Where Are You In Your Tech Journey?

I started this post approximately 11 months ago and let it sit. I think that the beginning still holds true, so I decided not to delete it.

Written November 2014
My first reflection on +EdTechTeacher iPad Summit in Boston was about being a presenter. This post is about being a conference attendee. There is a huge difference and I did not want to bore anyone with a really long post about both at once. It is always good to go to a conference. It is rare that I don't leave feeling re-energized, and I always come away with new ideas. I was definitely re-energized from attending this conference, but I did not get as many good ideas as I thought I would. The keynotes were outstanding and really made me think. Over the two days I only attended one breakout session that resonated with me. It was entitled, Student Lead Conferences: Using the iPad to Create Portfolio Driven Discussions with the Families. Of course there were many good sessions with good titles and good descriptions, but I couldn't be two places at once and sometimes the title and description don't always tell me everything I need to know about a session. At many of the conferences I go to these days, I here this phrase, "Go where you grow." Meaning that I should get up and walk out a of session if it is not meeting my needs. Typically, I don't do that. When I am in a session that I'm not getting a lot out of I usually think to myself, "It will get better." or "You will get something out of it." I'm just not comfortable leaving a session in the middle. Although it does not bother me when people walk out of my sessions. Why is that of the eight sessions that I attended over the two days, did I only find one beneficial? It really bothered me for two reasons. First, my district spent a lot of money to send me to a conference in another state, I had to bring something back to share. Secondly, I'm not a know it all. There is always room for improvement. I went up to Laura Botte, one of the presenters, when they were done and told her how great the presentation was. She seemed surprised and said, "Thank You". At that moment it dawned on me why I liked their presentation so much. The reasons are two fold. We are discussing rolling out some type of portfolio system in my district and this seems do-able. The second is because of where I am at in my 1:1 journey. The portfolio session is what I need for where I am in my journey now. I was ready to hear that message at that time. Be ready. You never know when you are going to hear a message that you need. Sometimes they come when you are not expecting them.


Written September 2015
I help plan and provide professional development for my district, Just like the way we deliver content for our students, our content for professional development must meet teachers where they are. That is what makes planning and delivering meaningful whole group professional development so difficult. If I have 20 staff members in the room I have to meet them in at least 10 or more different places. When I plan professional development now I spend very little time talking at my staff. I include articles, videos and hands on challenges, so that teachers can work on the things that they need to work on.  They can pick and choose from the relevant materials that I have provided. This seems to work well and I have gotten positive feedback on the sessions I have provided. I circulate the room answering questions as they move through the tasks provided. This strategy helps meet them where they are in their journey.

As a coach I also need to meet teachers where they are to help support them as they plan and carry out student instruction.  Our Apple Trainer Dan Schmit told us in the fall of 2012, "Honor where you are and make a goal to move to the next level." It is ok to be where ever you are on the SAMR model or in your tech journey, whether you have only done work at substitution or have done projects with your students that have been at the redefinition level. Here's the thing about redefinition. It is a moving target. The definition of redefinition is - Tech allows for the creation of new task previously inconceivable. What was once inconceivable is now being done. At one time QR codes redesigned the task of inventorying car parts in a warehouse in Japan. Now in education I generally consider them augmentation on the SAMR ladder. (Remember you have to look at task design along with the lesson objective.) When I realized that redefinition was a moving target it was a big ah-ha moment. I knew then that I need to use the SAMR model as a reflective tool to keep me moving forward when evaluating my tech skills and working with teachers to improve theirs. One of the other things that I have learned in my role as a coach is that most people can't skip a level on the ladder. It truly is a continuum.

Where are you in your tech journey? What resonates with you? I'd love to hear from you in the comments section.

My Thoughts on the Periscope App

Periscope is a relatively new app from Twitter. Actually Twitter purchased the app for a reported $100 million. The iOS app launched on March 26th not long after a similar app called Meerkat was launched. The Android app was released on May 26th. 

So what's all the fuss about? People are using it to stream copyrighted content, like the Game of Thrones premier and the Mayweather v Pacquiao fight. +Carl Hooker wrote a blog post about his concerns regarding using the app to stream content without the providers consent. I hadn't really thought a whole lot about the use of the app until I read his blog post. I watched him all last week try it out in various places. It's been a good experiment and forced me to think more about its use. 

I think what makes this app different from others like, Google Hangouts, Skype or Facetime, is ease of use. Once you install the app, you connect it to your Twitter account. That's it! You are ready to go. Then you press 1 button, give your broadcast a name and your off! There is no one to invite. No plug ins to install. Nothing to log into (again and again). This makes it easier than Skype or Google Hangouts and of course better than Apple only, Facetime. 

