when they have spent the last 10 or 11 years having barely or never done it.

So, with this in mind, I would like to share what my learners produced recently.  In a previous post, I talked about how instead of a test in the Atomic Theory unit I decided to let the students demonstrate their understanding of the objectives through a formal assessment.  I gave them about 2 weeks to do it and got some interesting results.  Most of the students created some sort of test (one even used the same fonts I used on a previous test so it looked like something I would actually hand out), and a couple did some research projects.  But the ones who really went outside the box are the ones I would like to share below.

The first started as a music video and kind of dissolved into just their own song.

These 2 girls made a scrapbook of information as well as a bundt cake in the shape of an atomic orbital with mini cupcakes for the electron configuration.

This student is an amazing artist and so creative.  This picture doesn't do her work justice.  She laid out all of the information in these mini posters.  I especially like the way she explained electron configurations, in fact I probably will put this on my wall and refer to it next year.

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This student took a spin on the typical Google Search Story and created a video about a conversation between Boron and Carbon on Facebook.  Really clever.

This last group was supposed to do an interpretive dance, but the thought of doing something so daring in front of 24 of their peers scared the stuffing out of them. Instead they created watercolor paintings of the different concepts.

Was it amazing, Earth shattering work? No.  But for their first attempt at formal assessments I was really impressed.  Looking forward to trying this again in the next marking period.

25 hours in a day

That's pretty much the minimum amount of time I need to get everything done that I am working on. There will be a post about the alternative assessments my students just completed, but I need to grade them first.  So, let me tell you about a little things called the Middletown Web Challenge.

In November, a friend's school ran a 30 Web Tools Challenge in which they posted a different web tool for each day for teachers to try in their classroom.  The objective was to expose teachers to a variety of free tools that could have an immediate, positive impact on learning.  There are so many teachers that want to do more in their classes, but don't have the time or know-how to find the way to improve.  Your colleagues can only provide you so many ideas and once you have been teaching awhile with the same group, you find the ideas begin to dry up.  This is where the web challenge comes in.

My district is on the edge of glory greatness.  For too many years, because of a rotating door of administrators, the teachers have shut their doors to the outside world and things have begun to stagnate.  That does not mean it's bad; in fact I have met some amazing individuals.  The problem is the school is at the point where it needs that small push to get from good to great.

http://www.melroseschools.com/images/digital-learning.jpg

I saw a tweet from Eric Sheninger in December about Digital Learning Day on February 1st.  This initiative from the Obama administration strives to increase the amount of technology being used in schools with the kickoff occurring on DLD.  I saw this as a fantastic opportunity to expose my colleagues to the wonderful world of Web 2.0 Tools that I have been learning about on Twitter for the past 2 years.  I shared the information with a colleague in one of our middle schools and she jumped on board.  Also a web geek, she has been leading a charge to incorporate a number of Google Apps into the MS classes so she thought this was the perfect way to start effecting real change district wide.  We met with our principals and so the Middletown Web Challenge was born.

This was all prior to Winter Break. As we began to build the blog and compile the list of tools we wanted to share, we realized that no one has really told the new superintendent what we were up to.  We scheduled a meeting for last Friday, and after the assistant superintendent heard of our plans, she immediately decided to make this a 6-12 initiative that would now include 3 middle schools and both high schools.  It was decided that a video promo of the project would be filmed to be put on the local TV channel and the district website explaining what we would be doing over the month of February so the community could get involved.  From a short tweet and subsequent email, this idea has grown into a massive district changing program.

I have to tell you that I am unbelievably excited for everything that is happening.  Regardless of how many teachers actually participate, I know that the group of teachers that are working on this project are striving to improve education and doing what's best of student learning.  When I first pitched this to my principal I thought that only my 1 school of 100 staff members would be involved and probably only about 25% of them would actually participate.  Now, this blog idea will be at the core of a movement that could involve 400 educators from grades 6-12.

