My ISTE 2015 Presentation in Philadelphia

On Monday, June 29 at 12:45PM, I will be presenting onOutside of the Box Peer-toPeer Training Strategies in Room PCC 113A , Philadelphia Convention Center.

Here are my slides for the presentation:

https://app.box.com/s/fyxs6sdpbcio0xilc7duhhgn983kozi9

Teacher Joe Gerardi describes the importance of creating a school culture of sharing among colleagues.

Ed Tech Musings II

Last weekend I noted that  I am on vacation looking out at a gorgeous Lake Michigan sunset, and thought it would be fun to do a stream of consciousness blog of unrelated topics. I had an excess of musings so here are the rest!

*Without consciously deciding a policy we have started to lease almost all of our  tech equipment.  When I started in administration four years ago we bought most. At a tuition-funded school I actually think the approach is more just since the costs are shared more fairly by the students who benefit from the gear. This has not driven the change, but now that we've gone to leasing I am happy with it.

*I love creating the look and feel of the Multi-Touch books available at iTunes. Creating them is rather time-consuming and is more like creating a slide deck than composing. I urge our staff to publish through iTunes U "courses" instead. They are easier to create and can be kept current with little effort.

*Writing this blog twice a week continues to be a very good discipline for me and really helps me to "Keep my head in the game" in terms of ed tech. This is post 781.

*I am really glad that I created a couple of tech courses for teachers on our new learning management system (Schoology). It forced me to learn the basics, which put me in our teachers shoes.

*After commenting in my last post about my difficulty "unplugging" during vacations, my wife caught me texting during a hike. (She gave me a "pass" because it was Fathers Day!)

Caught in the act.

*I totally get it that some people want to get completely away from work on vacation and I honor that when so informed.  But I find it a little perplexing that the same people then tell me that they didn't want to "bother me" about an issue when I am vacationing even though I made it clear they should reach out via email, text if something comes up. Thoughts?

* I wonder technical skills schools or school districts now have for administrators.

Ed Tech Musings

I am on vacation looking out at a gorgeous Lake Michigan sunset, and thought it would be fun to do a stream of consciousness blog of unrelated topics.

*I find it hard to "unplug" on vacation for two reasons. I enjoy checking for sports scores, texts from family, Facebook, etc. And when I do it is pretty hard to avoid peeking into a filling email box or voice mails  2) I don't like the idea of being crushed or hit with bad news when I get back. How about you? Can you, must you unplug?

* I am genuinely surprised and happy that iPads hold value over time. We are collecting iPads from students on Monday for a buy-back. We are also also selling several of our three year old models. Apple put us in touch with a third party buyer who leads us to expect the following prices:

iPad 3 (Class of 2016)- $145.00

iPad 4 (Class of 2017) - $ 175.00

iPad Air (Class of 2018) - $ 185.00

* I have tried for the last five years to proselytize Mercy teachers and my graduate students about Twitter as a powerful source of professional development. Finally, I have achieved a convert in my Madonna EDU 6270 course. She followed  @cwhinsch,  @markbarnes19,  @sjunkins,  @kylepace  and @rmbyrne and she concluded, “Through this experience, I have found "Twitter to be a great social media site to further my knowledge on technology and education.”

*I am anxious to see the results of our recent iPad survey of staff and students (described in Thursday's post). I think we did a great job developing a survey instrument and administering it comprehensively. It is based on the ISTE standards which are rock solid.

*I love being able to place digital signatures and text on the many pdf documents I receive that require a sign-off. Saves me the hassle of download-print-scan. I can open the document sign, send and store to Evernote.

*This past school year, I took many visitors into our classrooms to see our technology in action. Generally I simply asked a big group of teachers if the kids would be doing an activity with their iPads that day other than taking notes or testing. I never asked anyone to "put on a show" and always felt proud and uplifted after visiting the classes.

It turns out that I am so full of musings that I will publish the rest in my next post.

Taken by moi at the Little Traverse Bay, MI  (June 18, '15)

Data Collection for Compelling Evidence of Success with our 1: 1 iPad Program

Two years ago we used the ISTE Standards to develop a technology survey of our 9th graders (class of 2016) and our faculty. We chose the 9th graders because they were the first class to use the iPad.

We published our findings in iMercy in the section called "Compelling Evidence of Success".  We decided to revisit these populations this year and will be publishing our findings in the updated edition of iMercy.

