Who are you really serving? How far does your reach extend? Why did you become a teacher in the first place?

On changing schools (again), moving away from Ed Tech (not completely), moving back into the classroom (why would I do that?!?), and bringing this blog to a close (perhaps) . . . 

The title poses some very good questions that I have been pondering over the last few weeks and months of this turbulent school year.  Going back to just over a year ago, having major cardiac surgery (in a foreign country none-the-less) certainly made me pause and think.  Add to that moving house/country/schools/continents brings everything into sharp focus and scrutiny.  There have been a number of ups and downs, and complete turn-arounds in the last 12 months which have culminated in a whole lot of change for me.  All of these changes were planned (in one way or another) and initiated by me and my family - we just didn't plan on doing everything at the same time.  That's just how it all worked out.  Now that we are a year down the track, I am making another big change with moving schools again, moving away from ed tech and returning to the classroom.  Why would I do that, you might ask?  The more that I think about it, the more I come back to the three questions in the title of this post . . .

What lies on the road ahead?  Are you on the right path?

Who are you really serving?
In my current role as an ed tech coach, I have really examined this question this year.  At my previous school, my role meant serving the entire student body (directly in classrooms, through technology tools and systems, and through various interactions with student leadership, clubs and the school community), the entire HS faculty (through developing teaching and learning with ed tech integration, through PD/training/support, and through building a school culture of professional sharing and collaboration), and the school as a whole (through my role as a co-director of digital learning, and through the development of school systems/procedures/organisation for school growth and innovation).  This year has been really difficult as these avenues for growth and development are in their infancy here, and out of my sphere of influence - which is just not a good fit for me.  Leadership here thinks my time is best spent acting as a technician (which we have enough of in IT Services), working as a substitute (wait, what?!?) or covering the ugly jobs of others (like planning the sub coverage for the day, very early in the morning).  My role here seems to be serving administration, as they simply do not understand what my role is, what my strengths and abilities are, or how I can help the school to grow and develop.  Am I serving the school community as a whole here - not really.  Am I doing what I thought I was brought here to do - definitely not.  Am I working in an environment which is conducive to school growth and innovation, as well as providing a platform for my continued learning and development - nope.  Which leads to the second question . . .

How far does your reach extend?
I can't help but compare my previous school to the current one when I consider this question.  The visual that pops into my mind is having my arms blown off by a grenade that has been handed to me . . . not a pretty image.  In my previous school, I contributed to school growth everyday in many different areas across the school.  Over the years, I helped to change the school timetable and master schedule, moved the entire school to become a Mac school and use Google Apps for Education, bring in external collaboration and certification programs for teachers like Google Certified Educators and GEG Poland, create flexible classroom environments, and update and evolve the courses and programs on offer.  Here, I have not been allowed to contribute to many of the bigger projects around the school such as building and outfitting the new campus, selecting school systems (LMS, SIS, SIMS), considering platform change for the laptop program, or bringing in/back Google Suite.  Everything has been relegated to "not now", "maybe next year", or "there is a team working on that already."  Disappointing, frustrating and again, not a good fit for me.  Not being able to contribute to school growth is demoralising, and does not help to build a sense of collegiality or ownership in the school.  Working in a strictly "top-down" environment where you have no voice and certainly am not heard, is not for me.  Looking back, I wish I had a better way to evaluate this aspect of a school from far away, before uprooting the family and making the jump.  In terms of evaluating where a school is at with its approach to educational technology, I think this is a very important question when considering a move that can only be answered truthfully by going there and seeing it for yourself.  What people say is so different from the realities of the environment, as everything is coloured by their own perceptions, attitudes and how they want to portray themselves, the faculty, the school or teaching and learning in general.

