Cool Ways to Use Google as a School Administrator

Over the past few months I have been reading some really interesting posts and comments on Twitter about using Google Forms in schools.

The past school year I have been trying so reach out to the school community and find out their thoughts and opinions about different things. Teachers, parents and even students have not been able to escape the questions that I pose. I think that this is a fantastic way to communicate with parents and find out right away thoughts and opinions of our school community.

I have been asked by quite a few people how we have incorporated this into school life and our communication circle. Unfortunately, I sometimes forget one or two of the great things that we are doing and I thought I had better compile a list.

Here are some examples of how we have been using Google Forms and Docs here at St. Rita this past school year:

1. Creating class lists for the upcoming school year
2. School Technology Application Form
3. Help Mr. Slack Name his Fish - I also follow this up with a blog post called: Fish Naming Ceremony Turns into a Learning Experience
4. LTP Parent Survey
5. Winter Teacher Wish List
6. Mr. Slack's Student Survey
7. PLN Information Request

One of the things I am most interested in is communication and using this way to collect information gives me an awesome insight to what is going on and what people are thinking. I get immediate feedback and people get to have their thoughts, ideas and opinions heard. One thing that I have learned is that you have to make sure that you followup with these surveys or forms or they are worthless.

I am always interested to hear about different ways people are using google forms and docs.. If you have any ideas please make sure to let me know!

CLL Twitter for Beginners

I was asked by Rob Long to do a brief workshop on Twitter basics and how I use Twitter in my professional life.

Twitter is something that has so many uses to connect with other like minded people, share information and access information. The problem is that Twitter is not always the easiest thing to master.

Here is a chart that will help explain some of the basics..... (click here for a larger version)

Twitter for Educators

Twitter, the popular social media platform, is continually picking up momentum in its number of users; however, I find many educators who are not tapping into the power of Twitter. The mystery that surrounds Twitter, I believe, keeps many people from benefiting from the potential it holds. Consider this recent post on Facebook from a friend who revealed, “My mom thought that hashtags were code messages.” While the post made me chuckle, to those who don’t use Twitter, terms like tweets, retweets, and hashtags, can seem pretty foreign and intimidating.

For those just getting started, I’ll explain a few basic terms to help you easily and quickly navigate your way around Twitter. For those who already use Twitter, you may want to jump down to the next section, Benefits for Educators, or simply download the Twitter Cheat Sheet.

Twitter: The Basics

• Twitter: According to Wikipedia, Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based messages, called “tweets.”  A helpful way to think of Twitter is to picture a constantly flowing stream of water. Tweets are the stream. As a user, you dip your toes in and out of the ongoing stream of tweets. You can’t expect to take it all in, simply read a few tweets and then step out.

• Tweet: “Tweets” are text-based messages of up to 140 characters (letters, symbols, words, spaces, & punctuation).

• Choosing a Name: To begin, simply sign up for a free account. Try to select a username that is your name or close to it so that people can easily find you by searching. For example, Tim Slack (my name) was taken, @slackt was available so that became my username. People can still find me easily by searching for my name.

• Following: You’ll want to connect to other educators by following them which can be done in two ways. First, click the Follow button when you see it next to a user’s profile photo or you can click the Follow button next to any of your followers. Start by searching for people you know or educators that you have read or heard at conferences – just type in their name to see if they’re on Twitter. 

• Hashtags (#): A hashtag (#) is a word or phrase preceded by a “#.” By using hashtags, you can aggregate tweets around that topic. Hashtags help you focus on tweets around a specific topic. You can also add a hashtag to any tweet. Just follow the tweet with an appropriate hashtag and it will appear in the group. For example, here’s a recent tweet with 2 hashtags—Vocab instruction stale? Perk it up! Attend Top 10 Vocab Strategies – free Webinar Dec 12 4-5pm bit.ly/Vd9nGG #principals #elemteachers  By the way, best practice is to limit the number of hashtags following a tweet. Only use the hashtag if that group would be interested in or benefit from your post. How about using #ocsbcll for tweeting interesting blogs and tweets you think we would find interesting.

