Getting All Googley!

Getting Started with GAfE

My TechXcursion into the Google world is coming full circle now, since moving to Europe 5 years ago.  At my previous school in Beijing, we never used Google Apps for Education (GAfE) as it was only sporadically available from within the Great Wall.  In the 8 years that I lived and worked in China, I got to experience the first time that Google itself was blocked and the ensuing panic amongst faculty and students that cascaded throughout the school.  As the blockade dragged on, it became an interesting case study for the entire school for how to still access Google, and for considering/comparing the other tools out there.  So, moving to Warsaw was the real beginning of my work in the world of Google.

The first port of call was coming to grips with the school's poor implementation of GAfE, as it was laying mostly dormant and unused by faculty and students.  The school staff was still primarily using a legacy email system, even though they also had Gmail accounts under a school domain.  Students, on the other hand, only had Gmail accounts which were largely going unused.  The student accounts were haphazardly created, which meant that it was impossible to tell which account belonged to which student in some cases, which accounts were no longer needed (as the students had graduated or left the school), or who "JiWon1", "JiWon3" and "JiWon7" actually are.  To further complicate the problem, the two email systems did not play nicely with each other which meant that faculty could not look up a student email account, and students would send messages to their teachers which would remain unread as the teachers rarely opened their Gmail accounts.  It took me almost a full year, but killing the old email system and rebuilding everything in GAfE for the high school was the obvious thing that had to be done.

Towards the end of my first year here, I finally got the green light to migrate the entire high school over to GAfE, which became my big project through the spring and into the summer holiday.  I built a process for guiding the faculty who wanted to get rid of their dual email accounts, that I then used to individually start the migration.  By the summer holidays, all but a couple of the HS faculty had made the journey, and the last few followed at the start of the new school year.  The other school divisions decided to follow our lead and make the transition through the fall of the new school year as well.  A major piece of the puzzle was taking down all of the existing student accounts, and then building unique accounts for everyone in the school K-12.  Student accounts are identified with their year of graduation, so they now follow them from year to year as they move up through the school.  Avenues for communication and collaboration finally were in place for everyone in the high school community.  With everyone using the same system and tools, GAfE quickly became part of the vocabulary of the community and one of the big tools that is used everyday, in every class.

Google Geo Institute

Prior to summer holidays in 2012, I saw a link to the Google Geo Institute in London in June, which was still accepting applications.  The application was relatively straight-forward, and I got support from my tech director to attend, so I put in my application and got accepted.  The Geo Institute took place in the Google offices near the west end and theatre district - fabulous location but London expensive!  And being in London right in the space between the Queen's Jubilee and the Summer Olympics was pretty cool.  There were still huge banners and images of the royal family all around town, and the Olympic venues were being built all around the city.  The pre-Olympic buzz was certainly in the air and it was exciting to just be in the city at that time.

Selfie @Google - by special permission (I had to get permission from the leaders to take this one pic)

The Geo Institute focussed on all of the geography based Google tools, and it was really great to work with some excellent trainers and guest experts with Maps, Earth, Sketchup and such.  I think the highlight for me was meeting and working with Jerome Burg, the father of Google Lit Trips.  The previous year, I worked alongside one of the English faculty and helped her work through Jerome's rather famous "Kite Runner" Lit Trip, so it was great to work with him.  I also really appreciated spending some quality time learning and playing with Sketchup and Earth in an organised way.  I got way deeper into these tools than I had ever before, especially with Sketchup where I build a rather elaborate doghouse in a very short amount of time - credit goes to the great trainers who were leading the workshops!

Google Teachers Academy - Europe 2013

When I saw the link to the application for the Google Teachers Academy (to become a Google Certified Teacher) which is being held in Europe this year, I jumped at the opportunity.  After securing permission to apply from my school, I started combing through the application to see what it entailed, and all of the different kinds of questions that it asked, to get a better handle on the process.  If you are going to apply in the future to attend a GTA, then I strongly suggest that you carefully look through the questions and draft your answers over time.  Personally, I wrote down my thoughts and answers over about ten days before filling out the application form.  I also went through a number of different ideas for the application video before settling on an "RSA Animate" style video on one of the required topics.  Originally, I enlisted the help of one of my friends (the art teacher who is an excellent sketch artist and cartoonist) to see if he could make a series of drawing for me, but there just was not enough time for him to do the work.  In the end, I built my own 1 minute video using Sparkol's Videoscribe, so I got to try out a cool new tool (a one week trial copy is free) and use it for a real project (just in time learning). My advice for the video is to really plan it out (even use a storyboard) as you only have 1 minute to work with.  Below is my application video, which was successful as I have been invited to attend the GTASWE in Stockholm in a few weeks.  I will post up another entry when I get back from Sweden!

Some thoughts on working with the "reluctant tech teacher"

I was just reading an open question on a forum which asked about how to reach/teach the teacher who is reluctant to use/integrate/try technology in their classroom.  It had quite a lively (and long) discussion going which drew me in to reading through all of the postings.  And then I found myself thinking and writing a response myself . . . but I ran out of room in the comment posting!  So here is my entire response as I wrote it . . . before having to cut out some bits to make it fit onto the forum:


Educational technology acts a lens focused on a classroom, a lesson, an activity . . . and the teaching and learning that is going on there.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), the lens magnifies everything . . . . the good, the bad, the ugly, and the awesome.  This discussion began with questions about the reluctant or techno-phobic teachers and how to encourage them to use more technology.  Someone earlier on mentioned that teachers need to "let go of the reigns", which I think is a huge component that sometimes gets missed in this discussion.  Teachers know that technology is a lens on their pedagogy and teaching practice, and many are reluctant to let go of control in their classroom as it could/might/will reflect poorly on them if/when things go wrong.  Some of these teachers frequently experience problems with technology just in their day-to-day work which they cannot solve - why would they want to put themselves on display in front of a class of students if there is a chance of public failure?

Time frequently comes up as a major reason/excuse why a teacher is not using technology in their classroom.  They don't have time in their course to do something different, or the time in their day to look at something new.  They don't have time to learn a new tool.  If they used a new tech tool with their class and it failed, they don't have the time to fix it, time to plan an alternative lesson, or any way of making up for the lost time.  Then there is always the argument where they want to see absolute proof that this tech tool will save them time and will positively affect teaching and learning in their classroom . . . otherwise they cannot see investing the time to learn and implement the new tool.

So I think these two threads are intertwined and connected to one another.  As a tech coach, I frequently hear the "time" argument in all of its different flavours from faculty.  But what I think is really happening is that the time argument is thrown at you as it is hard to argue against or refute - not only is it amorphous and ever-changing, but it is also very personal to each teacher.  The time argument is masking the real underlying reason, which is fear - the fear of letting go, of trying something which might fail, and of stepping aside from being the "sage on the stage" or the expert in the room. As a computer science teacher, I have long been accustomed to not being the absolute expert on everything . . . all of my students typically had a very singular and narrow field of CS that they were intensely interested in and they typically knew more about that one particular topic than anyone within 100 km.  So not being the expert is something that I have long been comfortable with.  However, many teachers are not, and prefer to stick with their tried and true methods to get through their curriculum rather than facing the fear of change.