I highly recommend getting your school involved in some sort of digital learning initiative before the end of the year.  Check out the links I included above for ideas on how your school can get involved.

Too much in my head

I have been holding off making a post because I didn't want to interfere with my contest.  Now I have so much in my head one post cannot hold it all.  Let me give a brief overview of a few things and then focus on what happened today.


Edscape
Went to Edscape on Saturday hosted Eric Sheninger at New Milford HS.  Absolutely amazing experience sitting with so many passionate, like-minded educators who are looking to find new tools to help their students grow.  While some of the sessions I could have run, I got so many good ideas from Adam Bellow and Lyn Hilt, both of whom I could listen to all day and not get bored.  It really inspired me to get my butt in gear in planning TeachMeet 2012.

TeachMeet 2012
Was able to connect with several people concerning the planning for TeachMeet.  Many things have stalled because we just can't find a venue.  Mostly this is because people don't respond to my emails.  Not sure why this is happening, but wish I could just find a place to get the rest of the planning started.  I have possible connections with Rutgers, Piscataway HS and Rutgers Prep so maybe one of them will actually get booked.

Meeting with the Principal
The principal who hired me left the school under mysterious circumstances and in a whirlwind of controversy. My guess is he said the wrong thing to the wrong person and they decided to find a new school leader.  We actually are still working under an interim principal who very well could end up back in his assistant role in a couple of weeks.  Anyway, I like to know the person who is leading me so on a whim I emailed him to see if he would meet with me to talk about his vision for the school.  Up until today, I haven't spoken to him for more than a few minutes so I wasn't sure how this was going to go.

My original plan was to mostly keep my mouth shut and let him talk, but that died out about 2 minutes into the meeting.  We started talking about getting everyone to create a class webpage using Google Sites (we will be going to Google Apps starting in the fall) and the conversation spiraled into more of the ideas of how to make the school great.  We started planning a Magnet program for the school, spun the professional development plans to work better with the union, and potentially started a new committee to integrate more technology into the classroom as well as to showcase the innovative ideas already in practice.  We use PLCs in the school.  Well, that's not completely accurate.  A few years ago they used PLCs, but with the constantly changing administrative staff, everything that was created has gone by the waste side.  Hopefully we will be able rebuild some of what was lost.

To be honest, my meeting was a little selfish.  I have a lot of ideas of how to change education bouncing in my head and, since I returned to the classroom, I haven't had the chance to test many of them out.  It was so fantastic to get the chance to talk out my ideas and have someone receptive to what I had to say.  The principal wants to do anything he can to move the school forward, but I don't think he really knows what the best way is.

Maybe I need to get him on Twitter.

#SchoolDidAGoodThing

If you don't follow @TheNerdyTeacher or read his blog, you are missing out.    After listening to him speak at ISTE 2011 and reading his posts, I know that his classroom is a dynamic learning environment where every student is given the chance to succeed.  He is also the type of person who looks at a negative situation and immediately begins to work out how he can spin it to work in his favor.

In some of his recent blog posts, he has charged the education world to begin to change the negative views the country seems to have of schools.  His most recent mission asks teachers to post on Twitter something positive that happened to them in school while growing up and add the hashtag #SchoolDidAGoodThing.  Inspired once again by him, I would like to share 2 stories that shaped my teaching philosophies:

The Best of Intentions
Middle school was not kind to me, as is the case for many kids.  I wanted to be an athlete, but I didn't have the coordination.  Academics came extremely easy and I was that kid who always had his hand up to answer the teacher's question.  I was not obnoxious, I just worked hard so I knew the right answer.  This led me to be bullied excessively both in and out of school (one incident actually gave me a concussion when a locker door was slammed into my head).  When I brought this information to the school counselor, he told me that I drew too much attention to myself and that I should think about not raising my hand in class anymore.  As any of my friends will tell you, I am extremely strong willed and do not let others dictate how I should act.  I ignored his advice and decided to stand up to the bullies.  Well, as most MS bullies are, as soon as I stood up for myself, they back off.  I look at this situation and wonder what I would have become had I taken this short-sighted counselor's advice.  Even worse, how many people did listen to what he had to say?  I am sure that he was doing what he thought was best, but he never considered how his words could have destroyed the confident man I was becoming.

