If you're a freak like me...

I have an unhealthy obsession with a number of things:

1. Google--this is pretty much everything they do. I am obsessed with their products, their corporate philosophy, how they treat their employees, how they want to change the world, and the fact that they offer pretty much everything they create for free.
2. The color green--it used to be just forest or hunter green, but a few years ago it turned to neon green and I have never looked back. I especially love the combination of neon green and black. I have a neon green tie, neon green shoelaces on my sneakers (which also are black and grey), neon green and black Google sunglasses (yes the obsession goes that far), a neon green doorstop for my classroom, and a neon green case for my Nexus 7.
3. Chemistry--actually this is pretty much anything science, but my true love is chemistry. I have chemistry shirts, a chemistry clock, and even my wedding ring is pure Tungsten.
4. The word Awesome--I try to include it in everything I do. My class hashtag is #chemisawesome, my quote board is #wordsofawesome, I have a shirt that just says AWESOME, and another one that warns that my awesomeness is contagious.
5. Lists that have 5 things in them--it is not OCD. Five just seems like a nice number of things to have in a list. In fact, I added this just to make it to five things.

I grew up in the 90s in a time when you got ridiculed for standing out from the crowd. When I went to HS, you were either a jock or a geek and I was both. I hid my true self from everyone but my closest friends to not draw attention to myself.  Today's world is one of the best times to grow up because you can flaunt your obsessions, your inner geekiness, and no one really cares because they are doing it too.

So, if you're a freak like me, raise your flag. Wave that geek flag high in the air and be proud. Being a geek means you are passionate about something and there is nothing wrong with that.

The Google Teacher Academy and Me

Last week I had the unbelievable opportunity of attending the Google Teacher Academy at the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA.  It took a week for me to fully process everything that happened into something that I could put into a simple blog post.

Let's start with the Googleplex:
Everything you have heard about Google is absolutely true. I couldn't take many pictures as most of the buildings are considering confidential areas and I signed a NDA, so below are what I could take. One of the  coolest things were the micro-kitchens in each office area that was stocked with snack bars, cereal, water (flavored and unflavored), soda (holy crap was there a lot of soda), fruit, coffee makers, and chips. What I loved most was there were almost no name-brand products anywhere. Soda machines said "Cola" and all of the snacks were focused on organic or natural ingredient companies. There wasn't a Lays or Herrs to be found. Red Bull was there, but that's probably because the all natural energy drinks are terrible.  All of this was completely free and we were encouraged to snack as much as we wanted to keep our energy up.

Me on a Google Bike

where you park your Google bike

the Google car

me in Jelly Donut

statues of all the Android OS

the Disney store for adult nerds

one of the Alien creatures from Alien

I don't know why there is a dinosaur skeleton

This was a random guacamole and salsa table setup under some trees. There was also fresh made strawberry lemonade. This was setup for anyone who wanted it. Just one of the many little touches Google supplies its employees and guests.

The second thing was the way Google treated its employees.  There were exercise areas, volleyball courts, pool tables, and community gardens so employees could enjoy their outdoor environment whenever they wanted. They were encouraged to go outside to have meetings or just simply to get away from their desk for a little while.  Employees have no sick days. If you are too sick to come to work, stay home. If you do decide to come to work, there are doctors on campus to take care of you just in case. But the coolest story
came from one of our lead learners who told us that one day when she came to work very sick and none of the doctors were available to see her, a Google employee drove her to an emergent-care in San Francisco (over 30 min away and close to her apartment).

The GTA:
The best part about the GTA is gathering educators, who are considered the crazy ones in their district, into one room and letting them loose on redesigning their classrooms. It was invigorating and inspiring and overwhelming and so many other positive words that I don't feel like looking up in a thesaurus. There were only a handful of attendees that I had met in person prior to the GTA, but it felt like we were long lost friends. I had basically strangers driving me from the airport, taking me along for dinner, and dropping me off in random places in San Francisco.  And none of it felt awkward. We are now a weird, Google nerd family and it feels fantastic.

There were 5 sessions run by our lead learners spread over the 2 days. They were hands-on exercises that not only showed us creative ways to use Google tools, but gave us concrete examples of activities that we can take back to our classrooms immediately.  My favorite ones were the scavenger hunt activity we did using our Nexus 7 tablets and NFC tags/QR code and using hyperdocs.

