#IMMOOC Season 3, Week 4, Mentoring from Afar

One of my greatest mentors I met through Skype, then followed him through Google+ and Twitter.  John Mikton was my first inspiring mentor in several years, after Jan Segerstrom, the instructional technology coach that was my first mentor in the realm of technology back in 2007. She's the real reason I'm now a tech integrator, and I love my job.

My principal had met John at a conference and because I was working on technology integration alignment with our curriculum, my principal introduced us back in 2010. Find John's blog here https://beyonddigital.org/about/ and follow him at @jmikton or +jmikton.

I went to one of the first ever AppsEvents featuring Google for Education in Europe, I believe it was their second event, which was in Prague during my first year as a technology integration specialist in Zurich. After that I was changed; I saw the world in a new way. I was not on Twitter, or Google+ or any social media that didn't have to do with my family. Until I met John.

I was inspired. I visited the International School of Prague the day before the conference began and was stunned and amazing at this school. One to one with Macbooks, but that didn't mean that kids didn't actually read real paper books. Quite the contrary, technology was used purposefully, not just because they had it.

Through a series of events, and a lot more contact through Skype, Twitter, Google+ and John's blog, I became not only a fan, but was inspired to do something different, risky, insightful. And it wasn't about the technology. It never is. It was about relationships. It was about connecting with people, near and far, and doing what is best for students by providing the best teaching and learning. I don't think he ever said it outright, but he exuded that sentiment. Without relationships, we have nothing.

I was alone in this job somewhat. I was the first tech integrator in my school, and the only other integrators I knew were across the valley and my connection to them was not exactly encouraged. The only way I was able to make my new position work, to grow into and develop it, was to reach out to my new PLN through social media. That was all I needed as a catalyst.

It took two years, but with much support, we mapped how we were integrating technology into each curricular unit, grades k-5. Without the support and encouragement of my mentor John while teaching abroad, I'm not sure how it would have turned out. As a result, I now regularly create PD sessions for my teachers, present at Google for Education conferences, and am an Google Certified Educator and Trainer.

That original encouragement continues today as I transform my thinking while reading the Innovator's Mindset by George Couros and participating in #IMMOOC number 3, yet another very important mentor in my teaching career, as well as all of those mooc-ers George pulls into this amazing space.

Relationships and collaboration have proven to be crucial to my innovation and I'm so grateful for it!

#IMMOOC Season 3, Week 3 Was that really me?

When I think back to how I used to be as an educator, I'm so thankful that I've grown. After all, if I'm not growing and changing, how can I possibly expect this of my students? Now, teachers are my primary students, but the growing and changing hasn't shifted, only accelerated.

If I want to encourage teachers to embrace a #growthmindset and think differently, then I have to do those things. What I've learned in my position as a technology integration specialist is that without relationships, no modeling or deep growth really happens. I've been fortunate to be able to let the teachers who choose to integrate technology in powerful ways with students choose to work with me. In my two different schools, this has not been forced on teachers fortunately.

I've spent considerable time just listening in and trying only to support teachers and help remove barriers to their teaching, building stronger relationships with the IT department, and the results have been miraculous. Instead of forcing my ideas, tools, etc on teachers, I've helped to build bridges. There is a quote from Maya Angelou that encompasses this, “At the end of the day people won't remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.”

If I stop changing, growing, learning, and taking risks in teaching, please tell me it's time to move on. Permission granted.

#IMMOOC Season 3, Week 2 - Opportunities for Innovation

There are many things I can do to create opportunities for innovation in my leadership. One of the first is to continually reinforce that innovation isn't about technology tools, the internet, or social media, but more about how we use those things. Being able to constantly try to do things differently, better, not just to do them differently, but because it's more effective, more efficient, and has a positive impact. I believe that in the field of education, it is about being willing to ask the question 'Is this the best I can do for this or these learners?'

As a technology integration specialist, I think that it's extremely important for me to model doing the best I can do for my teacher learners. Recently, I offered a book study of Heather Dowd @heza and Patrick Green's @pgreensoup Book Classroom Management in the Digital Age. I know that teachers are very busy, but want to constantly improve their skills so I offered this over the summer, and the culminating event was a live Twitter chat with the authors. Teachers used this guide to post to Twitter and Google+. I had never moderated a Twitter chat, but thought if I want teachers to be innovative, I had to adapt, grow, and model this. And so I did. What an amazing and empowering experience to do something new, different, and to bring people together to start off the school year with fresh ideas and perspectives about management a classroom with the plethora of digital tools we now have in meaningful ways.

The results were remarkable. The teachers were sharing their thoughts through social media and creating meaning while sharing their learning. The Twitter chat was a lot of fun, and I did something new, something I'd always wanted to do. I was inspired and also had support from Heather Dowd to do this. Without those two things, I'd have never tried it.

#IMMOOC Season 3, Week 1

To me, simply put, the purpose of education is to learn to love learning. One of the things that concerns me the most about education today is that kids complain about being bored (perhaps students today are just now willing to say that out loud when in the past the weren't) and that they aren't engaged in their education. 

If we don't encourage and instill the love of learning to our students, I believe we will never be 'successful' in education. While I might be challenged on this, as a classroom teacher I was successful at getting students to stop saying things like "I just can't do math" or "I hate writing", not out of fear, but because I challenged them, told them it would be hard, but that I believed in them and was willing to support them wherever they were in their learning. The results were remarkable.

When questioned later in the year, I heard comments like "Well I don't love writing, but it's okay and I'm getting better at it," and "Thanks. I didn't know I could learn math." In overcoming these thoughts about themselves as learners, they were set up to learn anything, because they had experienced that they could change. To me, that is the crux of engaging my students, which comes with the utmost vulnerability as a teacher and as a student. We have to have a community of learners that trust each other, that are willing to fail, learn, unlearn, relearn, and grow. If we don't have community, we'll never be able to build this love of learning. 

That's part of why I'm so excited for this #IMMOOC, because I get to build this community with new people and not be afraid to try new things and grow myself.

Technology Embedded Lessons

How do you know when you're doing something right in education? What we do is often subject to our own interpretation but there are some ways to ensure that students are gaining an understanding of new material and are able to apply it.

When approached by teachers to help them use technology, I always ask the question, why are you using technology? What should students know and be able to do by the end of your lesson? My hope is that learning a new technology isn't the outcome of the lesson but that content learning is. That being said, students will learn little content if they are busy learning a new technology so teachers must balance introducing new technology skills with precious content.

My suggestion is that you think through the following questions when creating lessons that you plan to teach in conjunction with technology, using the backwards planning method.

1. What is the academic standard your teaching? What should students know and be able to do?
2. How will you know that students have learned the skills you are teaching and what evidence will you see?
3. Then we get to the how. What technology might facilitate the learning and/or assessment of my lesson?

I don't use technology if I can't answer the question "How will technology help me teach or assess this lesson?" I never shoe horn the technology to fit where it doesn't. The knowledge I draw on comes from an understanding of TPACK as outlined by Matthew Koehler and Punya Mishra.

Reproduced by permission of the publisher, © 2012 by tpack.org

Feel free to use the resource Evan Obranovic and I created to work with our Aspen, CO teachers. Technology Integration Curriculum Planning Template

As educators we must be sure we're asking the right questions and using technology to help us or our students do the things we couldn't otherwise do without technology!