Why did you become a teacher in the first place?
This is the big question that I think all teachers should think about from time to time.  I first started thinking about becoming a teacher when I was halfway through my 3rd year of university.  I realised that my love for programming and computer science, and the kind of work that I was doing for my university courses, was not reflected in real-life and industry after graduation.  I had the benefit of an older brother who was already working in the software industry of the late-80's, and I could see the kind of work that he was doing was not for me.  When I started asking my friends and family what I should do, they all said that I had been a teacher all of my life - first as a school tutor, then as a lab tech in uni, and teaching assistant during the school year and over the summers.  Working with people, whether they be adults or students, is what I thrive on.  Seeing the lights go on, making connections, expanding someone's thinking and pushing their boundaries - these are the things which make going to school everyday worthwhile.  I have been doing this for 28 years now, and this is the first time that I have been in a school environment where much of this is lacking on a day-to-day basis for me in my current role.  If that is not a signal that I need a change, then I don't know what is?!  If what you are doing does not bring you some level of fulfilment and joy, then I suggest that you really think about the path you are on.  I have realised that I really need to get back into the classroom, to get back to teaching students who want to learn rather than adults who do not.  I have realised that I have been teaching CS in one way or another for my entire career, and I miss having my own classroom and students.  I need to work with the Growth Minded and problem-seekers, not try to change the very Fixed Minded and those who set in their ways.  Time for a change.  Time to look for a "better fit".

Does everything fit together?  Are you in the right place?

So, what am I going to do?
I am almost finished this school year, and this may be my last blog post for awhile.  It has served its purpose - to record my thinking and reflections on ed tech, to help me process everything, and to share it with anyone who cares to look.  Each of my posts has averaged well over 100 clicks/reads so they have at least been seen (I just don't know how many of those clicks were from bots trolling the internet ;-).  But I really started writing this blog for myself and it has run its course for the time being.  If you are reading this post and it is well past June 2017, then perhaps I have not come back to it in my new role back in the classroom.

I have come to realise that right now, I am not reaching very many students.  Being a coach and working with the faculty means reaching the entire student body through the faculty.  But the culture of the school has to be in alignment with this path, and school leadership must support building the path and setting a course for the faculty to follow.  Without this roadmap/vision/direction and without the authority to create them, the school simply remains in stasis, frozen in place.  My thinking now is that I can affect more change and reach more students by returning to the CS classroom . . . and a lot more fun along the way.

I can't wait for next year - going back to teaching Computer Science full time is complete serendipity!  They say "timing is everything", and in this case the timing was perfect for a change.  I have never had the opportunity to go to a new school with an established CS program that is growing, and never had another teacher to work with and share classes.  Moving to one of the top few international schools in the world is a great opportunity that could not be passed up.  Returning to the classroom, going back to my roots in CS, rejoining the AP community and (hopefully) getting back to the APCS exam reading next year, leading school trips and coaching school teams . . . it's all happening next year!  I know that I am a geek at heart - returning to my true geeky self just feels right!

Big Takeaways
Despite the frustrations and "poor fit" of the school this year, there are some big takeaways (as there always are things to learn), such as:

• Taking the opportunity to return to Asia (which we missed so much), and getting out of Europe at an opportune time (it seems to devolving and becoming unsafe in many places) have been good for us as a family
• Moving the school forward with ed tech and integration (even if some of the steps have been baby-steps, the faculty are at least moving), and being able to shift some people's thinking to "we are all technology teachers" has been important for future change here
• Moving a school towards innovation and updating teacher's pedagogy is a massive job, and it cannot be done without the support/endorsement/realisation of the school leadership as a whole - leadership's understanding and acknowledgement of ed tech role in school development is key, and has to happen before any real, deep and meaningful change can occur in the school
• Chip and Dan Heath's book Switch has been very helpful for me to frame my thinking and understanding of the very Fixed Minded (it has to do with the associated identity of the person involved, and their particular environment, rather than their personality or disposition), and my reflection on the how/why some particular initiatives have failed here
• Reconnecting with the international Ed Tech community in Singapore and Asia (and I will continue to work with Apple, Google and the international schools community as I transition back to the classroom)
• Concentrating on my recovery and health (the change of environment, climate and diet have been great for me ;-) plus being in Singapore where we all "just fit in" (for a mixed race family, living in Turkey, China and Poland has been challenging at times) has been a true revelation

So, this is the plan for next year and the foreseeable future . . . and it feels like I am going home!  Wish me luck!