In the scavenger hunt, we were given a link to a Google map with the exact location of each of our targets. We needed to walk around with the map open to guide us to the location.  When we arrived, we found a tag that linked us to a quote.  We then needed to take a picture with our tablet that creatively addressed the quote and share it to a Google+ community created for this event.  What I loved about this was that it wasn't about simply finding an answer and then moving on.  We really needed to think differently about our environment, the features of the camera app, and finding a picture we were willing to share to a community of learners who were going to judge our submissions. Some of the locations included piles of chalk and play-doh, chairs and rocks, or just hidden near a tree. The best part was the submission to a digital community. I found I was much more critical of my work and put more effort into using the features in the app before just posting a picture because I wanted to impress my peers who would be deciding on the best submission later.

HyperDocs are basically a Google Doc that has links to videos, forms, slides and other Google docs embedded in them. I see them as a great way to transition from traditional note taking to something more interactive. It doesn't require the teacher to recreate everything he/she is doing, but simply put it into a different form. HyperDocs allow the motivated student to move faster than the rest of the class, for the teacher to collect reflections on the assignment, and for the entire class to gather information on a topic throughout the unit into one location. This is great for students who are absent, who are falling behind or for those who are having trouble organizing their work. HyperDocs might also be an alternative instructional method for flipped classrooms. Rather than using the videos to drive instruction, the major information can be written into the Google Doc with the videos linked as additional resources. There can also be short quizzes or reflection forms included to check for understanding.

Nearly every activity we did was on a timer. It was frustrating, and nerve-racking, and totally awesome. When we give students projects, we give them lengthy timelines so that they can accommodate other class' projects. But students just start shoving as much information as they could fit and teachers start putting rules in place to limit how much they can do. Instead, we can give them 10 minutes in class, very specific guidelines for the information they need to include, and 1 Google slide to do it in. Time is spent not on perfection, but on focusing on the most important information and creatively presenting it. It takes me 10 minutes just to explain what I want from the project. I am actually thinking about using this in the first days of school for the students to introduce themselves to both me and their classmates. I am going to create a title slide explaining what they need to do, make every student create a slide in the same document, and then give them only 10 minutes to work. At the end, it doesn't matter what they have, they are done because I am going to change the sharing settings so they can't tweak it after class is over (which is what the perfectionists will want to do).

While there is always a "sit and get" portion to every PD, the practical application time was the most valuable. We were not being instructed on how to use a particular tool or what the different options were, but rather we were simply thrust into a situation and told to figure it out. That is what we need more of in schools, less hand-holding and more go figure it out situations. There were several times we were required to use a tool I had zero experience with. I immediately looked for someone who knew what to do and got a 30 second explanation before jumping in. Kids today know how to figure things out. My 7 year old had never typed before, but within 30 minutes of using Typing Club he figured out how to cheat the system and get himself higher scores. He is not a genius, just an example of how quickly kids are to play and learn.

Looking back, two days was not nearly enough time to learn as much as I wanted, but I don't think my brain could have handled any more. I have so many ideas swimming in my head that it is difficult to figure out where to even begin. I could go on and on about so much more, but I guess I should close with a succinct list of my takeaways:

1. We need to stop wasting time in the classroom with procedures and get out of the way of the students as they are demonstrating their learning, in whatever manner they deem fit to demonstrate it.
2. Today's world is about adapting our SKILLS to novel situations and being able to work in any work environment.
3. The world is our learning space. We need to get out of those four walls and start using it more.
4. There are educators all over the world who are crazy awesome and we need to connect ourselves to them wherever/whenever we can.
5. Using Google tools is so much more than going paperless or using free tools.  They are about creating a new environment for learning and instruction to happen.

When I applied to the Google Teacher Academy, I never thought I stood a chance of getting in. This has been an unbelievable experience from start to finish and I encourage everyone to take the leap and apply. Even if you don't get in, you learn so much about yourself and your teaching you end up growing as an educator.

What question do you wish we had asked?

When we sit down with a potential candidates, we ask a lot of questions about their past and present.

