Ramping up for the school year

There's so many ways to embrace CyberSafety and Digital Citizenship with your students. Here's an infographic that highlights the events throughout the year to focus on.

Confession is good for the soul

The topic of our most recent #NYCSchoolsTechChat on Twitter was Teacher Report Cards. We looked back on our year and gave ourselves a grade. We shared what we succeeded at, and what we came up short on. 

Naturally, we didn’t focus on how well we did this year. Like every other normal person we only focused on our flaws. I can have this conversation in my own head every day, but when we put words to these ideas and post them for our colleagues to see, it’s a little humbling.

One could argue that you shouldn't achieve all your goals, you should have some goals that are just out of reach, to keep you reaching and growing. I agree with that but it's still tough to admit you could have served your kids better and you didn't.

My big take away is that I'm very lucky. From what everyone posted, you could see that we all wanted to be better. We all tried to reach a new level in something. I get to hang around with people who are trying their best and they inspire me to try my best also. We were comfortable enough with each other to confess our shortcomings in a supportive environment. It was a relief to realize that while I’m not perfect, neither are my colleagues. They are amazing though, and for that I’m grateful.

In defense of a small corner of Facebook

Where’s the first place you go when having a problem in your tech room?

For some it may be putting a call into the help desk. Some schools might have a ticketing system where support may come in a few hours or a few days. Others may have no support at all.

For me I have what some may think is an unlikely resource:

I go to Facebook.

Not just my regular Facebook feed; that’s becoming more filled with ads every day. I go to the #NYCSchoolsTech Facebook page.

Is the internet down throughout the city, or just my room? How do I re-image this laptop? I’m getting a weird message on my smartboard that was working yesterday.

Does anyone have any great lessons to share using Kahoot? Now that Padlet is for fee, what are some alternatives? Does anyone have ideas for a parent engagement activity on digital citizenship?

Anyone know of a job opening? I need to get out of my school!

All these and more are asked and answered on the page. It’s a closed group of over 3000 of the best and brightest New York City has to offer. We are there for each other.

We post about events coming up, try to come up with creative ways to acquire funding for our technology centers, and thank our colleagues for always coming to the rescue.

Nothing beats it for speed and accuracy. If my technology or internet is acting weird, I can go online and see within minutes if others are having the same issue. The Department of Ed help desk even posts updates on issues and how soon it will be fixed. I’m sure that makes their jobs easier too, rather than answering the 50 emails or phone calls they would have gotten asking the same question.

Great ideas for your classroom, how to deal with being the SPOC in the building, it all happens on the Facebook.

You can complain about Facebook if you want, but if you have anything to do with technology in NYC Department of Education, it’s a comfort to know that there are some wonderful people out there who’ve got your back.

My favorite lesson for the end of the year.

What do I do with my students? How do I keep them engaged at this point in the year? I have the solution.

One of my favorite lessons happens around this time of the year. My students open up the time capsule they created in September. In it they answered a bunch of questions, so when they open it in June they see how their answers have changed to those questions.

It's one of my first lessons for the year. It's a quick way to get to know my students, and an easy way to introduce some slideshow tools.

One of the first slides is a Table of Contents listing all sorts of things about the student: their favorite movie, their best friend, how the first few days in a new school went for them. I then teach them to hyperlink those items to the corresponding slides in the presentation.

It's in their google drive for safe keeping, and right around now we open it back up again. Since they're mature, sophisticated, almost 7th graders, the answers they gave as tiny little newbie 6th graders sometimes make them laugh. They create new slides and answer the same questions again, noticing how much they've grown and changed over the course of the year.

It's a good lesson to show them how much they've grown, and to be proud of how far they've come in a year. I'm thinking I should create one for myself, and see how my answers change from the beginning of the year. After all, I should be growing too.

Here's where it gets interesting.

The state tests will be done soon and that's usually when most students and even some teachers check out for the year. I always feel differently. While the pressure of the test is gone, now the fun can start. I can experiment and play a little. I explore other resources and test out new sites.

Since everything I wanted to cover in the curriculum is done and all the grades I needed are in, the things I meant to try all year have worked their way to the top of the To Do list. Here's where I can work on projects now so they can blend seamlessly into next year's lessons without too many bumps in the road. I can plan lessons that I'm not too sure about.  I listen intently to the student's feedback about these new items.