FeedForward instead of FeedBack for Positive Change

In this article by Joe Hirsch for Edutopia, he talks about a change in teacher evaluation from top-down assessments of effectiveness and performance, to more of a self-guided and self-assessed reflective process.  Hirsch also connects this movement to:

Marshall Goldsmith's highly acclaimed feedforward concept in which employees are asked to suggest ideas for their own improvement in the future.    . . .   Feedback, by its very definition, is focused on the past, which can't be changed. Feedforward looks ahead at future possibilities that still fall under our control. Feedback tends to reinforce personal stereotypes or negative self-fulfilling prophecies. Feedforward looks beyond what is in favor of what can be.

I think the colours of the cans are reversed . . . Recycling should be Green!  

Working in an international school, I can see elements of the feedforward idea taking shape in my school, both for me as a technology coach and for the faculty that I work with everyday.  Hirsch breaks down the feedforward idea and offers three models for achieving it in your school or for your own professional development, which are receiving Instructional Coaching, conducting Peer Observations and Instructional Rounds, and developing your own Professional Learning Communities.  My current school is still coming to grips with educational technology, integrating technology into the classroom, having a laptop program, and what that all means for teaching and learning.  Many of the teaching faculty still have a bad taste in their mouths from what has happened here in the previous years before me, and from ongoing problems with IT that never seem to get sorted.  There are struggles with leadership as well, who really do not know "what ed tech does all day" and want to use the coaches as subs, technicians or secretaries.  As with any school, there are people who get it, and who are actively looking to shape the future rather than dwell on the past.

I think too much time and energy is wasted dissecting the past, and trying to prevent all of the problems and mistakes of history from appearing again.  Aren't we supposed to learn from our mistakes, even if they belonged to someone else?  Isn't that a primary component of a Growth Mindset?  Constantly looking at the past and thinking "things will not change" and not learning from it are hallmarks of a Fixed Mindset.  So how do we move school leadership forward?  How do we flip their mindset?  How do we shift from feedback mode (dissecting the past) to feedforward (looking to the future and what could be)?

As an ed tech coach, how all of this connects to tech integration, teacher evaluation, professional development/growth/sharing is part of my daily work life.  It's all interconnected and intertwined, so much so that each piece cannot be developed without considering the impact and parallel development of the other aspects.  I think this might be the crux of the problem, the bigger picture that leadership perhaps does not realise.  They don't see how ed tech integration is enmeshed with PD, teacher evaluation/appraisal, goal setting, collaboration, creating a professional culture of sharing and growth, and changing pedagogy.  Perhaps this is why we are treated as ready-made subs to cover classes, glorified technicians who can actually communicate with teachers and students, or someone who has the "skills" to do "complex" jobs like fixing the formatting in a Word document (I kid you not).  Right now, I don't have any solutions to offer here, except to keep fighting the "good fight" and trying to get people to better understand your role through articles like the one above.

"We are all technology teachers" is something that I have been repeating a lot this year.  I just hope that it is starting to sink in, especially in the places where it really needs to be part of the thinking and culture of the school.

Coaches = Givers

Have you watched this recent TEDTalks by Adam Grant which defined Givers and Takers (and Matchers)?  As an educational technology coach, I watched this with great interest and reflected upon Grant's model as applied to my work as a coach.  If you haven't watched it yet, then here it is . . . definitely worth the 18 minutes of your time!



Here are the key moments that I picked out from his talk . . .