My colleague +Jordan Garrett and I did an in-district professional development session, at the end of May, on using Schoology (our newly adopted LMS). Our district director of professional development streamed the entire session for those who could not be there. We did not have a lot of experience with the app. It was done on her iOS device, so I'm not sure how many viewers we had at that time. The app was only about 2 months old at the time. There weren't many people using it yet. We did have a few staff members who were able to tune in and see part of what we were doing that day! I consider that a success. I think this is a great use of Periscope! At this time replays are available for 24 hours after the original broadcast. I'm not so sure this was the case in May.

I don't use notifications very much on my iPhone. I find them very distracting, but I thought I better set up notifications for Periscope because it's all about the here and now. I saw that more and more people where streaming and, I noticed that a lot of educators that I follow on Twitter started following me on Periscope. I also have an Instagram account. I follow a lot of TpT educators on Instagram. I don't buy anything from TpT but, I like to see the ideas and freebies they offer. There are also quite a few good bloggers who do TpT. Anyway, I noticed that a lot of these teachers started advertising their Periscope broadcasts. It was as if they had just been given their own television stations. Personally, I thought most of what they were scheduling to share was worthless self promotion. I wondered, "What does this add to the educational conversation? Does it have value?" I didn't think so, again just my opinion. I also realize that if it has no value for me I can choose not to watch it. I get that.

I've done 4 Broadcasts. The 1st was from an Ed Tech Teacher Workshop where I assisted in downtown Chicago this summer. The participants were on a video scavenger hunt. It was a fun experience for the participants but, it didn't really add a whole lot to the ed tech conversation. Next, I streamed Jordan Garrett's 1 in 3 ISTE presentation on iSWAT for the folks back home! Then, I streamed Jordan and I presenting Incorporating Tech into the Reading/Writing Workshop at the District 47 Transliteracy Conference this week. That was interesting because I had my phone sitting on the tripod in the landscape position for part of it when the app doesn't work in landscape position. Thanks to Carl Hooker for giving me the heads up on that one during the Broadcast (and some inspiration to write this post). The Broadcast was 1 1/2 hours long. There were many people who came in and out. A few that we knew and many that we didn't.  I noticed that after that Broadcast it is now possible to save your Broadcast to your camera roll on your device. This is new feature implemented on August 1st. I think this is a game changer and will attract more people to use the app. I downloaded the video to my phone's camera roll for now, but I'm not sure what to do with it yet. Perhaps I will edit it down and put it on my You Tube Channel. Finally, I Broadcasted our family playing mini golf this afternoon for 3 minutes. I suppose if my audience was family and friends this would be a great use of the app, but my followers are all ed tech people. They probably don't care to see me and my kids playing mini golf. 

I love that we have used it to stream professional development for all. I think if we do it again we have to be a little more deliberate about having resource links in the background. In the end I have really been thinking a lot about how to use this in the classroom with students. I teach in a K-8 district so kids can't have their own social media accounts, except for a few 8th graders, but this could be used with a classroom account. I had a few ideas about how students could use it. They could stream a tour of their school or neighborhood. Students could stream an animal dissection and then use Twitter or Today's Meet to have a back channel chat to answer questions or just do Q & A through the app. I think if you left it up to the kids they would probably come up with the best ideas. I think I will do just that and blog about it again after we see what THEY create! 

Here is 1 more new feature that I think is great. This comes from the Periscope blog.

iOS/OS Handoff
You can start watching a broadcast on one device, and transition to watching it on another seamlessly. Simply ensure both are running iOS 8+ or OS X, have Bluetooth turned on, and are logged in to the same iCloud account. This is great for when you’re watching a broadcast on your Desktop, and want to quickly switch to watching on your iOS device (or vica versa).

In Summary
I think this app is popular because of its ease of set up and use. 
I think the Broadcaster needs to be sensitive to their audience and not broadcast just for the sake of broadcasting.  
This app has some great features and lots of possibilities for use in the classroom.

 

iPadpalooza IN 2015 - #iplzaIN15

I attended and presented at iPadpalooza IN in Noblesville, Indiana on July 16th and 17th. It was an amazing experience. iPadpalooza IN reminded me in some ways of iEngage-Berwyn. A low key local ed tech conference. After the hustle and bustle of ISTE this was a welcome change. The swag in the conference bag was outstanding. We received a t-shirts, a travel mug, and device cleaner! 