Change is a powerful and frightening thing.  It can be hugely motivating, yet completely paralyzing as well.  So how do we address this fear?  I once read somewhere that a person will only undergo a process of change if it is easier for them to make the change, rather than to keep with the status quo.  The need to change has to come from within, has to be self-realized and internalized, or else there will be resistance and push-back.  So how do you do that?  Well, there's lots of pieces to the puzzle that when combined, seem to have worked for me which include:
   * Just in Time Learning - providing training individually or in small groups which is directly focused on a tool which will be employed immediately
   * Exposure - showing off a variety of tools to show faculty what's out there and to give them ideas of how they might be used in the classroom (think Speed-Geeking here)
   * Connecting with Others - seeing and connecting with other teachers who are using a particular tool in the same discipline/class/course/grade level as they work in, provides teachers with the evidence they need to move forward
   * Tech Coaches and Peer Coaches - having access to people in-house who are available and accessible is huge; not all schools can afford to have tech coaches, but you can leverage the abilities and talents of those who are already in the building
   * Admin Support - having a built-in underlying support (which could mean connecting tech integration with evaluation) can really help to get things moving . . . some people need this kind of nudge before moving forward.

A Short Jaunt to Learning 2.013 Singapore

Getting to Singapore for the Learning 2.013 conference involved a very long flight, but well worth the effort. After working in Asia for 8 years and attending the Learning2 conference in its infancy, I know that it continues to evolve and simply gets better and better every year. There's certainly nothing like it in Europe, where I am now. And organizing a conference around cohorts who share similar roles, issues, concerns and successes just makes too much sense - how come other conferences do not do this? These are the reasons that I still tell people when they ask me why I have come so far for a conference. Plus the learning - my learning.

I used to say that being an AP Computer Science examiner and going to the exam reading every year was the best professional development that I ever did. I still look back fondly at those week-long trips to South Carolina to sit in a heavily air conditioned room for hours on end, learning a rubric, teaching it to others, and grading a single question hundreds of times over, day after day. Add in the regular feeding times every two hours, and you have a landlocked cruise ship experience where the only activity is grading exams. So why was it so good? Why did I do it year after year until the College Board retired me as an international examiner? Because of the people who were there and the learning that took place. The best of the best CS teachers were all there - trading ideas, talking shop and best practice specific to CS education, and looking behind at the trends and ahead to where we are all collectively going. It was really hard, exhausting and mentally challenging work, but the growth and learning that you came away with in a week was phenomenal. But I don't grade AP exams any more - I no longer teach the course and they cut-back on bringing in international teachers due to costs.

But this is how I see the Learning2 conference now - hard work and a long ways to go, but filled with learning and growth. Last year's conference was special as I was able to take the entire coaching team to my old school in China (Western Academy of Beijing) and show them around the city. This year was the first time Learning2 has moved out of China and I was also able to have reunions with both BISS and WAB folks that I used to work with. Funny that, as I am writing this while on vacation in Istanbul where we are having a week-long reunion with old friends and colleagues at Robert College.

My main takeaways from this year's conference revolved around: finding balance and practising mindfulness with students when it comes to technology use; creating a basic photography mini-course at my school which will help students become better creators and producers; gathering some new ideas and tweaking some old ones for updating how we deliver technology PD; employing cognitive coaching techniques when working with faculty in my role as a tech coach; and giving back to the wider community through two workshops that I presented which were well attended and received. Perhaps the most exciting development from the conference is that Learning 2.014 Africa is now in the works for next year, which I hope to get involved in at the organizing committee level - again, a lot of hard work but with big rewards in the end.  

See you in Addis Ababa and Bangkok next year!

Morphing from a Tech Coach into an Instructional Coach . . . is it worth it?

As the Technology Coach for the HS, everything that "plugs in or goes bing" (as my former principal used to say) falls into my domain.  But sometimes, the boundaries seem to get stretched, blurred, bent and twisted out of shape so that other non-tech things seem to end up on my plate, for better or for worse.  Case in point . . . over a year ago I was asked to lead a committee for examining how our school could move towards Standards-based assessment and reporting, and to eliminate some of the toxic grading practices of the traditional gradebook.  The committee that I was asked to lead was focussed on separating a student's Approaches to Learning (AtL) grade from their Achievement grade, and how to assess the AtLs by creating a rubric that the whole school could use and adapt.  I was chosen to lead this committee because I have a lot of experience in the classroom working in a Standards-based system, and I was already well-versed in separating the AtL behaviours from a student's Achievement.  The committee did its job and fulfilled these two huge goals successfully, but I think that this was the starting point for my transition from being a Tech Coach, into an Instructional Coach . . . it all started here.

Last year, the school started down the road of transitioning to a Standards-based system for assessment and reporting with the hope that we would get there in a year's time.  Ambitious for sure, and very challenging for the school community (teachers, students and parents alike) as predominantly, they were not familiar with this kind of system.  But even the best of plans sometimes fail or take unexpected turns, and this school goal did just that.  Our year-long implementation was forcefully changed into a 2 month implementation (but that is another story for another venue), which in turn forced the school to immediately implement a new online electronic gradebook which could handle Standards-based assessment and reporting.  So you can see where I come into the picture . . .

So I am put in charge of implementing and testing this new system (Easy Grade Pro Web), training the faculty to use the new electronic gradebook, and distribute the new system to the end consumers . . . our students and their parents.  All of this in the short span of a few weeks.  It was a monumental task, which I jumped on along with Tech Services who had to install the new system.  After getting the system up and running, I focussed on testing the system and nailing down how we were going to rollout, launch and train EGPWeb with the entire HS faculty.  

In conducting the gradebook set up and training with the faculty in small departmental groups and through individual workshops, most of my time was absorbed by discussions revolving around Standards-based assessment and reporting rather than "things that go bing".  We talked at length about the separation of the AtL Standards vs Achievement Standards, what the Achievement standards would be for each department or subject area, how these standards could be modelled in the gradebook, and the primary differences between a traditional gradebook and a Standards-based one.  Everyone's need to have their gradebook online and fully functional was driving the training with EGPWeb.  This in turn was forcing faculty to come to terms with Standards-based assessment, and I could not conduct the gradebook setup workshops unless departments knew what they wanted for their Standards of assessment.  And so the story goes . . . I was in charge of getting everyone up and running with their gradebooks, which quickly morphed into me being the main go-to person for anything and everything related to Standards-based assessment.

For me, the change was rapid and in many ways natural . . . I worked with the faculty to get to where we all needed to be, in a very short amount of time.  Looking back on that period of time, it was completely frenetic, full of energy (some positive and lots of negative) and brimming over with spite at times.  There was a lot of pressure - internally to get this done right, and externally to move the faculty forward when they did not want to move anywhere.  It was stressful - some teachers were simply not on board with the school-wide goal of moving to Standards-based assessment, so they resisted the training that I was trying to deliver.  My principal was very supportive with getting these individuals to step-on-board, as the ship was sailing and pulling away from the dock (so to speak).  We were all following directives that were coming from senior administration and the board, but some staff saw me as the frontman for everything Standards-based assessment, and took out their frustrations, anger and fear on me . . . not fun!