This is the time of the year where the real growth can happen. What are you going to play with this month?

I was featured on Vicki Davis' Podcast!

It’s not just about the badge

I completed the EVERFI Certified Teacher Program (CTP) last year, and it has made all the difference in not just my EVERFI teaching, but my teaching skills overall. I know it’s neat to get a nifty badge to post on your social media sites when you finish a certification, but that wasn’t the prize. I’m an all-around better teacher because of this program.

What I got out of it as a teacher.

This certification program made me consider my role as an educator. Since the program asks you specific questions about how you are implementing EVERFI in your classroom, it made me reflect on my teaching. How can I best implement this curriculum? What am I doing to prepare my students to learn this material? Am I making it as easy as possible for the learning to happen? What more can I do for my students?

What I got out of it as a collaborator.

If you’re like me, you’re the only teacher in your school using EVERFI. The great thing about CTP is that it connects you with people all over the country who are also using EVERFI’s resources in their classrooms. Everyone in the program was so generous with their thoughts, ideas and responses to the online discussions. It was also a great place to share other online resources, and learn how other teachers were using EVERFI in their classrooms. Some teachers had outside speakers from banks come speak to their classes about money skills. Some teachers had graduation ceremonies at their school assemblies. We tell our students to collaborate and work in groups; we should be doing it too. We all got better because we all helped each other.

Online discussions and resources from everywhere.

Periodically throughout the six weeks, the CTP moderator would post relevant articles for us to read and discuss. Some were about the philosophy behind self-guided online learning, and others were focused on the importance of teaching financial literacy in today’s classroom. These articles would start a lively discussion every week. It wasn’t our only online discussion, but they were thought-provoking and we got to know each other a little better. I now know teachers from everywhere.

My PD on my time.

The best part of CTP is that it happened when I wanted it to. Since it was online, I could work on it at my own pace. You don’t sit in a room for a day trying to stay awake and then forget everything you learned the minute you leave. This program is over the course of six weeks, which gives you time to plan, execute, and reflect on how the course worked in your classroom. Any questions or concerns were addressed as they occurred. Instead of running into a problem and getting no support after a traditional PD day, I could ask for help, and ten teachers would respond within a few hours. I firmly believe that giving teachers time to do the work and supporting them through the process was the key to the success of the implementation.

All certification programs should be like this.

As the only tech teacher in my building, talking about technology curriculum with someone is a rare event. CTP made me feel like a part of a team. I’m now EVERFI certified because of this program, but I feel like I am so much more.

One Good Deed Deserves Another

I read George Couros' book The Innovators Mindset recently. It was enlightening to say the least. There was so much in the book that I wanted to implement in my classroom, so I created an infographic about the book's main points. Since I post my work online (as you see if you scroll through my blog) I didn't want to create it and publish it without George knowing. I also wanted to make sure he was OK with my interpretation of his work. I emailed him and he promptly responded that he was flattered. He loved the infographic and told me I should tag him in the graphic so he sees it when it goes online. I was happy, relieved, and did just that.
What I wasn't expecting is that he then posted my infographic on his website. Teachers from across the country were complimenting me on my work. My infographic blew up on Twitter. Teachers were asking me if they could print it out and hang it in their classroom. I was honored. Something I created would end up all over the country.
It didn't end there. George then wrote a post about what I did. The fact that I asked permission first and properly accredited his work is not something that happens all the time. He is frustrated by how many times he sees his work being used by other educators and claimed as their own. I did the right thing, and that is actual news. Sad, but common place in this day and age.
The fact that I was teaching a lesson to my students about having a positive digital footprint was an added benefit. I was able to model for my students that doing the right thing can sometimes be a great thing. I had the proof.

Don't Drive Angry

I love the movie Groundhog Day. I think it's really funny but very profound. It asks a universal question, do we live the same day every day, or are we truly living a life?

I'm trying to be more mindful this year. I'm not counting the days until the next vacation, and I'm not Thanking God It's Friday. I'm being present in each day, and thankful for it. Days I expect to be easy rarely are and days I assume will be difficult surprisingly are not. I'm open to the randomness each day can bring, and I'm finding the joy in each one of them.