• Chat groups: Chat groups are frequently formed around a specific topic of interest and they meet regularly through Twitter. The group is defined by a specific hashtag. To join the group, you simply type in the hashtag and you can follow the posts and contribute to the conversation by posting a tweet followed by the hashtag. Two examples, #TitleTalk and #Satchat, are summarized below.
• #TitleTalk, a group who shares about how to best promote reading and specific books to students, meets once a month on Sunday nights. Colby Sharp (@colbysharp) and Donalyn Miller (@donalynbooks) moderate the online meetings around a topic such as favorite read alouds, graphic novels, teaching with short texts, or book lists, to name just a few. So when you log in at that time and type in the hashtag, you’ll experience an online conversation around the topic.
• #Satchat, another active group, is a weekly Twitter chat for current and emerging school leaders who meet around all things education. Brad Currie (@bcurrie5) and Scott Rocco (@scottrocco), two administrators, are the co-founders and moderators of the lively discussions held each Saturday morning at 7:30am EST. Grab your coffee and join them!
• Want to get started? You’ll find more groups specific to educational technology, literacy, content areas, school reform, and more. I’ve compiled a list of many chat groups on the Twitter Cheat Sheet which is downloadable from this post.
Benefits for Educators
• Connections: Twitter, at its heart, is a place to build connections with other educators – those next door and those across the country and world. Twitter can help you stay connected and up-to-date with news and resources shared by other school leaders.
• Collaborations: Start your own hashtag to collaborate with colleagues. Additionally, have students create their own hashtag for a group research project. Then group members can save their links to resources and share information through the common stream designated by their hashtag. They’ll be able to easily see others results and research by simply searching by their hashtag.
• Resources: Another benefit of Twitter is sharing and receiving resources. Take time to share your favorite resources by providing links to them and be prepared to receive a steady stream of resources from others. Do you need advice about a resource or technology tool that you’re getting ready to purchase? Just ask on Twitter and you’ll probably receive lots of feedback which can ultimately help you research and make decisions.



What to Do on Twitter: 50 Ideas

• Professional development: Professional development opportunities are yet another great reason to be active on Twitter. In a time when many schools have limited funds to support professional development, Twitter can serve as a great resource to learn about free webinars, cost-effective professional learning opportunities, and more. Finally, share in the conversation by tweeting about your educational activities, favorite conference, read aloud, tech tool, and more.

Some of the educators on Twitter that I suggest that you follow:

• @dougpete
• @shellterrell
• @shannoninottawa
• @PeterMDwitt
• @scottrrocco
• @justintarte
• @gcouros
• @web20classroom

Interesting blog posts:

100 Top Twitter Tools

25 Bio Tips for Teachers

140 Twitter Tips for A Better Social Media Experience

The New Communication

The other day I was asked to take a look at Michael Fullan new paper called: 

Great to Excellent: Launching the Next Stage of Ontario's Education Agenda. 

After reading this paper I was asked to reflect and provide a description of how the school I am at is adapting to the changes in education. Specifically in regards to technology, social media and communication.

Fullan identifies the 6Cs that are necessary in education today:

1. Communication
2. Citizenship
3. Character
4. Collaboration and Teamwork
5. Creativity and Imagination
6. Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

Over the past number of years the way school leaders interact, lead and communicate with their school community has changed greatly. The way information is shared and distributed has evolved to keep up with what is happening in technology, learning and communication outside the walls of our schools.  Not only that, we have to address how students learn in the 21st Century and how teachers open up the curriculum for the students to best meet their learning needs.

One of the challenges we all face is: How do we get these new technologies and and methods of communication to meet the 21st Century needs of our students? Here at St. Rita we are working hard to meet these challenges. The way I have decided to go about implementing these changes at St. Rita is to first know, understand and use these technologies myself.

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By focusing on areas such as the 6Cs myself, I am trying to lead from the middle and modelling and encouraging the use of new technologies and ways to communicate with a wider audience. The idea is that teachers will transfer these skills, concepts and ideas into their classrooms and teaching.