+Jordan Garrett and I presented Integrating Tech into the Reading/Writing Workshop and Bringing PLCs to Life with Google +. Both are presentations that we have done before. We had never done the Reading/Writing Workshop session together. The Reading/Writing Workshop was a 2 hour hands on session. That means we presented for 3 hours each day. That left us time to only attend one additional session on both days. We were able to attend the opening Ignite session. +Shelley Coover rocked it and so did +Sarah Thomas. I especially like Shelley's Angry Birds analogy. We presented to a full room on Thursday morning for our 1st Reading/Writing Workshop session. It's funny I didn't feel so good about how the session went and Jordan thought we did really well. I have to say I was not that impressed with the keynote speaker Jared Stein. I was a little turned off by the fact that he was from Canvas (an LMS provider). I prefer to listen to educators not industry people. The food trucks were outstanding! Great lunch! Next we did our Google + presentation to a small crowd. I believe this was our fourth time doing this presentation together. I like this presentation because it really tells a story while talking about the power of an application. The story is a part of the story of District 100s 1:1 journey and how we use Google + as a communication platform for our staff. It is a way for staff to communicate with each other and share student work with the outside world. I am learning that the power in presenting, especially in keynoting, is being able to tell a story. After our session we ended up hanging out in the sponsor area with Bryan Bennett from its Learning. He gave us a short demo of the product. We took an usie because Jordan and I had every intention of completing the AppMazing Race. In the end we decided to forgo the Race because we were so busy presenting.

                                               

The one thing that iPadpalooza IN was missing was an evening social event. After hosing iEngage an going to them at ISTE they really add another dimension to a conference. 

On Friday I went to Jay McTighe and listened to him talk about UbD and Standards Based Grading. Even though our district is doing sbg it was good to hear the information again. I tried my hand at sketchnoting the presentation. It is clear I need much more practice. A good stylus will hopefully help. We did our presentations again. This time we felt just the opposite. I thought it was more polished and Jordan thought we could have done better. Carl Hooker's lunch time keynote was outstanding! According to him, I heard some of it at iEngage-Berwyn. To tell you the truth I was so involved in tweeting and worrying about the conference in May that I did not really hear his message. I got up on stage as a volunteer to help him out with a participation and movement exercise. Of course I messed up! 

In the end I wish that I would have been able to go to more sessions. I was glad I went to Jay McTighe's session. I was really looking forward to hearing him speak. I met John Smith @theipodteacher, and Reshan Richards @reshanrichards, saw Kyle Pearce again, @MathletePearce, and Sarah Thomas @sarahdateechur, but missed Ann Feldman @annfeldman1, Don Goble @dgoble2001, and Tammy Worcester Tang @tammyworcester. 

Food Trucks - Yum!

The conference committee did a fabulous job. You should put this one on your radar especially if you live in the Midwest. 

Here's my Storify as a slideshow. 

ISTE 2015 - A Reflection

I attend ISTE this year for the first time in about 12 years and it has really changed. The Expo floor was amazing and there were definitely way more people. During the opening keynote, I believe that it was stated that there were 20,000 in attendance.

So I was asked, by an ed tech friend who was unable to attend, what was the big buzz at the conference. I believe that the big push is for visual literacy. What is visual literacy you ask? It is the ability to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning from information presented in the form of an image. Have you noticed the explosion in infographics and other images on the Net? It's the reason Instagram is so popular! A picture is worth a thousand words. Meaning we can convey complex ideas through a single image. In order to navigate the Net kids will need these skills to be able to read and create in a visually rich media. We need to teach these skills. Making good visuals and pairing it with reliable information will be so important to our students in the future. 

What the Journey to Success Really Looks Like - Carl Hooker

I attended quite a few sessions. Seems like I was always running somewhere. I don't know how you can work for a school district, and justify going to a conference if you don't attend at least some sessions. 

They are in no particular order. Opening Keynote: Soledad O'Brien; Digital Parenting: Carl Hooker; ISTE Ignites Round 3; The Changing Role of the Cheif Technology Officer: Kevin Honeycutt, Brad Waid, Susan Beardan, Alice Keeler, Matthew Miller, David Maline; 1 in 3 Session: Round 3; GripCase SAMR Session: Shannon Soger; Successful Parent/Educator Partnership in the Inclusive Classroom: Luis Perez, Shannon Soger, Christine Southard, Jack Gallagher: iPad: An Out of the Box Look: Tim and Kathy Yenca; Developing an Innovator's Mindset: George Couros: Closing Keynote: Josh Stumpenhorst. 

from George Couros's Session

I presented at the conference. It was a phenomenal experience. My session was called Tech Coach Therapy. The session was a Birds of a Feather. Basically, this a round table discussion format. I prepared a very short presentation about the way I feel about the power of coaching, how I coach teachers and the resources that I use to support my craft. I prepared a Google Slide presentation, but I'm not sure that too many of my 23 attendees used it. Instead they just talked to each other about their jobs. I was able to give the attendees a framework to support meaningful conversation around their job titles. That doesn't always happen when you are sitting in the Blogger's Cafe at ISTE. There is so much power in telling your story. People want to connect by their similarities and even their differences. This group was able to learn what works and what doesn't in other districts, and make connections with other educators that will support them in their mission. They can continue to connect through social media or email to share and grow. I heard and participated in discussion in all the groups. The talk was very powerful, very productive for all of them.  I was shocked when one group stayed about ten minutes past the sessions end time, especially since it was the last session on Monday afternoon. Sometimes we, as coaches, are like the therapists in a school. Even real therapists need therapists. 