This is the part that I have been thinking about since last year . . . as the Tech Coach for the HS I have to work alongside and with all of my faculty.  Due to the volatile and contentious nature of this whole project, my changing role came as an unwelcome surprise to me, and in some ways, undermines the relationships that I have built with the faculty as a whole.  Many staff are now on-board with Standards-based assessment, but some others are still stuck in their familiar, traditional practices.  Some of these folks relate me to this whole change (which they fear and loath), rather than to educational technology.  This is where I lose.  This is where we all lose.  Something that has only loose connections with technology has negatively impacted my computing karma in the school.  As a Tech Coach, the relationships that you build with your faculty are equally as important as your NOWledge, skills and experience put together.  So is it really worth it?  I don't really know at this point.  Some faculty seem to be able to separate in their minds my role with tech and what I did for the school in terms of helping to bring in Standards-based assessment.  But others cannot.  And I am now being thrust into a similar role as the "guru" in the HS, as the MS follows our lead.  I have coined a phrase to describe this somewhat helpless feeling of being stuck in situations like this . . . "guilty by competence".  Which raises the question in my mind, do I really want to go through this again?

Have you ever been put into a role which has really changed how you work with faculty and how they perceive you?  How do you handle the negativity surrounding "the job" when it really has nothing to do with you and what you are doing?  How do keep your role compartmentalised and within the boundaries set out by your job description . . . and not be sucked into the vortex of work?

Why Tech Coaching is kind of like riding the Tour de Pologne

 . . . year after year after year . . .

Over the summer, as I caught some glimpses of the Tour de France on tv, I couldn't help thinking about the similarities (and differences) between Tech Coaching and operating/coaching a cycling team.  At first, the similarities were obvious and plentiful, but as the analogy grew in my mind, the many differences became apparent and a little bit amusing.  So let me explain my thinking . . .

This is my "fifth running of the Tour de Pologne", and it has been a frustrating yet adventurous, tantalizing but in some ways disappointing race over the years.  Each year, e results have improved, and in some respects the team has been completely victorious, but the race never ends, there is always another race to run, and sometimes the team results are middling at best.  Sounds pretty strange, right? Well, being a Tech Coach is like being a cycling team coach in many ways, and traversing the school year is like running a team on a major tour event like Giro or the big one - the Tour de France. But my school is not the biggest fish in the big pond of international schools, so I thought that I should not compare it with the most prestigious cycling race in the world.  As we are in Poland, which hosts one of the bigger cycling tours in Europe, I felt the analogy is a little cleaner with the Tour de Pologne . . . the obvious choice in the end.

As I prepare for this coming school year, and reflect on the previous one, I have been thinking about how it must feel to be a cycling team coach . . . and how it is so similar to my role as a Tech Coach working with the faculty at my school.  My role as a coach allows me to work with a group of professionals to improve and move forward as a team over the course of the year.  During a race, the coach would ride in the support vehicle day after day, running in front/behind/beside the riders on your team.  When something breaks down you have to stop and help to fix it.  You have to continually communicate with your team as the overall strategy changes throughout the stages of the race, as accidents happen along the way, or as fatigue and injuries disrupt the team.  As a coach, you have to help manage the team members to work together effectively and efficiently or they will never finish.  In the end, the glory goes to the winner, but they will never even finish the race without the complete support of their team.

On a cycling team, you would have all manner of riders, including front runners and break-away artists, hill climbing specialists, sprinters, supporting team members and others who like to ride in the pack, seasoned veterans and young up-and-comers with lots of potential.  As team coach, you have to encourage and support everyone on the spectrum as they are all on your team and you are going to finish as a team.  Can you see where I am going with this?  My team of faculty still has a wide range of talents, interests and abilities with educational technology, much like the specialists on a cycling team.  There are the sprinters - who will tackle any new technology quickly and efficiently.  There are the hill climbers - who will take on the heavy lifting and the big jobs without complaint, methodically moving forward and upwards.  There are the support members - happy to follow the pack and help the whole team move forward.  And there are the front-runners - who are always pushing the pace and driving everyone ahead.  On first glance, Tech Coaching is just like coaching a cycling team through the Tour de Pologne, but with some huge differences . . . and frustrating complications.  

 

Keeping with the bike racing analogy, imagine if you had to deal with some of the following problems during the course of a race:

• having members on your team who do not want to ride or even look at a bike
• giving everyone on your new team new equipment for the upcoming race, but they give it back to you because they don't know how to use it . . . and people say fill in the blank is just like riding a bike?!?
• breakaway artists who just want to go out hard right from the start, but have no idea where the course is (so they end up hopelessly lost or out of touch with the rest of the team)
• riders who are quite content to be pulled along in the peloton day after day, never really contributing to the success or failure of the team . . . they are just content to be there
• team members who seem to always be distracted by the equipment that the other teams are using, or are continually focused on any new bike technology that is being developed/used somewhere else
• stragglers who are happy to be left behind in the race and just want to left alone, never to finish any stage of the tour

If working with a group of faculty were as easy as coaching and managing a cycling team, then things would be golden. You see, in my annual race, I do not have control over the makeup of the team that I work with, nor do I have any input into the breakdown of the "specialists" on the team. The problem areas mentioned above are real and always present, in my current school, in my pasts schools, in any school.  With the natural turnover of faculty in international schools, there will always be a wide range of talent, abilities and interests when it comes to educational technology.  It's just part of the job.  It's the nature of the beast.  Unless leading the ed tech race is the primary goal of the senior leadership of the school, then we will always have varied results each year.  Again, it's the nature of the beast.  The race never ends and you never actually win (or lose) the race . . . it just goes on.  So I do not mean to whine or complain here - this is just my thoughts and observations.  I can be the best coach in the world, but unless everyone is on the same page with the same goal in mind (year after year) then the results will never be truly great . . . just good or satisfactory . . . or worse!  If you want lasting change, then it all comes down to school culture, which we all know is very difficult and slow to change, especially when you are not in a position of senior leadership.

So my challenge is how to help guide the breakaway artist, to staying on the course.  Or getting the reluctant rider back onto the bike and to the finish line (whether its their first time on e bike, or after a big crash).  Or turning the peloton support rider into a mountain climbing specialist.  Do I have all of the answers on how to accomplish all of these tasks?  Nope, not at all.  Every rider on the team is an individual work in progress.  I guess I have to take consolation in making the team just a little bit better each year.  I guess that is one of the main differences between being a faculty/peer coach, rather than my old job as a classroom teacher . . . students eventually finish your course and cross the finish line.  Being stuck on the tour just means that once this year's race is done, it's just time to start preparing for the next one.  

So are you a tech or instructional coach?  How do you deal with this difference between teaching students and coaching faculty?  How cohesive is your team, and how do you keep everyone on course?

Tech PD Calendar Idea - maybe you can get this to work in your school . . .