We are lucky and blessed to have the lives we do for many reasons, but also because we have a freedom and the opportunity to make it better. I'm not sleep walking through life. I'm going to stay awake and aware of the world and the people around me.

It doesn't matter to me what some groundhog does. I can enjoy six more weeks of winter anyway.

Practice What You Preach

One of the big buzz words for education lately has been collaboration. We want students to work together. The 21^ST century worker won't be plugging along by themselves at a workstation, they will be working with a team to accomplish a goal or solve a problem. So we need to train our students to work together.

The irony is we don't practice what we preach. Teachers are very territorial when it comes to their teaching methods. “Don't come in my room, and don't copy my lesson plan.” It makes no sense. You don't get paid any less or any more for sharing. You don't look bad if someone else uses your work. If anything, your work inspired others. If we truly are doing all we can for the kids, then we would be doing everything possible to better ourselves and everyone around us, and that means sharing.

So I'm putting my money where my mouth is. Here's my OneNote Technology Curriculum Notebook. It has all my lessons, and links to online resources for anything you need. I've built these lessons from teachers who were generous enough to share them with the world, so I'm paying it forward.

Use anything you want from it. Enjoy.

These kids need jobs.

The New York City Department of Education instructs students to be “college and career ready.” Since I believe it’s never too early for my students to think about this, I created a unit for my sixth graders. It can be tweaked to work up or down a few grades.

Part One-My Career Plans

I've shared the link to this presentation.

I start with a simple question, what do you want to be someday? During the class discussion about careers, I ask them the following questions.

• Do you know anyone who has that job?
• What do you have to do to get that job?
• Where did you learn about this job?
•  

I direct them to the Department of Labor website. This site will is geared towards students. They can explore all sorts of career paths to find a specific job that interests them.

From what they learn, they create a presentation illustrating the steps they will take to get that job.

I provide the students with a slideshow template. This way they know what’s expected. Some classes I don’t give them the template and let them create it from scratch. Here’s the general outline for the presentation.

1	Title	I will someday be a __________ by (your name).
2	Intro	I will be a _________ because ______________. (You will list at least two reasons why you want to someday have this job)
3	Details	Discuss what you would do every day if you had this job, how does it help people?
4	Money	Information on how much this career pays a year, from starting salaries to how high it usually pays. (The Dept. of Labor website helps with this slide)
5	Outlook	Information on what the outlook is for this career; will there be lots of jobs available? Or is it hard to get a job in this field? (The Dept. of Labor website helps with this slide)
6	Planning	How will you get this job? What can you do today to help get the job you want to have someday?
7	Sources	Where did you get your information? What websites did you use for pictures? (This is the citations slide.)

While they are working, I circulate around the room asking the students why they chose the career they did. I’m looking to hear some articulate answers, but I’ll take what I can get.

Part Two-My Eventual Career

Once their slideshow is complete, we start working on the second part which is creating a resume geared to getting the job they chose.

Here's the link for this presentation.

Since they now know the requirements for their career, they can create a resume with real ideas on how to get it. I give them a simple resume template and tell them fill it out as if it is ten years from now. I tell them that they’ve just graduated from a four-year program in college, or professional training, and they’re looking for their first job. Some questions they need to ask themselves while they create their resume

• What did you do to help your resume stand out?
• Did you volunteer somewhere?
• Did you organize a club in college about your future career?
• Did you intern somewhere useful?

While they are working on this, I circulate around the room and observe partners asking each other common interview questions. I want my students to have a coherent answer ready for that type of question, they will be asked that a lot in the years to come.

These tasks may seem far-fetched for 11 year olds, but a dream stays just a dream until you add an action plan to it. They may not even be sure about their choices right now, but any direction is better than none. I know it seems like an advanced lesson plan for sixth graders, but you would be surprised how this opens their eyes. They now know what a resume is, and they can keep their eyes out for any opportunity to add something significant to it.

My motives seem honorable, but I’m just hoping they get really good jobs so I will someday be able to borrow money from them. I think that’s a solid retirement plan.