Our president, Dr. Cheryl Kreger, describes the methodology that we used:

I will give readers of the Drive-thru a sneak preview of the findings after the committed (lead by Dr. Kreger) crunches the numbers.

Planning ahead for 2016 Tech Talk

We will be holding our third annual Tech Talk for Educators on February 26, 2016.  Some new features are coming into focus.

* We are drawing large numbers of attendees to the conference and we would like to help teachers find sessions that better fit their experience with technology. In particular we would like beef up our offerings of more advanced topics and signal recommended experience levels for the sessions.

*In order to offer more sessions (some of were packed last year) I have compiled a very large list of possible additional presenters. Through my research I have found some real gems to add to our docket.

* We always ask attendees for feedback. Last year a several persons expressed a desire for "hands on" sessions. It is very difficult to accommodate much hands on activity in an hour session, so next year we hope to offer some two-hour workshops. We will probably require pre-registration for these, which will also help us to balance session numbers as these will necessarily be capped.

* Dr. Jason Siko, a popular session presenter in 2013 and 2014 will be delivering the keynote presentation.  We have been discussing his topic and tentatively the subject will revolve around possible educational technology futures.

* Jason also will be presenting four distinct sessions on how to align technology with good instructions. Each session will address a different theme and can be enjoyed as a stand-alone or complementary to his other sessions.

Stay tuned later this summer for more news about Tech Talk.

Attendees listen to Karen Bosch's 2015 Tech Talk keynote 

Coming Attractions in "iMercy" 2nd Edition

My last post provided quotes from a variety of educational experts. This time I thought it would be fun to draw from some of the new text that will be going into the new edition of our Multi-Touch book, iMercy. These extracts come from four of the vie sections in the book:

From "Innovative Learning and Teaching"

Apple has enabled Mercy to create an environment that is almost paperless.  Teachers are using the iPad to create and grade assignments and assessments. Using many apps that are available, formative assessment is a daily routine. Teachers have created a learning space that includes flipped lessons, podcasts, student videos and presentations.

Intro page to 2013 version of iMercy

From "Flexible Learning Environment"

Mercy has deployed over a thousand iPads. The transition to 1:1 iPad began with the Class of 2016, so all students will have iPads as of the 2015-16 school year. Each classroom is outfitted with Apple TVs and LED projectors. Across the school, teachers have embraced Apple TV due to its ease of use and versatility. Teachers can now present wirelessly from within their classrooms. Student iPad’s allow participation by projecting images, web pages and presentations from their iPad screens.

From "Visionary Leadership"

The original decision to adopt the iPad as a 1:1 device, and the recent decision to adopt Schoology as an LMS  exemplify distributed leadership. In both cases administrators and teachers studied the issues. Teachers and students beta-tested the products and delivered most of the training. This open approach to decision-making and innovation allowed for agility and creativity.

From "Ongoing Professional Learning"

In both of the [Tech Talk] conferences that have been held to date, sessions on a wide variety of topics have been presented by Mercy staff and by educators from schools near and far, including flipping the classroom, social media in the classroom, Google apps, formative assessments and becoming a digital administrator. Sessions focusing on ways the iPad can enhance education were among the most well-attended. New in 2015 was a panel discussion about the ins and outs of coordinating a 1:1 iPad program.

Six Quick Ed Quotes to Start Your Day

Photo licensed by rikahl

If we want to maintain great educators we need to enable them with support until it makes sense to let them soar on their own. If we are to better educate our students, we must first better educate their educators. —@tomwhitby

Innovation is both powerful and teachable — @suzieboss

Education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living.  — John Dewey

People will forget what you said. people will forget what you did. but people will never forget how you made them feel. — Phyllis Holder

Kids are learning a distorted view of the digital world that reflects the fears of adults rather than the aspirations of youth. — Alia Wong

Flexible Learning with Schoology at Mercy High School

As mentioned recently at the Drive-thru, we are preparing an updated edition of iMercy, a Multi-Touch book available at the iBook store.  Since publishing the first edition we have adopted Schoology as our learning management system. This has lead to many improvements in instruction.

The two minute video below describes how the Schoology app on our students' iPads facilitate paperless workflow, formative assessment, 224/7 instruction and more. This video will be placed in the "Flexible Learning Environment" section of our new edition.

iMercy 2013 edition