Why are you the best candidate for this job?

Describe how you have overcome adversity.

What made you want to become a teacher and how your experiences have shaped who you are today?

How can you tell that a lesson is successful?

What words would your students use to describe your classroom and teaching style?

How do you handle students varied learning needs?

These are all great questions and will certainly tell you about the personality and teaching style of the potential candidate.  But we are living in a constantly changing world where one of the most important activities a teacher should be engaged in is reflection.

At an interview, the last question that I was asked was "What question do you wish we had asked you?"  I was totally thrown by this as this was the first time any interviewer had asked me this question.  I sat for a second and realized that in every interview I have been on, I have been asked about what I have done in the past or what I would do in hypothetical situations.  Never have I been asked about I am going to do in the future or what my professional growth goals are for next year.  So I described my professional goal for 2014-2015 of creating Google Certified Student teams ( I will talk more about this goal after the GTA this week).  

Why don't we ask about a teacher's professional growth goals or for their blog/Twitter handle/Google+ page?  Wouldn't these tell us more about a teacher than some of the typical questions?

What question would you want to be asked in an interview?

What I meant to say

I had an interview this week for an Assistant Principal position. The first one went really well, but I was less than stellar the 2nd time around in front of the committee. To be completely truthful, I got out to my car and slapped my hand to my forehead as hard as possible in an attempt to see if I still had a brain in there. What threw me was one question, in particular:

What do you see as the difference between a MS and HS classroom? Specifically.

I will not reveal my actual answer because it is embarrassing. I had all of these things I wanted to include during my interview and this would have been the perfect place to use them, but my brain went blank.  I wanted to say:

The difference, as I see it, is simply how you structure the activities that you use at each level.  Students should be sitting in small groups and bean bag chairs while participating in Edcafes in English class. In science, they are completing guided-inquiry activities where they are given the objective, a tray of materials and are developing their procedures and documenting their results in a Google Doc. In math, they are creating small vehicles that propel themselves down the hall, record their results with their cell phones, and analyze the class results that was collected collaboratively in a Google Spreadsheet. In Social Studies, they are responding to the teacher's questions in a back channel while watching a video. In PE, students record each other with their cell phones while completing drills, analyze their form, and share the video with the teacher. 

To the school that I interviewed with:  I am sorry you didn't get to hear the response I wanted to share.  You got the generic me; the one that tries to be like everyone else. I won't make this mistake again.

This has been bothering me all week and I feel a lot better.  Thanks, everyone, for listening.

Sometimes it's the little things

I saw this pin on Pinterest last year about leaving words of encouragement on pencils for students during exams. I tried it for my Honors class and they really loved them. One student even made a Tweet about it a few months later when she found the pencil in the bottom of her backpack.

I wanted to do this again for all my classes for finals this past year but with 152 students there was no way that was going to happen. So, at the last minute, I decided to just take a whiteboard marker and write the message directly on the desk.  Here are some pictures of what I wrote:

I think my favorite part about the day was when some students came in early, noticed the messages, and went around the room trying to find the one they liked best.  I don't know if it helped improved scores, but it definitely put a smile on their face.

One student told me at the end of the year that she feels so comfortable learning in my classroom.  I think I can call my year a success.

Who are you?

I am reading through Digital Leadership by Eric Sheninger and just finished the chapter on creating your brand. The concept is pretty simple: when people search the Internet what do you want them to see?  Using your school's website and social media, you can flood the Internet with positive images and stories about your school, keeping a high impression of the school in the public eye.

In my classroom, we use the hashtag #chemisawesome for everything that we do. Pictures/videos of demos, labs, good grades, all appear on this hashtag.  This is my brand.  These positive images are what I want students, parents, community members, random strangers, colleagues, hobos living under a bridge, President Obama to see when they search Google for my classroom.

When we teach students about their digital footprint, we focus fare too much on the bad things that could happen to them.  Instead, we need to constantly model how social media SHOULD be used. Every classroom should have a blog/website/Instagram/Twitter account.  We should be forcing students to use those computers they call cell phones to document the amazing things they do every day and share it with the world.  Think of how easy it would be for colleges in the decision making process when they search for an incoming freshmen and they find hundreds of pictures of them performing community service, winning awards, participating in extracurricular activities, and what they are learning in their classes. Forget the 650 word essays about who you would be having lunch with.  Soon the application will say please insert the link to your blog or Instagram feed that shows how you are having a positive impact on the world.