This time last year I was finishing my Masters degree, and was in deeply embroiled in getting my action research paper completed and handed in.  As my program was directly tied to an educational technology certification as well, and because I am a tech coach myself, I wanted to make my project to be linked to technology professional development.  I had a number of ideas at first for what my research project could focus on, but in the end I decided to once again try to implement an idea that I had about 8 years ago for a technology PD calendar.  Basically, I had formulated this idea when I was back at the Western Academy of Beijing and initially tried to implement the calendar there - it failed miserably as it never even got off of the ground.  The school was not using a viable calendaring system which could support multiple authors effectively, so I could not build the calendaring system without going down the road of building a relational database myself.  When I came to ASW, I again tried to implement this idea but again it failed miserably for a variety of reasons which I will not get into right here.  When the action research project came along, I decided to give this another try as the calendaring idea itself fit in well with the project requirements.  And it failed again - no third time lucky for me.

The idea that I have fits with a lot of research into technology professional development and teacher efficacy, which is why I keep coming back to it over the years . . . it should work!  Basically, my idea is to open teacher's doors, invite others into their classrooms to see how/what/when/why technology is being used/integrated/immersed in their classroom, get teachers who would not normally "present" to their peers to show off what they are doing in their classroom with little additional work or preparation, and to have faculty observe classes from other disciplines, grade levels or school divisions, and take away and apply whatever they have learned in their own area/context/class.  All of this through a simple calendar mechanism with very little overhead . . . but it has not worked.  Which leaves me with wondering why?

Perhaps it is school culture?  Maybe my school is simply not ready for this kind of open and self-guided peer mentorship program?  Perhaps teachers do not have the time or energy to devote to such a program, or simply are not interested?  Maybe teachers are so insecure with their teaching practices or using technology that they do not want to "put themselves out there" in front of their friends/peers/colleagues?  Or perhaps teachers are too wary of any kind of observation being somehow linked to teacher effectiveness and evaluation to get involved in the program.  For whatever reasons, my tech PD calendar idea failed again.  If any of this sounds interesting to you, then you can get all of the details about the calendaring idea, how I implemented the system (in Google Calendars), what the process was for adding events to the calendar (opening your door), or registering yourself to observe someone's class or lesson, from my action research project paper which is attached below.  Please feel free to download a copy if you want to read through the entire thing.

Has anyone else tried implementing something like this?  What happened - did it succeed or fail?  Whether it worked or not, what were the problems, challenges and things that helped?

Building Your NOWledge and Understanding

What is NOWledge?

No, I didn't spell it wrong, and yes, I used a new "N" word when I was thinking about the meaning of the letters in the SNiCK acronym.  If you are wondering about "why SNiCK?" then have a read here.  I don't think that I am the first to coin or use "NOWledge" (I see there even a few websites and companies that use the word), but I might be the first to use it in the context of educational technology.

In the Ed Tech world, keeping up with all of the changes that are going on around us is more than a full time job in itself, but crucial nonetheless.  So what is NOWledge?  What do I mean by this?  I would describe NOWledge as what we know about a given topic right now, that we can use to make decisions or guide what we do or how we work.  Your NOWledge on any given topic might be current, or out of date by a few minutes/hours/days, but you have to use the tools that you have on hand at the time.

In an ideal situation, you would have the time and opportunity to do your homework and conduct some research, before making a decision or recommendation.  But we all know that this does not always happen, and that the rate of change with technology is just too fast to always keep pace.  More often than not, you have to use what you know right here and right now, to make a decision.  That's just the way it is sometimes.  So keeping as up-to-date as you can becomes even more important.


Building and Maintaining Your NOWledge

Keeping up-to-date is a constant struggle and takes up a lot of a tech coach's time every day.  Finding the right tools that work for you to keep abreast of changes in the ed tech world is the key.  I am not going to get up on a soapbox and evangelize on tweeting, or creating your own PLN through some social networking site, or lament about the demise of Google Reader . . . you have to find what works for you, that you will access and use regularly, and where you can build your NOWledge.  Personally, I use a variety of tools and resources from reading people's ed tech blogs, following educational journals and publications, subscribing to forums and groups through different social media, and engaging in online conversations on topics that interest me or where I have something to add/share.  This blog is a place where I share my experience and ideas, and I am glad that you are taking the time to read it.  So, find the tools that work for you and keep in touch by leaving a comment - contribute to the conversation.  It is virtually impossible to keep up with everything out there, so focus on what interests you and let your connections/colleagues/cohort give you the highlights on the other stuff.  So get connected and involved . . . it's the only way you can keep up-to-date.

I have never been one to jump on the bandwagon of something new, just because it is there.  I have never been one to use tech in the classroom just because someone thinks it is "cool".  And I have never been one to suggest that we use technology in the classroom just for the sake of using technology . . . it has to enhance teaching and learning in some way, otherwise it is merely substitution of a tool.  Maybe it is my high school mentality, where I have to see the "bang for my buck" up front before adapting a new piece of technology into the classroom.  Maybe it is just me being terribly practical in all things - a friend and colleague of mine once told me that the I am really good at "keeping it real" which I equate to being down to earth and really practical at all times.  That does not mean that I am not a risk taker, or don't like to test new technology tools.  On the contrary, whenever I see something new, my mind immediately starts racing and analyzing how/where/when/why this new tool might be used.  My computer science background comes into play then, as I always prescribe to test something new, test it again, and test it further.  Essentially, test, test, and test some more.  The combination and balance between these two approaches (looking/testing/trying while not jumping on the bandwagon) serves two purposes for me: to help build my NOWledge while keeping me grounded and not be pulled in too many directions at the same time (which is always a danger).

Many of us in the ed tech world have worked with faculty or even administration who were always jumping from bandwagon to bandwagon.  Can you think someone like this?  If they are the tech leadership in the school, then you never really know where you are going with educational technology, as you are constantly discarding one tech tool for the latest new thing.  Often in these situations, the faculty are constantly crying out for stability with tech tools, platform, systems, or machines.  Does your school have a pile of technology which was brought in but went unused, and was eventually either forgotten or put aside for something else?  If so, this is the accumulated evidence of jumping on and off various bandwagons, and not having a solid NOWledge base to fall back on.  In my mind, having a good balance between striking out in new directions based on a strong NOWledge base is key to moving forward and sparking innovation.  So how do you maintain or build your NOWledge?  Is your school led by someone who does not have a solid NOWledge base when it comes to educational technology?  How is that working for you and your students?

Six Months into a TechXcursion to the MacWorld - Part 2

The beginnings of our transition of the HS 1:1 Laptop Program from Tablet-PCs to MacBooks is documented in an earlier post here.  This post is continuing with the story of our journey of change, moving a few mountains along the way, and raising the dead a few times as well.  Looking back on the last 2 years it becomes clear to me that it was a huge roller coaster ride, complete with dips, turns, hills and valleys, and with a few undead zombies along the way.