Give a Boy a Chance
When you are growing up, you don't realize what adults are secretly doing for you to give you the opportunity to reach your potential.  I was on my HS fencing team and to be really honest, I sucked my freshmen year.  I never missed a practice, worked my tail off and ended the year 0-12.  We didn't have a large team which is why I got a chance to fence 12 times, but the better point is my coach had enough confidence in me to keep putting me in even though he expected me to lose every time.  Fast forward to my senior year.  At the end of the year banquet, I was captain of the team, held 3 school records and was on the All-State Team.  My coach pulls me aside afterwards and says, "Marc, to be honest, you were so bad your freshman year that I secretly wished you wouldn't return.  Thank goodness I never recommended for you not to come back out for the team."  My coach did exactly what he was supposed to: gave me support.  I didn't know how important it was at the time, but as I look back it was exactly what I needed to try and find out who I was going to be.  I could have given up, but instead I surged forward because I was given the chance.

Thanks to @TheNerdyTeacher for getting me to reflect on the people who helped me become the person I am today.

What I learned on my ISTE vacation

Ok, vacation is not quite the right word as I live 90 minutes from Philadelphia, where ISTE 2011, was held and commuted in every day.  But, my wife commented that I was excited about going to a edtech conference as she was about attending the Dave Matthews Caravan 3 day conference the previous weekend.  Let me say simply WOW.  Hands down best conference ever!  I have already posted about Day 1 and Day 2 and while I should make comments about Day 3 I wanted to spend some time talking about all of the other things that I learned about the conference.  The things that everyone failed to mention in their advice columns for newbies.

Tidbit 1:  The conference is actually 5 days long.
When I first read about the conference, I saw that the opening keynote was on Sunday afternoon.  As I didn't want to pay for a full day that didn't involve workshops, I decided to skip and stay home.  Huge mistake!!  Apparently TEDxPhilly was that day and was closed by the opening keynote for ISTE.  That was not on the website.  Also, many educators came in on Friday/Saturday and held sessions that were indicated on the conference website, but were not emphasized.  Most conferences don't begin until after the opening keynote, but not ISTE.  So, if you are attending, spend the extra money and be there every day.

Tidbit 2:  It is impossible to do everything.
I have attended conferences before including NSTA, but this was so much more.  I thought that 45 minutes between sessions would be more than enough time for me to wander the exhibit floor for awhile and still make it to my session with time to spare.  Well, for most sessions the room was almost full a full 15 minutes before the start time.  When I went to the Flipped Classroom session, the doors closed and they started early.  On the 2nd day, I decided to just skip one of my afternoon sessions to give me almost 3 hours to wander the exhibit floor.  Well, after sitting in on a product advisory panel, giving ideas to Corel and collecting pens from just about everyone, I was literally running to my next session.  So, next time I need to put aside a few hours each day for just the exhibit hall.  The hall is absolutely overwhelming and there are so many people who are dying to get you to try out their products.  They all knew we couldn't purchase anything so they just wanted to get us excited about what their products could do.

Tidbit 3:  Don't go to the keynotes.
So the keynote was held in a ballroom that was literally larger than a few airports that I have been to.  I was crammed into my seat to watch Stephen Covey, on TV.  That's right, he wasn't even there.  Ran into someone later who said that he sat in the Blogger's Cafe and watched the whole thing on a TV there and sat in a comfy chair.  So, for Chris Lehman's closing keynote, I went to the Newbie Lounge and it was 1000 times better.