The other lens in which I viewed ISTE was through that of someone who has planned and hosted an ed tech conference, ie iEngage-Berwyn. After all, ISTE is the grand daddy of them all. They do it right. I found myself looking at traffic patterns, floor layouts, signage, maps, all the small details that make a conference user friendly. I made a few notes to share with the iLead team. 

The fabulous Jordan Garrett working the Swivl booth

One final note - the social events in the evening are another great way to connect with those that you can learn from all year long! I met a lot of my #edurockstar heroes too. I wish I could follow all of the great people that I met at ISTE, but I'm in Twitter Jail. So if you have a Twitter account and you are not following me PLEASE do so, @rmbtowner_tech or click on the follow link at the right. 

Drew Minock, Brad Waid, George Couros, Kevin Honeycutt

Summer PD Plans

I'm going to try to stick with +Michelle Brezek of Big Time Literacy  and write every day for the rest of the month. Yesterday's prompt was PD plans for the summer. This is an easy topic for me to write about.

iEngage-Berwyn
We can start with iEngage Berwyn in May. I presented on using Google + as district communication tool. I presented with the fabulous +Jordan Garrett. Our session went very well. See this blog post for more info on iEngage - Berwyn!

Apple Action Research Project in District 100

The Team updated administrators and SAMR Model Action Research Team (SMART)

staff on the Apple Action Research Project in District 100. We are doing some very interesting things with this project. Stay tuned for more information.

Ed Tech Teacher Summer Workshops 2015 in Chicago

I assisted for one week for Ed Tech Teacher Summer Workshops 2015 at Roosevelt University. I helped educators learn how to Use Chromebooks in the Classroom and iPads with Google. I had an amazing time working alongside the wonderful Beth Holland and fantastic Shawn McCusker, but the best part of the week was meeting all the amazing teachers from all over the United States. One woman even came all the way from Thailand for the sessions. 

ISTE 2015 - Philadelphia
In June I attended ISTE 2015 in Philadelphia. I went to many sessions including the Opening Keynote by Soledad O'Brien, Digital Parenting by +Carl Hooker, Panel: The Changing Role of Chief Technology Officer with +Shannon Soger, +Brad Waid and +Kevin Honeycutt among others, Panel: Successful Parent Educator Partnerships in the Inclusive Classroom with Louis Perez, Jack Gallagher, Christine Southard and Shannon Soger, ISTE 1 in 3 Sessions: Round 1, An iPad Out of the Box Look by Kathy and Tim Yenca, Developing the Innovator's Mindset by George Couros, Ignites: Session 3, and ISTE 1 in 3 Sessions: iLearn iSWAT given by Jordan Garrett. Finally, I presented Tech Coach Therapy. It was a Birds of a Feather session which is the same thing as a round table discussion. There were 23 people in attendance and I think it went very well. I talked a bit about we coach teachers in District 100 and showed them some of my "go to" resources. The rest of the time was for them to tell their story and build relationships with others in the group. I think there is real power in sharing your story with others in the group, esp for a tech or instructional coach. May times they are the only one with this job description in their buidling or unfortunately entire district.

iLearn Summer 2015 - District 100
This week I am giving 2 in-district PD sessions for the iLearn Summer 2015 series of District 100. Monday is iPad 101: What is Your One Screen? During this session we will look at 20 apps that all teachers in our district should have on their iPad. The goal of the session is to explore apps that will help students demonstrate their understanding and make their thinking visible. I am excited to give it. We are going to have a full house. On Wednesday I am doing a session on the Google Apps and Add Ons that are part of our GAFE domain. There are so many ways to use Google in our classrooms! I hope to post both of these PD on my You Tube Channel.

iPadpalooza IN 2015
On Thursday and Friday I will be presenting with Jordan Garrett at iPadpalooza IN 2015. We are presenting Integrating Technology into the Reading and Writing Workshop and Bringing PLCs to Life with Google +. I don't know how many sessions we will be able to attend since we are presenting for 3 hours on both days. I am really looking forward to doing the AppMazing Race this time around. I was unable to do it at iEngage because I was so busy.

Transliteracy 47
I am also presenting at the District 47 Transliteracy conference August 5th and 6th. Jordan and I are once again doing Integrating Technology into the Reading and Writing Workshop.

New Teacher Training - District 100
I'm sure I will also be a part of training our new staff during new teacher week in our district as well.

Thanks +Michelle Brezek for encouraging me to write more!!!