Stops and Starts . . . and more Roadblocks

We began the 2011-12 school year with our recommendation to the Tech Director to shift the HS laptop program from PCs to MacBooks, after the Tech Collective's work from the previous spring.  After Bill approved of our recommendation for platform change, it was then taken to Admin for their approval.  And that's when we ran into the first major roadblock - it was discussed at Admin and was it was determined that the HS could not proceed with a change in platform without consulting the other school divisions first (which had not been done of course).  After many discussions in various venues and much tap-dancing on Bill's part, he was able to finally convince Admin that each school division would address their own needs and platform of choice individually when it was their turn to refresh their own laptop program.  This decision included some interesting discussions along the way, as many thought that a platform change in the HS would inevitably make it a fait accompli that the other school divisions would follow suit.  We were able to successfully argue that each division would make their own decisions in due course, and that it was Bill's job to ensure that this happens.  One hurdle negotiated.

The next big question that was raised came from the Business Office - would a platform change be very expensive and cost prohibitive?  With this next big wall looming in front of us, Bill and I embarked on a thorough and exhaustive feasibility analysis of the costs involved.  This work had already been started, but it had to be extended to include the platform change impact on the school network, school systems, technical support, technical training and certification, cost of repairs, and cost of extended warranty in addition to the projected cost of the machines, software licenses, and faculty training.  This was a huge job which essentially boiled everything down to the simple answer that yes, in the end it would cost more to do a platform change (primarily due to changes and duplication of some software licenses, and training that would be needed for the technicians and network managers).  How could a platform change not incur some additional costs?  Once more, we were dead in the water . . .

This roadblock started a big discussion about how budgeting is done in the school and whether budgetary decisions were going to impede or prevent educational decisions.  We started this process of exploring our laptop program refresh with a simple question of whether our decision was going to be denied or changed by the business office, and we were told at the time a firm "no".  But here we were.  We argued that our recommendation for platform change was an educational decision and based on the needs of the high school programs.  We argued that the overall cost would be reduced over time as there would be fewer problems and repairs, and therefore reduced cost for servicing and work-time in tech services.  And we also argued that our recommendation for platform change was actually a 40-50% reduction in cost from our existing Tablet-PC program, simply because the outgoing machines would cost over $2000 per unit to replace.  We were literally comparing apples with onions here, and after a long and hard fought battle, we were finally permitted to move forward once again, and begin discussions with Apple and our local provider about contracts, servicing and pricing.

What Flavour of Apple to Get?

Our initial discussions were with the only premium reseller in Poland, in conjunction with Apple Poland.  Everything was progressing quite well, albeit slowly and methodically, as a contract and purchase of this size has never been done in Poland before.  We started discussions focusing on the old White MacBook and the MacBook Pro, for which we were receiving very aggressive pricing but they were still beyond our means.  But the White MacBook had been relegated to education sales only, and it was difficult at the time to get the information we needed on pricing and servicing for them.  Time passed with no firm numbers to work with and then everything came crashing down once again.  I was attending the November ECIS annual conference in Lisbon when I received the news that the school's budgetary deadline had passed and that our proposed platform change was once again completely dead - without a contract in place which was within our budget, we would have to scrap all of our work and proceed with a PC laptop along the lines of the HP machines that the MS had purchased earlier in the year.  Here I was at a huge tech pre-conference day with the other tech coaches, and I receive this depressing news to start my day.  But in the next 24 hours, the roller coaster would come back to the platform and we would get on board for another ride.

The fortuitous moment came when Bruce (one of our ES tech coaches) and I went to attend some of the Apple iPad workshops at the conference the next day.  For some reason the published schedule of Apple workshops had been completely changed so we were asking around to find out what the new schedule was going to be, when we started talking to Rowan Simms (who we found out is in charge of Apple Education for Europe).  One thing led to another and our discussion stretched out to over an hour and ended with a phone call to Bill our Tech Director.  Rowan was able to clarify a number of outstanding questions that we had (about European pricing of the White MacBooks for education, support and servicing for them, and policies revolving around their availability in the future) and we were again back from the dead.  I was beginning to feel a little sick with the roller coaster ride, but I was happy that we had a way forward.

We were able to reassure Finance that we would be able to stay within the target budget and continued to wait for a contract that we could sign.  In the new year, we received word from the reseller that they could not offer us a contract for the White MacBooks because the model had formally reached end-of-life and they could not give us a contract which could not be fulfilled.  This was becoming an episode of The Walking Dead - we just had to refuse to die!  Along with the public announcement of the demise of the White MacBook, came the elevation of the MacBook Air to being the new base-line Mac with new pricing.  The education only model was also introduced a short time after in North America, so we then turned our attention to getting a contract for the education Air model.  But the educational pricing had not been released in Europe yet, and there seemed to be no timeline for it either which placed us in a conundrum of either signing a contract or continuing to wait.

The American School of Warsaw hosted the CEESA annual conference in March, which led to another timely meeting with Rowan from Apple, who happened to be attending the conference.  I had an informal meeting with Rowan where we discussed how he was in the process of still deciding whether to release the MacBook Air for Education model in Europe, and that he was strongly leaning towards not releasing it at all.  Rowan and his team were concerned about the small storage capacity of the SSD (only 64 GB) combined with the small screen size (on the smaller 11" Air) were going to come back to bite them.  We had already considered the specifications of the Education Air and had determined that these features worked in our favour with our school owned laptop program.  With our program, we want our students to treat their school machine as their learning platform, and not as their general purpose entertainment and gaming centre.  By populating our laptop program with smaller, light-weight machines we are giving students a more ergonomic machine for moving to and from home, and around the school.  The smaller 11" screen is only a fraction of an inch smaller than their current Tablet-PC screens, and the smaller size also made it less of a gaming platform.  The 64 GB of storage was also seen as an advantage, as there would not be space on the machine for students to store all of their music, videos, movies and tv shows that they typically want to carry around at all times.  In short, students would have to manage what is stored on their machines.  This is not to say that they could not have a few shows to watch on an airplane, or some music to listen to on a long train or bus ride, but they would have to manage their files in order to do so.  Our student image was estimated to take up approximately 25 GB of storage, which would leave students with about 30 GB for their school work and other files - ample room for all of their work, some video projects, and anything else that they might be working on.  This was a win-win situation in our opinion.  Rowan took our position under consideration and in the end, notified me that our discussion convinced him to release the Education Air model in Europe.  Alas, it would not be in time for our contract and purchase of over 300 Airs though.  This development did lead to further negotiations however, and the newly reduced prices on the 11" Airs came in within our budget.  We were back on track!

Mac 101 Basics - Initial Teacher Training

With a contract in hand which would include 13" Airs for faculty (almost 50x machines with larger screens for older eyes, plus more storage for school stuff), 11" Airs for students (280x machines), Apple applications training for faculty and Apple Certified Technicians training for our technicians, we were set to go.  Frustratingly, we received the teacher machines very late in the school year due to supply problems in Europe, but we had to make due with the little time we had.  Cramming in the basic training for the faculty new to Macs while creating differentiated training for the more experienced teachers all in the last two weeks of the school year (interspersed with graduation, final exams, awards ceremonies and packing up classrooms) is really not recommended or what I had hoped for.  Putting the new machines into the hands of the faculty a full year or even a semester in advance would have been ideal, but it simply did not happen or even come close.  As I only had a few weeks to work with to develop our teacher machine image and to conduct training before the summer holidays, I got cracking.