Tidbit 4:  Be an extrovert.
I am not a social butterfly (in fact I went to the Social Butterfly lounge thinking it was the Newbie Lounge and high tailed it out of there) so I had a hard time meeting people.  I was in the Newbie Lounge watching the Twitter feed and no one was talking to me.  I look up and see William King.  I have never met him before, but actually follow him on Twitter simply because I find his comments clever.  Even though he was talking with someone I interrupted and introduced myself.  As we were talking, I saw Paula Naugle playing with an ActiveBoard, yelled out her name and struck up a conversation with her, too.  As I got out of my comfort zone, I knew that I needed to just walk up to people and shake their hands.  I got to meet Steven Anderson, Josh Stumpenhorst, and Nicholas Provenzano, Aaron Sams and Jon Bergmann by interrupting what they were doing and shaking their hands.

Tidbit 5:  Get on Twitter
I met several people who were not on Twitter and showed them the Twitter feed that I had running on Tweetdeck.  I was getting links and comments from sessions all over the conference yet I was not there.  Also, if I wasn't getting what I needed from the session that I was currently in, I was still learning from others as they shared their nuggets of information.  I am sure those not on Twitter learned a lot.  I just feel my experience was more varied because of it.

Now, ISTE 2012 is being held in San Diego so now I just need to figure out how to convince my wife to take a week long vacation in southern Cali.

If you attended ISTE 2011, I would love for you to share things you learned as well.

ISTE 2011

I don't know who the people of Philadelphia paid off, but it held the NSTA national conference last year, ISTE 2011 conference this year and I believe another national conference is next year (either AP or ASCD).  Last year I went to NSTA and it was absolutely AMAZING!  I loved being surrounded by so many great science ideas that I just tried to absorb as much as I could and make the appropriate changes in my classroom.

This weekend, ISTE 2011 begins.  I will be attending Monday-Wednesday and am thrilled.  I have been getting involved with a lot of social media discussions and this will be the opportunity for me to see so many more.  There are so many things I want to see and do in those three days, but I think I have narrowed my goals down to the following:

1.  See everything!  I know I will be absolutely overwhelmed, but I don't think I will have another chance like this and I need to do it all.  Thank goodness for the online program planner otherwise I would be running around like a crazy man even more than I will be.  On my tentative agenda, I will be learning how to be a tech-savvy administrator, discussing the flipped classroom, joining in an online blogging project, learning more about QR codes, and trying to better use podcasts in my class.

2.  Meet the elite!  I have only been on Twitter for educational purposes for about 9 months and there are so many people that I have developed a lot of respect for.  I need to meet them in person.  I don't know if I can do it, but I want them to know how much they have helped me grow.

3.  Get involved.  I feel like I am poised at the precipice of something great, but don't know how to get over the edge.  I want to get involved more with the people who are leading the reform charge and find out how I can help.  In reality, I just want to sit at the same lunch table as the cool kids and simply absorb.  Maybe once in a while I will throw out a useful comment, but mostly I want to feel included.

When this event is over, I know I will have so much to comment on.  I will try to tweet and make posts while at the conference and each night to discuss all the amazing things I have learned. 

Baby, you're a firework

This week I decided to jump in on #coachchat on Twitter and I was pleasantly surprised at the overwhelmingly positive responses that came to the topic of providing adequate playing time for all athletes.  In reality, I should not have been so surprised as I find most of the people on Twitter are progressive in their thinking and always have the students' interest at the heart of everything they do.  But, there are so many stories of coaches who tear down kids that sometimes you forget they might just be the minority.

My coaching philosophy is simple: do your best at all times and have fun.  I don't care about wins and loses as long as when the day is done you can say you did the best that you can.  My heart breaks when one of my fencers loses and then gives me a look that says "Sorry, I let you down because I lost." I have one that is particularly hard on herself.  If you could win just on effort and heart, this girl would be undefeated.  But, unfortunately, that's just not how things work.  Constantly I feed her constructive comments and remind her that it is not about the final result.

So, to all of the athletes, students, teens, teachers, everyone, anyone who feel like at that moment you are just not good enough, like the world is against you, that you will be nothing but average.  All I have to say is...

Baby, you're a Firework!