Some of the thing that we have done at St. Rita are:

Communication

• St. Rita Twitter account: Used for announcements, to showcase student work and to provide resources for parents. This account is also linked to a St. Rita Facebook page so all the tweeted links go to Facebook.
• St. Rita Staff Room: A place to share information and an effort to use meeting time more effectively by not dealing with small administrative items. This allows for more discussion for school improvement at meetings.
• Using screenr.com: St. Rita Flipped Parent Announcement - This was used at the beginning of the year to be an alternative to the traditional paper announcement.
• St. Rita website: constantly updated and the first thing that parents often see. Therefore, this communication tool is the face of the school.

Citizenship

• Eco-Squad Blog: Our Eco-Squad has worked to create their own blog and they have been working with a school K-5 in New Jersey.
• My own blog is a good way to contribute to the educational community what I am doing. We are now in an age where we are all getting ideas from blogs, Twitter and Facebook. There is also a responsibility to share what you are doing with your Professional Learning Network (PLN): The Education of an Elementary Principal

Character

• We are also looking at the importance of teaching students the value of creating a positive digital footprint.

Collaboration and Teamwork

• As a staff we use Google Drive for a variety of purposes. Including making class lists for the following year: Class List Template
• Surveying staff using: St. Rita Winter Wishlist  -  Wishlist Results
• We know have Junior students collaborating together on Google Drive with each other and with teachers to complete their work.

Creativity and Imagination

• Using Google Forms to survey the students and give teachers a gateway to different opportunities for learning opportunities: Help Mr. Slack Name His Fish and The Results
• Having students use different ways to demonstrate their learning and what we are doing at our school: Hope - YouTube Video

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

• Making use of my Professional Learning Network (PLN) on Twitter has been very valuable to be in solving problems and accessing new and innovative ideas.

Hopefully, some of these things that we are doing here at St. Rita are going to take root in our teachers classrooms and move into their teaching practice. I believe that leading from the inside out is the best way to implement the 6Cs in our schools and that leadership in our schools is a critical part of making this work.

Reflecting on School Use of Technology

Getting more and more technology into the classrooms to help compliment student learning has been a goal of mine for quite some time. We are steadily acquiring the technology here at St. Rita Catholic School so we can offer a student experience that takes advantage to the reality that students learn in.

In our Learning Commons and classrooms students have access to:

• 30 iPads
• a cart of 25 netbooks
• 20 iPods
• 11/13 classrooms are outfitted with a SmartBoard as is our library
• each teacher had a laptop 

We are looking at BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) activities here in our Junior grades and there has even been some collaboration of Junior and Primary students using the iPods.

Here is the St. Rita BYOD Policy for the 2012-2013 school year.

It never fails to amaze me just how much our students know about these devices. Not tapping into this knowledge to help our students meet their learning goals would seem like a waste.

I think it is important that we pause and reflect where we are at this moment. We are very fortunate to have so many great things here at our school. Taking a look at where we are and where we can move next is going to be a very important stage for us. Before use any more school funds to purchase more technology we are going to take a close look at how we use technology here at St. Rita and how we can use it to meet our students needs and to increase student achievement.

Flipping the Monthly Staff Meeting

I have been hearing a lot about flipping classrooms over the past year or so and more recently I have come across schools that are flipping their staff/faculty meetings.

The more I thought about it the more it seemed to make more and more sense to me. Here is why:

• We are always looking for more time to get together to talk about the real issues in our school. These issues include assessment and evaluation, rich learning tasks and looking at student work as a team. It has been quite difficult to get teachers released to have the time to talk about these things. Flipping a staff meeting allows for teachers to read through all of the information items at their leisure so we can spend the time talking about the issues we want to. 
• Staff members do not want to sit and listen to be for an hour talking about things that could have just as easily been sent in a email.
• The flipped meeting will archive everything that is important that our staff members need to know about. If they forget something, need something or just want to reference something that was discussed, it is all in one place

So what I have decided to do it use a blog to 'flip' my meeting. In a perfect world I would have started this at the August Staff Meeting but for now the October one will have to do.

The first meeting is this afternoon and I am going to try it out. In the future I will be sending it out at least a few days in advance so everyone can take a look before the meeting takes place.

Any feedback would be most welcome. Especially from anyone who has already tried this in their schools!