What I built was a differentiated training program for faculty (which was later adapted and used with students as well) which included:

1. Hands-on training sessions for faculty with no experience with Macs, individually or in small groups (whatever was more comfortable for each person)
2. Personalized, direct training for those faculty with some experience with Macs, directed at the school set up and applications that were being included on the image
3. Flipped-video resources delivered through Moodle, for those teachers with some experience with Macs and to act as a personalized asynchronous resource for the newbies (the videos followed everything that I did with the newbies in the hands-on training sessions); you can have a look at the resources that I created here (Mac 101 Basics) and here (Mac 202 Next Steps)
4. Links to other Apple training resources online, for faculty use and reference over the summer
5. Created a group of Mac savvy students called the Apple Corps who would lead the rollout in August and provide in-class first response help for staff and students
6. I also made it clear that faculty could contact me by email throughout the summer if they had any questions or problems with their new machines.

After a frantic couple of weeks of training sessions, we closed the school for the summer and the high school faculty took their new machines with them for the summer to get better acquainted with the new machine.  For some, it was as simple as getting used to the new machine and configuring it for themselves.  For others, it was just taking the time to reacquaint themselves with a Mac, understanding what has changed in OSX, and having the time to explore and use the machine.  The beginners group was the one that I was really concerned about.  We had the complete range of emotions during the training and going into the summer, from tears and trepidation, to exhilaration and anticipation.  We even had a few teachers who really wanted to keep their old PCs over the summer, but that could not happen as the old machines were being collected, re-imaged and cleaned up, and then re-distributed within the school.  Throughout the summer I monitored the Moodle class for activity and waited for emails asking for help, but everything went rather smoothly (a little too smoothly perhaps - time to board the coaster for another ride?).

Leading the Apple Corps & MacRollout Day

The Apple Corps was formed before the summer simply by polling the student body for returning students who are Mac experienced, who are interested in helping run workshops on MacRollout Day, and would be back in Warsaw and available to come into school a day early for training.  For their services they would receive their school machines a few days before everyone else, would get an Apple Corps shirt for MacRollout Day, and could use this as a CAS project if they were in G11 or G12.  I definitely wanted to brand this group of students, so I named them the Apple Corps and created a logo based on the school athletics logo that I designed a few years ago of the charging winged Polish Hussar - the students really liked this so the branding efforts paid off.  In the end, I had over 30 student volunteers of which 24 were available for the early training session.

I vetted the list of student volunteers and even had a special parent & student sign-off to ensure that they were available at the end of the summer holidays for the training session, and for them to receive their school laptop early (according to our Responsible Use Policy).  I polled these students to measure their experience with Macs, areas of strengths, and comfort levels for running workshops for beginners, intermediate users, or application workshops for experienced users and used this information to form them into pairings as workshop leaders.  I then developed detailed, step-by-step lesson plans for each of the 15 different workshops that were going to be delivered and matched up the leaders with their strengths and abilities.  I had to include a few teacher volunteers to lead workshops as well, to fill out all of the workshops on offer.  When I originally polled the student body to form the Apple Corps, I also had everyone self-assess their own familiarity with Macs and indicate the kind of training that they would prefer at the beginning of the school year.  As I had all of the student needs data and the workshops organized, it now became a simple (but lengthy) task of scheduling all of the students into workshops, along with teacher supervisors.  The workshops were all student-led by the Apple Corps, so I assigned faculty members to training sessions according to their readiness levels with Macs, where they could participate and learn alongside the students.  This worked out really well as it put the Apple Corps students into the driver seat.

In the end, we ran 5x complete Beginners hands-on workshops (2+ hours each with a break in the middle), 4x Intermediate video-based hands-on workshops (self-paced with support, lasting for 2+ hours each), plus 6x Apple Applications hands-on workshops (1 hour each where students signed up to attend two different trainings).  We began the day with an assembly and big launch event, which included a few commercial breaks such as our own "I'm a Mac" video which Bill and I put together (be  nice - it was done in one take).

From there, we managed the rollout of machines to the students in groups according to the workshop they were attending.  We started out with the beginners groups, to maximize their workshop time for getting started, and managed to rollout 275 machines in under an hour and got just about everyone off to their workshop sessions - this was the biggest Mac rollout ever done in Poland!  Everything went a little crazy after that, as one of servers got hammered by all of the new machines trying to access their mobile accounts through the network for the first time, and slowly died.  Things got better after that server had a quick RAM upgrade and was restarted, and the Apple Corps got on with their workshops. Some of the students had to improvise their sessions while the server was down, but they did a fabulous job of not panicking under pressure.  With the MacRollout Day complete, we were off to the races!

Faculty Apple Training

Just a few last words about training the faculty over the year, and what we have had available.  Since the beginning of the school year we have worked through up-skilling the teachers with their Macs, as they have become more familiar and comfortable with their new machines.  Some of the teachers who were complete beginners jumped right in over the summer and were ready to run in August.  While others did not use their Mac very much over the summer, so were at various levels of experience ranging from near beginner to having some experience (albeit rusty).  This is what I expected to happen, given that we did not get the teacher machines until right before the summer, so we tried to individualize and differentiate the further training we had available, throughout the year.  The options that were on offer included:

1. Student-led workshops on MacRollout Day - teachers were assigned to supervise workshops which matched up with their current familiarity and ability level, so that they would learn alongside the students in the session
2. Ongoing, individual, "just-in-time" learning as needed through working with me as the HS Tech Coach, as teachers adapt previous projects or start new ones which take advantage of what the MacBook Airs have to offer
3. Group training through HS departments on specific applications
4. Outside Apple Trainer - as per our contract, an outside Apple Trainer was brought in for a week. Training sessions on specific applications were identified for each department and were delivered to departmental small groups, and the remainder of the trainer's time was organized into individual and small group differentiated training sessions on applications by request
5. The Tech Advocate in each department focussed their attention over the year on Mac specific tech tools and applications that would be applicable for teaching and learning in their discipline
6. Speed-Geeking Tech PD - the HS once again conducted our own Speed-Geeking mini-sessions on a variety of tech tools, which had a Mac focus
7. Apple Corps students have been available and supporting students and teachers directly in class (they are identified by an Apple Corps sticker on their lid)
8. Mac 202 Next Steps - another Moodle course was started as an extension/continuation of the Mac 101 Basics course, and as an online reference which teachers could use to further their learning with Macs, as they became more comfortable with the machines.

Apple Corps - Come join the "Air Corps"!

