Ten Things for Three Labs

As I recently wrote in Experimenting with a Google Apps Lab, Mercy's approach to professional development has recently shifted from presentations and workshops to one-to-one help in "labs". Our first lab ooh place during our Final Exam period and focused on Google Calendars and Google Sites. We had 8 volunteer trainers and about 35 attendees, which I considered a terrific success.

Last week, week we held our first lab during summer vacation. Again this was very well attended and we had seven volunteer trainers. This lab and the ensuing July and August labs will focus on specific skills that we wish all teachers to possess by the beginning of the next school year. In fact fellow Associate Principal, Colleen Rozman, and I wrote some instructional modules for our staff. Colleen was the chief architect and modeled the approach after the Learning 2.0 Program (conceived by Helene Bowers). Here is a condensed version of the skills that our program includes

• Setting up and Organizing a Moodle Page
• Creating and posting a Google Calendar
• Using the iPad to take a photo, edit it and post it
• Shooting, editing and sharing a movie
• Using Evernote
• Creating a document with CloudOn and sharing it through Dropbox
• Creating a video explanation with ShowMe or Explain Everything
• Communicating through Google Groups

These tasks created some fun activity at our very well attended lab. Staff plunged into the skills and received significant individual attention. As a trainer, I can attest that I learned a number of "tips", too. I continue to be impressed by how determined most of my colleagues are to prepare for our shift to Mercy 2.0. I am already looking forward to our next lab in July. . . . But now I have to get back to my own "Ten Things"!

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Screen Shot from Mercy "10 Things"

Experimenting with a Google Apps Lab

As we shift into a summer mode at Mercy, we are also going to shift our professional development format. In May we presented some "Super Tuesdays" (and Thursdays) -- These were after-school workshops dedicated to the introduction of specific iPad apps like Dropbox, Noteshelf, Evernote, and Explain Everything. These sessions were very well attended even though they came at an exceedingly busy time for our teachers. Volunteers presented the workshops and it was unreasonable to expect them to give make-up sessions or post lots of resources.

So for summer, we will try to slow down and individualize. In June, we will host two "labs". This was the suggestion of our incredibly tech savvy, Alison Kline-Kator (someone you will be hearing more about in an upcoming post). She suggested a "drop-in" environment where folks could come for the 1:1 or small group training they desired. About eight staff members answered my call to serve as "trainers" for these two hour periods.

The first lab will be held on June 4, and it will focus on anything Google. Going to Google Apps was a key facet of our transition to Mercy 2.0. During a Keynote in April, Lucy Gray gave us a taste of all the interesting instructional possibilities for Google Apps. In addition, since across the school we are transitioning to Google Calendar, fluency in that environment will become essential for all staff. About 25 staff members have indicated that they will probably or certainly attend.

Two weeks later we will present a lab for all things iPad. I will be very curious to see how many people drop by, and that will pretty much determine whether we will offer another couple of labs during the summer.

In my next post I will describe a scheme for our newbie teachers that is a little more intense!

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CC illustration found at http://bit.ly/LTaWcl

Innovating, Failing, Disrupting, and Creating

I find myself returning now and again to a recent op-ed piece by Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, called Erasing Our Innovation Deficit. It reminds me to keep pushing myself to open up my classroom and to urge my students to think outside of the box. Here are some excepts that really hit a chord with me:

*We can no longer rely on the top-down approach of the 20th century, when big investments in the military and NASA spun off to the wider economy. . . . The ideas that power our next generation of growth are just as likely to originate in a coffee shop as in the laboratory of a big corporation.

*Innovation is disruptive and messy. It can't be controlled or predicted. The only way to ensure it can flourish is to create the best possible environment -- and then get out of the way.

*Risk-taking means tolerating failure . . . Show me a program with a 100 percent success rate, and I'll show you one with 0 percent innovation.

*Right now, somewhere in the United States, someone is working at a kitchen table, in a dorm room or a garage, developing an idea that could not only create a new industry but could also just possibly change the world. If we provide the right environment, she'll do the rest.

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"Break Through Flickr Creative Commons photo by a o k

QRS Redux

On January 6, I conducted an in-service for fellow teachers on tech time-savers. I followed this up with a presentation called QRS (Quick-Rich-Simple) for the English Department. While in-services are now indefinitely on hold, I'd like to offer another QRS set in this post.

A Published Calendar I wonder if my tech-leery peers know how easy it is to publish a calendar and then link it to Moodle. I'm partial to iCal myself, but I am also familiar with Google Calendar , and it offers many of the same features. I have chosen iCal to provide all my work and personal calendars because...

1) It synchs all my computers as well as my iTouch. Like Google Calendar it thrives in the Cloud.

2) One can easily publish a calendar as an html. Consequently, I can make up a detailed calendar of class assignments, publish it, and then copy & paste to Moodle. Presto, the students can easily consult a calendar that is easily updatable.

Temporary Delicious Tags Ironically I have not exploited the social bookmarking feature of Delicious which has made it so popular. Nevertheless, it is a key feature of my daily computing life. The tag features combined with Firefox Toolbar allow me to place any set of bookmarks one click away. And here's a wonderful teaching application: Suppose that you are prepping for a day's lesson by doing some online research. As you find your charts, graphs, photos; mark them with a unique tag. Later, you access them as a group, edit, and then select pop them into your toolbar for class. If you wish, you can connect to a data projector and share them as you go through your lesson (and/or the kids can subscribe to this unique tag). I use this shortcut all the time in my social studies classes.

iTunes University If you have not done so already, the next time you visit the iTunes Store, check out this marvelous collection of academic lectures. Choose your field, whether it is literature or mathematics and you will find something compelling from one of the world's greatest universities. By and large, these lectures are more suited for a college educated person like you than your students. But for your own edification or enjoyment, you can access them free of charge and then subscribe, download to iPod, or burn to CDs.

Would you like to share a QRS tip on my blog? Email me!

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iTunes University screen capture with Preview, 2/27/09