Library to Learning Commons

It is hard to believe that the school year is now three weeks in. The students and teachers are back hard at work and the next stage of evolution is taking place in our library. Our library will always be a place where were can go and get all kids of books. However, there are major changes out there that way that students learn and our school board, the Ottawa Catholic School Board has been implementing some very creative and innovative changes in our schools that effect how students learn and are being taught.

Our library's are be gradually turned into Learning Commons.

So what exactly is a Learning Commons:

• A Learning Commons is a flexible and responsive approach to helping schools focus on learning collaboratively. It expands the learning experience, taking students and educators into virtual spaces beyond the walls of a school.
• A Learning Commons is a vibrant, whole-school approach, presenting exciting opportunities for collaboration among teachers, teacher-librarians and students. Within a Learning Commons, new relationships are formed between learners, new technologies are realized and utilized, and both students and educators prepare for the future as they learn new ways to learn.
• And best of all, as a space traditionally and naturally designed to facilitate people working together, a school’s library provides the natural dynamics for developing a Learning Commons.

Over the past few weeks we have seen a huge change with how people are using this space. We are going to be using the technology there to coincide with rich learning task that will provide new and exciting opportunities for our students.

The school community is very excited to see what how the Learning Commons will improve student learning and change teaching practice.

Flipping Parent Communication

Last week I saw a blog written by Peter DeWitt on a new and creative way to communicate with parents instead of the age old newsletter. I was very interested in the idea and modelled my first one from the one that he posted on his blog.

At our school we are trying to embrace more and more technology in our classrooms. I am a firm believer that if this is going to happen and be successful in a school the leadership in that school has to model and use the technology.

There would seem to be some great perks to this as they are more interactive, they can be paused rewound and repeated. I am hoping to get some feedback from parents and see what I can do to make them better and more interesting.

The program I used was SCREENR found at: http://www.screenr.com/

It was incredibly easy to use and they only thing I really want to work on is the sound quality and of course writing better scripts! You also have a time limit of 5 minutes so the announcement would not go on and on and on.

Take a look if you are interested:

Thanks for reading!

BYOD - We are going for it!

It's time..........

Whether you call it BYOD or BYOT we are going to institute it here at our school.

There is open wireless access in every part of the school and staff and students alike are accessing it. They are accessing it on laptops, iPads and NetBooks. They are using them to complete activities that promote higher order thinking skills. However, there is the opportunity to explore so many more learning opportunities.

Many students have devices that they could use on our wireless network but we have not exactly encouraged them to bring them to school.  With the right set of expectations there is no real reason why they cannot bring them to school to use.

From anything I have experienced I do not see much difference between teaching a student to play out in the school yard and teaching a student to use technology appropriately at school, and elsewhere for that matter. Having the conversation with students about leaving a positive digital footprint early is an obvious conversation to have.

This is kind of liberating. No longer will iPods, NetBooks and iPads be hidden away like contraband in backpacks stuffed in the cloakroom.

Bring them out.

Use them.

Learn with them.

Collaborate.

Discover.

Create.

Where else can we go from here?

This is very exciting.

Are there going to be challenges and obstacles? I should hope so. This is going to be a great learning curve for everyone involved. Student, parents, teachers and administrators will all have to all make adjustments. First and foremost we are going to have to figure out how to use them in the best possible ways in the classroom. That's my job and I am looking forward to it.

Let's see what tomorrow brings.........

Library to Learning Commons

Library to Learning Commons


At St. Rita School we just received to fantastic news about a new initiative our school board has backed and we will start to implement in the very near future.

Eighteen libraries across the school board have been given $20,000 to help the school library transition to a Learning Commons for students.

This is incredibly exciting for our students, staff and community!

The whole idea originated from teachers bypassing the library with their students when they were looking for current resources to complete class work. Where were they going? The Internet of course! With this transition teachers and students will have the tools to easily access this up to date current information.


What does a Learning Commons Sound and Look like?

“As one enters the Learning Commons, the first impression differs greatly from that of a traditional library or
computer lab. Immediately we notice a completely flexible learning space where neither computers nor books
get in the way… the buzz in the air is both purposeful and casual and it is a mix of learners both adult and
student engaged in a wide variety of activities” (The New Learning Commons, pg. 6).