Final Thoughts on Leading a School through a Platform Change

It has been a long road to get where we are now, full of twists and turns, drops and rises, and walls to crash in to.  The roadblocks and check points along way have been many, but we have gotten to our destination nonetheless, and perhaps a little wiser as well.  My takeaways from these last two years are:

• There will always be a wide range of ability, experience and willingness to change amongst the staff and student body - anticipate this and think about their wants, needs and their perspective
• Look at every piece of software that people use and dig deep to verify that it is compatible with the new OS and version, or have a viable alternative to change to 
• Staff and students will need to be trained, retrained, and trained again - be patient and persistent
• It takes a lot of time - start discussions with staff, students, parents and admin early and keep the dialogue open throughout
• Some staff will be very resistant to changing platforms/machines - this often comes down to a fear of the unknown which can be remedied with hands-on training and lots of support
• There will always be costs involved even if you are changing to a cheaper machine - refocus the conversation on the teaching and learning, rather than the financials; it's really about the verbs (what you are going to do with and through the technology ), rather than the nouns (what piece of technology is being purchased)
• If you have a Technology Vision statement to work towards, then use it to guide the process of change
• Get the students involved - we had data from the student body supporting the platform change as we engaged with this process, and the student Apple Corps group has been fabulous in helping to move the entire school forward with our platform change (this would not have happened without them)
• Change is scary, time-consuming hard to do - a change in platform is not only a physical change in technology, but also a cultural and philosophical change for some people in the community which makes it even more difficult to achieve . . . make sure that the end result will be worth the time and effort, get people on board the roller coaster, and work from there . . . the others will come with time.  

You know how you have to stand in line forever before getting on a ride?  You know how a roller coaster takes a long time to work its way up the first hill before really getting started, and then it's all over before you know it?  This is the same ride . . . it will take forever before it really gets started and it will be over before you know it, so hang on tight as it will be a crazy ride along the way.

The Day After 1984 - A Short Jaunt in an Unplugged School

Well, our '84 on 8/4 Unplugged Day has come and gone - my original ideas and plans are mentioned in previous posts here and here.  Personally, I took the Unplugged Challenge and extended it to a full 24 hours of no technology that was not available back in 1984.  Yesterday was an interesting day for me as a result, with a few moments of frustration, disconnectedness, and the occasional lapse into boredom.  As I progressed through the day, I made some notes (on an old notepad with ink and paper!) about what I observed of myself, the faculty and the students, as follows:

1. Conducted a walkthrough of the entire HS - many classes were working with textbooks and working on paper (much more than usually can be seen)
2. Starting the day, there were only a handful of students who volunteered and registered to formally take on the Unplugged Challenge, but a bunch more signed up in the morning (much to my relief)
3. Some faculty members resorted to asking for TimeWarp posters during the day, as they could not fully plan all of their classes to be without technology in the end.  This led to my major transgression of the day, as I had to briefly go online to email the poster to these faculty members.  Funnily enough, I didn't know about these requests as I was unplugged all day, until someone asked me if I had seen their email!
4. It was hard for IB Diploma teachers to be truly unplugged with their classes, due to the nature of their courses, due to the time of year (the last day for seniors is very soon), and due to how their classwork is structured in a 1:1 laptop school.
5. The Spirit Day Dress-up (like it's 1984) component of the day was fun and students participated in their typical small but enthusiastic numbers.  In terms of developing school spirit, it was well worth the effort.  Here's some of student posers . . . hey, isn't that Madonna?!?
   
6. Our usual HS Assembly took on an 80's flavour with one of the student bands playing some 80's hard rock . . . nice touch!
7. Most of the faculty/staff had an interesting relationship with the Unplugged Challenge - they planned their lessons to be without technology as best as they could for the day (sending attendance down to the office on paper, bringing in a tv and vcr with an old tape, using an overhead projector, working from paper and textbooks) but very few actually took the challenge themselves (I only know of one other teacher out of 40+ other than myself who personally did the challenge).
8. I collected some student feedback and reflections the day after, which garnered some interesting quotes, such as:

• "I learnt that I'm not that addicted as I believe myself to be at times, and that I actually enjoy a break from technology at least in classes, where you are not forced to sit behind a screen, but I still have a habit of reaching for my phone or computer to check messages for what's going on."
• "The most difficult part was that whenever I was bored, I felt the urge to take out my phone and start playing on it."
• "Yes [I would do the challenge].  I think it was interesting to see how I would function and to see how drastically different life is without all of the [technology] things that we have available. I think it would be an eye-opening experience for my friends as well. "

Personally, I went 24 hours without using any tech over the course of a full day of school.  It was an interesting experience, being the tech person in the school who is disconnected for the entire day.  It made for a pretty big backlog of emails and jobs to do the next day, but it was worth it to support the student body and go through the same experience.  The experience confirmed for me that my role in the school is heavily dependent on technology in general, and on email in particular for communication - no surprises there.  The biggest surprise for me though, was the realization of just how bored I got at different times during the day, as I could not read any articles online, check how my hockey team did last night, or see what's happening with friends, family and colleagues on Facebook or LinkedIn.  This last bit got me thinking that it is somewhat different for me here as an expat living/working overseas, compared to if I was still back home in Canada - the digital links to your own personal world are stretched over greater distances, connect you with a group of people spread around the world in different time zones, and become more important to you as they are the means of maintaining your important relationships with people, places and things which are distant or remote.

Have you ever gone Unplugged for a day?  What were your takeaways or observations?  Was it a mandatory experience in your school, or voluntary?  I wonder if making a mandatory unplugged event would change the dynamic, as those who do not want to participate simply won't and will find ways around any attempts at enforcing a blackout - what has been your experience?

Short Jaunt into the Blogosphere

Reflecting on Reflecting

Just a few short notes and observations that I have had about blogging, starting this blog, and actually getting some thoughts down.

First of all, I never have really seen myself as a writer or blogger in the first place - the reasons behind starting this blog are documented here in my very first post.  About 4 months into this project, 4 pages and about 10 postings later, here I am.  Thinking about the time and effort (it's not as easy as I thought it would be either) that has been invested in my blog has led me to reflect on my reflection.

Teachers need to be reflective in their work, in their pedagogy and in their disciplines/areas of speciality, in order to keep current, relevant and effective.  I have always been a reflective teacher in the classroom, throughout my career as a computer science and technology teacher.  Keeping current with the ever changing technology field was something that was a given.  But the results of this introspection and analysis always resulted in a tangible change in what I was doing in the classroom, what I was doing with students, or working with other CS/technology colleagues.

As a full-time technology coach, things have changed.  I no longer have a regular class of my own.  I am no longer teaching computer programming, applications, problem solving or working through a curriculum.  Instead, I am now working with faculty, the student body as a whole or as a grade level, or occasionally with just a particular class belonging to someone else.  Not that I am completely removed from the classroom - far from it.  It's just the context and focus has changed for me.  Hence, this blog.  By reflecting on the work that I am doing now as a technology coach and putting it into writing here, I am creating the tangible evidence of what has worked and what has failed, for my own use and for others out there in the blogosphere.  As my "class" now consists of faculty, students and staff around the school, I typically no longer have the convenience of thinking "well that really sucked . . . I will do it differently next period."  Writing it down and reflecting on the good, the bad and the ugly helps me to stay current, innovative, and engaged with being a tech coach.

If you asked me as recently as 6 months ago, I would have firmly said that I would never write a blog or have a good reason to do so.  But here I am . . . still writing . . . I am a blogger now!  If you are out there, thank you for listening/reading.  So do you have a blog of your own?  Have you ever thought you would never, ever start a blog, just like me?  Well, maybe it's time to start?!?