So my question is:  when I Google you, which version of you am I going to find?

41 years later

My supervisor is retiring next month after 41 years in education.  He started in this district 2 year before I was born!  He was hired as a MS science teacher originally, then was the first science teacher to teach in the new HS they created later.  Fast forward and he is in the last month of his career in education.  I am finishing my 14th year so I am pretty much finishing the first third of my career (assuming I can't reach my goal of 50 years. Sorry, honey, it's going to happen).  I wanted to take a moment to reflect on some of the most important parts of the past 14 years. (All years are approximate to make this post easier to write)

14 years ago--I met Aashish (just had a kid!), and Martha, and Alexia (got a 9 for the marking period and is now working on her MA in biochemistry!), and Ashley (getting married!), and Ben (is now a 7th grade science teacher). Received the nickname "Evil Seigel" for how much work I gave them in AP Chemistry.

13 years ago--took a group of amazing seniors to Florida when everyone said it couldn't be done. Christina (now a teacher too!) fundraised so much money we actually had to give her some back as spending money.

12 years ago--Had a group of girls tell me something so personal that it changed my life and gave them courage. Started the fencing club. Let Lizzy hangout in my classroom (and then she wouldn't leave!).

11 years ago--Got tenure. Watched Alex and Ana create a unsinkable mousetrap-powered, amphibious vehicle (actually filled it with water and weights and couldn't get it to sink). Kicked Guy out of my class (the first and only student this has happened to).  Apologized to him later for it.  Watched Lucy make a presentation on what would later become the focus of her Ph.D. thesis.

10 years ago--Won Teacher of the Year for my school. Convinced Irene to go out with Kirk (they are married now!).

9 years ago--Accepted Teacher of the Year from the Class of 2006 from Bea (teaches English in China!).  Had to say goodbye to amazing students and colleagues.

8 years ago--Ran the worst department meeting. Followed it up later in the year with the best department meeting.  Met some amazing friends.  Fired someone.

7 years ago--Kissed a pig. Gave Alyssa an award and took one of my favorite photos ever with her.

6 years ago--Became a fencing coach, officially. Met Sara, Claire, Megan (happy birthday!), and Jae. Forgot who I was supposed to be.

5 years ago--Found myself (turns out I was just hiding for a little while). Got to coach Katherine. Had Barry show me that teenagers are different. Discovered that Jackson was a hacker and wicked smart.

4 years ago--Had my best fencing season as a coach and walked away from the sport.  Said goodbye to some of my favorites.

3 years ago--Presented at my first national conference. Started to figure out who I was supposed to be. Met Christiana, Matt, Xena and Raven (all graduating in 3 days!). Made some new friends.

2 years ago--Met Jordan (always making me proud), Christina and Tara. Dariel inspired me to do something I didn't think was possible.  Was thanked 180 times by Maddie. Presented at my 2nd national conference.  Got to team teach with Melissa for the first time.  Watched Eric almost win on Big Brain Theory.

1 year ago--Got a chance to teach AP Chem for the 9th time. Collaborated with students in Indiana via Google Hangout. Helped write a book! Was featured in several magazine articles.  Got accepted into the Google Teacher Academy.  Talked about life and college with Elias and Bobby. Tried to find the meaning of life with Jess (we failed). Discovered Sarah and Phoebe are unbelievably stubborn. Started a TED Ed Club. Watched John reinvent school. Created something Caitlin was proud to be a part of. Became an Explorer.

Every year I get a yearbook.  My fencing coach in HS did this.  When he retired after 37 years, he swept his hands over 3 shelves of yearbooks and said, 'This is my career.'  Even after 14 years, names and faces are fading, details becoming fuzzy around the edges.  This is by no means a complete list and there are hundreds of students that I have forgotten to mention (please don't assume these are my favorites. ALL of my students are my favorites!).

I have had a really great career so far (with many bumps along the road).  I wonder what the next 28 years will bring.