Some of the items we have been encouraged to purchase are:

• netbook cart
• eReaders
• mobile devices
• tablets

We are on a unique journey and are exploring all of the different avenues to help bring this Learning Commons idea alive to St. Rita.

Any thoughts, ideas or opinions would greatly be appreciated as we continue on this journey.

Observations of a Elementary Principal in a Digital High School

I had the opportunity to go to a neighbouring High School last week and take a Learning Walk through many classrooms during morning classes. Over the course of the morning I was blown away by so many amazing things that I saw. I would like to share some of my observations that I made over the course of that morning.

Classrooms were filled with all sorts of technology and the students were making use of it in many various ways. Some of the things I saw were:

• personal laptops
• students on Smart Boards
• iTouches
• iPads
• Smart phones

So many educators are worried that if you give students unlimited wireless broadband and allow them to use their personal devices that there will be many problems. However, I witnessed the exact opposite. The was a culture of digital responsibility at this high school and every student I saw was using the technology to further their knowledge and to complete the given task.

This visit was quite exciting for me. I could actually see what perhaps our school will look like in as little as two years. We are already wireless, have iPads, a Net Book Cart and quite a few Smart Boards.

Will we get to the point where students bring their own devices to an elementary school? This is a question that I would like to explore further.

If anyone has any experiences with this I would be very interested to hear how it went.

Why Moblie Devices in Schools?

In My Classroom?

Arguments are raging across the country as to whether or not mobile devices should be in the classroom.

I think that there is quite a bit of apprehension about this because using this type of technology is not the way that we learnt in school. The reality is that more and more students have these devices every single day in our schools.

Students that use these devices are more engaged in the classroom and bring in an incredible amount of knowledge to the classroom. These devices have become the dictionary's, the encyclopedias, the Atlas's of this generation. Let's not kid ourselves. They are not going to pick up a heavy resource book when they have everything they need on a device that is in their pocket.

The skills that students need are very different than they were a generation ago.

Students have to become:

• critical thinkers
• problem solvers
• collaborative learners
• analytical thinkers
• evaluators

Our students are being trained for jobs that don't even exist in our society right now. Why make them learn specific skills and why not teach them to be learn adaptive skills.

Here is a great clip that outlines some on the skills needed. One of the things that jumped out at me was that kids like digital media because they want to be analysed and evaluated because they want to know if they are doing things right or not. They want to be measured to see how they are doing and where they can improve.

Quotes that spoke to me:

"I want to be measured because I want to know if I am learning."

"Don't abandon traditional learning but get the students working together in a more coordinated way."

Please feel free to post comments and let me know what you think are the most important 21st Century Learning skills we have to teach today. 

Critical Literacy in a Technological Age

Critical Literacy

Critical Literacy is one of the most important skills that our students need to have when they graduate from our school systems.
 But what exactly is critical literacy? This is how I see it. Critical Literacy is a lens by which we see texts and how we interpret them. With the Internet as the number one resource today, critical literacy has quickly become a skill that our students cannot live without.

For more information check out: Critical Literacy

21 Century Skills

Our students need to have certain skills.

• be able to assess information research using the Internet
• work collaboratively with peers
• communicate effectively
• think outside of the box

"Let Learning Happen"

A colleague passed this video on to me a couple of weeks ago and I was blown away by the contents.

It really speaks to how children are 'wired' today and how they learn. For the first 10 minutes of the video I was feeling a littler nervous in regards to how he was presenting the role of teachers today. However, as the video went on the role of the teacher in the digital and technological age became clearer and clearer.

The educational researcher is Prof. Sugata Mitra and he gave access to high speed Internet to children in various parts of India where there was no computer access. For more on the experiment check out:

Wikipedia - Prof. Sugata Mitra

Here are the Self Organising Systems for Schools he identified:

1. Groups of 4-6
2. One computer per group
3. Unrestricted broadband
4. Interesting questions
5. eMediation if required
6. Discussion allowed
7. Changing groups allowed
8. Watching other groups allowed
9. Leave them alone!

Hope people find this as interesting as I did.