'84 on 8/4 Unplugged Challenge - Revisited

In a previous posting I talked about hosting an unplugged or blackout day in the HS, as a way to create student awareness of their own "wired" behaviours and to give them a sense of how "connected" they really need to be.  We are now at the end of a five week long buildup to our first ever Unplugged Day which happens next week on April 8th.  Throughout these five weeks I have been trying to engage and draw staff and students into participating in this event, using some "hooks" such as having 1984 related references and videos in assemblies and newsletters, running weekly trivia contests (grade level competitions for house/grade level points) for 5 weeks in a row, branding the Unplugged side of the event as being a student in 1984 (you can only use technology that was available back in the day), connecting a dress-up Spirit Day in the HS with the event, and building mashup movie posters with teachers from favourite movies of the 80's.

1984 Weekly Trivia

A major component of the buildup to the event has been the weekly trivia competition where the four grade levels compete for "house" points over the school year.  I used the 80's to theme all of the trivia questions - at first I did not even say what it was all about and let the student's natural curiosity build.  Over the last month, I have been asked a number of times about what all the 1984 references were all about.  In fact, the student council president had the idea to kick everything off by having the movie trailer for the movie "1984" mysteriously be shown during an assembly with no explanation at all - that got the students talking.

Fitting the trivia questions in with the theme of the 80's was simple.  The first week focussed on major events in '84 such as the famine in Ethiopia, and the recording of "Do they know it's Christmas" as a fundraiser.  The second week's questions turned to famous bands and movies from 1984, and the famous "1984" Apple television ad to launch the Macintosh to the world.  The third week raised the bar as students had to identify famous bands/songs, movies and television shows from 1984 based on video clues that I spliced together.  Here is one of the video clues that I put together, if you are interested . . .

Week four questions forced students to use primary sources, as I built the trivia questions around information about the school in 1984 (location, address and name of the director), and about the current faculty (Who graduated from high school in 1984?).  This was interesting to watch unfold as students could not just go online to figure out the answers.  They had to actually talk to one another and collaborate, talk to various people in the school beyond their immediate teachers, and figure out their own plan of attack.  This particular week's trivia was definitely the most difficult to answer, so it generated the fewest responses, but it was interesting to see how students were working together, talking with the students in their grade who have been at the school the longest, and trying to figure out how old their teachers are - some estimates were very far off in both directions!

The final week of trivia was designed to hype next week's event, and to give students more information about what to expect that day.  To get more of the faculty involved and to help build some spirit into the event, I decided to put a ton of time and effort into making teacher mashup movie posters from the 80's.  Teachers simply had to send me their favourite movie from the 80's and I would insert them into the movie poster as one of the characters.  In some cases, the posters turned out much better when they took a self-portrait with their head at an angle to match what is in the original posters, which the staff were more than willing to do.  As I was doing all of the technical work to make the posters and staff just had to volunteer to be included, this turned out to be a massive hit with more than half of the faculty getting involved.  The final round of trivia was simple - students were shown in an assembly, a video with 22 different movie mashup posters and they had to name the teachers (in order) as they saw them . . . and it was tough but a whole lot of fun!  To hear the hooting and waves of hysterical laughter from the student body as they saw the posters made it all worth while.  After all, part of the event is all about school spirit!  Here are three posters that I made for the final trivia, as I could not help it (it was so much fun and I kept getting ideas for movies to use as examples) . . .



Spinoff or Collateral Learning

In preparing for our upcoming Unplugged Day, there has been a lot of spin-off learning amongst staff and students that has come up through the weekly quizzes.  Some of these outcomes I had hoped for, and some came as a surprise, but these are what make all of the time and effort really worth it.  Some of the collateral learning and positive outcomes which reach beyond technology, have been:

1. Development of student search online skills and working with primary sources
2. Student collaboration and communication, and working in self-forming teams or small groups
3. Building school spirit and involvement with both staff and students
4. Faculty developing new technology skills such as using Photoshop or other built-in tools on their new Macs like Photobooth and iMovie - there is nothing like "just in time" tech learning to move people's skills forward
5. Building currency and connections with the faculty that I work with in the high school
6. Faculty developing new project ideas and connections with their own curriculum through inquiry learning, using different media in class, and how visual and video media can be used in the classroom to study/analyze advertising and other concepts.

It will be interesting to see how our Unplugged Day works out tomorrow, but I will write a short follow up once our first attempt at this is complete.  It has been a fun build-up to the event, and I hope that staff and students gain at least a little insight into their habits and need to be connected - it's all about finding the right balance.  Have you hosted any school events which had collateral learning beyond technology or spin-off technology development?  What happened and how did it go?

Just a Short Jaunt to the Dojo

This is just a Short Jaunt TechXcursion into the mysterious world of the ninja.  At the Learning 2.012 conference last year in Beijing (back at my old school, the Western Academy of Beijing, so I had to make the long trip from Europe ;-) Jeff Utecht demonstrated the Google Apps Ninja Program that he developed based on the official Google Apps Certification program.  I had met Jeff before, in my previous days working at WAB, and his presentation of the Ninja program intrigued me.  He originally developed the program at the International School of Bangkok and has since released it for any school to implement for free.

As you can tell by the name of the program, Jeff has branded it and made it for student consumption.  There are online quizzes and ninja belt levels to work through, as students (and faculty) work through the different belts on their way to becoming a Ninja Master.  I have implemented and launched the program here at ASW, but I have to say that it was no small feat.  It is a huge job!  As another blogger mentions here, it has taken me numerous hours to take the Ninja materials and fashion it into a workable program at my school.  Updating and checking all of the quizzes was a big job, and I took my cues from the materials and logos to make it a little campy as well.  Do you understand, Grasshopper?  In building the program for my school, I also took the opportunity to reorganize the program into 5 Disciplines corresponding to the different quizzes that are available - Search, Communication (Gmail), Organization (Calendar), Collaboration (Docs/Drive) and Contribution (Sites).

I took a slightly different path for my implementation, as my school uses both Google Apps and Moodle as our primary learning platforms, so I built our Ninja Dojo in Moodle along with placing all of the associated materials in Google Apps.  This particular Moodle course is not currently setup for Guests, so I cannot provide you with a link into it here. So you will just have to be content with the screenshot above and the other links at the top of this post.  However, I will say that I have put myself through the entire program (which makes me Grand Master Kwan) as a test of all of the materials, belt tests and processes for grading the quizzes through Flubaroo . . . it is challenging and fun, and there is a lot to learn for staff and students alike.  I have pushed this out directly to a few faculty members who wanted to learn more about Google Apps this year, and have done a soft-launch with the HS student body . . . a few have signed up already so it's gaining some traction.  The other angle that I am playing with this is to turn it into a CAS service project for students, where the idea is to become a Google Apps Ninja Master Sensei after completing all of the belts . . . sounds cheesy, but it might just work.  I have already created a student tech help group in the HS which I have named the AppleCorps to help with in class support for our new Mac 1:1 laptop program, so why not try to build a similar student program for Google Apps?  Have a look at the Ninja Program, and if your school uses Google Apps for Education then you might want to start a dojo of your own.

Do you think becoming a Google Apps Ninja Master can change your Computing Karma?  Have you started a dojo in your school?  What have been the challenges and successes?