An Open Letter to Administrators

Dear Administrators,

You do not have to be tech-savvy to lead a school down the path of successful tech integration.  However, you do need to surround yourself with staff members who are tech fluent and willing to share. You also must be willing to collaborate with these staff members, and you must be charasmatic enough to get everyone on board with a shared mission of moving your school into the 21st century. 

My letter to you does not harp on that component as much as it harps on your tech literacy.  One major tip for you if you are an administrator who is not tech savvy--join Twitter.

• Every educator, at the very least, should have an active Twitter account. Gone are the days where email is the source of online connectivity.  Twitter is like a 24-hour professional development conference where everyone can actively participate and voice their opinions and input. Here is a short how-to to get you started. 
• When you are asked to create a username, keep it professional--first and last name, first initial and last name, last name only--any of these options should suffice.  Add a profile picture that is also professional or plays to your professional personality.
• Once you are on Twitter, follow some of the leaders in education on Twitter, especially Eric Sheninger (@NMHS_Principal), Will Richardson (@willrich45), Tom Whitby (@tomwhitby), Larry Ferlazzo (@Larryferlazzo), Shelly Terrell (@ShellTerrell), and Vicki Davis (@coolcatteacher). These are my personal favorites...and in no particular order.
• Next, start following hashtags like #Edtech, #Edchat, #ce12.  These hashtags are for conversations in educational technology, general education, and conneced educators in 2012.  When you follow these hashtags, you will see a lot of people sharing tweets on these topics.  Join in the conversation, or "lurk" for a while and see if there are other educators in these conversations you would like to follow.
• Finally, take the things you learn on Twitter and apply them in the real world--get your department charimen and teacher-leaders involved in school change or school discussion on how to improve your school environment and shift toward a 21st century school.  Host weekly or bi-monthly tweet-ups with your staff to share concerns or developments in your school.  Your ability to show transparency in your communication with staff will go a long way in getting them on board with changes you wish to implement.

Again, you do not have to be tech savvy as an administrator in education today, but you should show an eagerness and willingness to learn and surround yourself with teacher-leaders who can step up to lead professional development in ways that engage the entire staff in technology education.  We must get our schools into the 21st century now because our students will suffer if we hesitate.

Is Our Education System Still Antiquated?

Last week, my department chair sent me the link to this YouTube clip by RSA Animate about our education system. As an American history teacher, I found it fascinating that our current education system was founded during the industrial age - an era where vertical and horizontal integration led to monopoly, and production was standardized - and many of our schools today look just like those of the late-19th and early-20th century. Of course I know this factually, but I'm surprised there has not been more change over that length of time so that we were not still practicing it. **(If you aren't interested in the history lesson, fast forward to around minute 8, which is really the message today.)

Standardization still sounds like an oft-used word in education today - standardized tests, standardized curriculum...and in my opinion, I'm not a huge fan. It seems to me like our goal at the federal level of government is to have our education system create the same product of the early model of education.  I hope that the Common Core will allow for more flexibility and creativity in the classroom so that this is not the case.

But locally, what can I do now to get my classroom looking less like this model and more like a 21st century classroom? This conversation is occurring all over Twitter & Facebook, but systemic change takes time. I hope I have a good answer for my classes once this school year gets going.

Students and Digital Citizenship

If there are any compelling reasons that students need to be taught digital citizenship, the infographic in this article--titled "14 Facts You Should Know About Text Messaging"--may have me convinced.  I'm a believer that parents should be monitoring their children's cell phone activity, but I may be naive about that since I don't have children.  What do you think?

Summertime, and the living's easy...

It's the middle of the summer, and I decided to start blogging about the upcoming school year.  I broke my leg at the end of the last school year, which led to 8 weeks on a couch recovering.  But, it also opened my eyes to the world of Twitter...and all of the things I can do in my classroom and in my school to help spark a tech revolution in my world.  With a new superintendent leading our county who is actively tweeting and blogging, I'm encouraged to get out of my comfort zone and experiment with new tech tools for the school year.  It's amazing how a leader can inspire change by opening doors of communication and leading by example.  I want to use this first post as a place to document the technologies and resources I want to use this school year.

Twitter has led to many professional development opportunities in the last few weeks that I would never have known about - and that I think many of my colleagues are missing out on!  As a passionate high school American history teacher, I love finding ways of connecting my students to the past through more engaging and interactive ways.  I have found new resources by following hashtags on Twitter like #sschat and #APUSHchat.  Every Monday night at 7pm (East Coast), people interested in a social studies chat come together for an hour.  The chat is co-led by two awesome leading educators, and chatters vote well in advance about the topic of the chat.  Every Tuesday night at the same time, AP US History teachers meet to discuss sharing materials and how to approach content--we are finding that if we can be a week ahead in discussion, we can be inspired each week as the school year progresses.  Educators, connecting across the country and sharing their resources or best practices--so much more valuable that the hours I have spent in PD the last six years.  A few new sites I am really excited about using this year for resources are EDSITEment, Teachinghistory.org, and Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.  I can't wait to learn more following the Twitter discussions throughout the school year.

Last week, I participated in a few webinars about integrating technology into the classroom with technology students already have.  The new move with technology is to use tech tools kids are already familiar with - their own.  It's called BYOD/BYOT: Bring your own device/technology.  In high school, this will be pretty easy to deal with--I can't tell you how many times I've caught students texting from their lap or their purse.  If I can get them to use the devices for learning, I think their perspective of their device will change, and they can open their minds to more creative, educational uses.  I hope to use Socrative in my classroom for drills, quick quizzes, or exit tickets, and I also see the use of Evernote for notebooks and organization will cut back on paper use.  I am also really excited to see the plethora of shared binders to peruse and add my own on LiveBinders.

With three weeks left, I want to narrow down my tech integration to a few new tools for my classroom, and I hope to use this blog as a place to reflect and record my experiences this school year.  I invite anyone to follow and comment on my reflections.  Here's to a new and exciting school year!