• 3:40 - Givers make organisations better . . . Schools need to recognise and acknowledge this.  My previous principal always said that I was a problem finder and would immediately start working on a solution without being asked - something that was greatly appreciated.  But the work of Givers is not always appreciated - please see a previous post about what I call "guilty by competence".
• 5:30 - Protect Givers from burnout . . . As a self-identified Giver, the environment and school culture that I work in has a profound effect on me.  The act of changing schools has forced me to reflect upon this a lot this year.  How school leadership values our role as coaches and change-agents within the school, makes all of the difference with how our day-to-day work progresses and how quickly (or slowly) we "feel the burn".
• 6:30 - Encourage help-seeking behaviours . . . Get more people to act as Givers by creating/building a culture of giving, providing help, and sharing.  Again, this is all about changing the culture of the school, which comes from top through leadership and from the grassroots movements which encourage collaboration, professional sharing and growth.  Without the support for such bottom-up shifts in culture, the Takers dominate the culture of the school and the Givers get burned out.
• 7:50 - Get the right people on the bus . . . To me, this speaks about hiring practices and considering people's Mindset (in my case, mindset towards educational technology).  One way school leadership can address and build a positive school culture is through effective management of hiring practices for faculty and staff.
• 8:50 - Weed out the Takers . . . This is an inherently difficult thing to do in schools, but entirely necessary and vital for school development.  As a teacher for almost 3 decades, I have seen the ineffective/disgruntled/unmotivated/coasting/bully teacher at every school that I have worked in across 3 continents.  Admit it, this is a problem at every school in the world no matter how big or small, how affluent or inner-city, how well resourced or under-funded.  School leadership needs to be able to move someone on who is detrimental to the organisation as a whole.  More easily said then done, I know . . . but just because it is difficult doesn't mean that it isn't necessary.
• 9:10 - Characteristic of Agreeableness . . . I only bring this part up because I am Canadian, eh?! ;-)  Sorry about that . . . 

My takeaways from this?  Coaches are generally Givers by nature (there are a few that I have met who I would classify more as a Matcher though) and they are not the only ones in the building.  As such, schools need to protect them and cultivate a culture of giving/helping which will benefit school growth and development through building a positive school culture.  Would you classify yourself as a Giver?  Have you ever worked in a school where the Takers stand out and dominate the school culture?  If so, how did you survive in that kind of environment?  Or did you hit burnout and move on, as changing the school culture is just too hard or too long of a process?

Reflecting About Tech PD at My School

I recently read this article from eSchool News about 4 common mistakes made when delivering tech PD, which made me reflect on how these 4 mistakes happen in my school.  Have a read through this article and see if anything in it strikes home with you - http://www.eschoolnews.com/2016/11/30/tech-based-pd/?all.

In summary, the 4 mistakes (as I interpret them for my reality here at my school, particularly in the secondary school where I work) should be addressed or considered in the following ways:

1. There is not enough support of Ed Tech to do our jobs most effectively, when teacher's priorities are focussed on their classes/students/curriculum.  In my school, Ed Tech is relatively new and has not had a very positive history/track record over the past two years so it seems to be way down on the list of priorities.  We need help from senior admin and through the strategic plan of the school to make tech integration a long-term priority.  Time and resources need to be dedicated to Ed Tech in order to make change, which involves changing the culture of the school as a whole.  And we all know that changing a school culture can be a long and difficult process.  Without the full support and backing of school leadership, this becomes an almost impossible job.  We are all in this together!
2. Offering tech PD outside of the school day just doesn’t work.  I have experienced this in my previous 3 schools and it still applies here.  When I completed my Action Research project for my masters program in my last school, much of the research supported teacher efficacy is directly linked to training/PD being conducted within the regular school day.  PD that is relegated to after school, on weekends, or optionally during lunch/break times might have some initial success but eventually will fail due lack of teacher engagement.  The common argument of “not enough time to do this” will always be there, and we can’t take away planning time or “free” time (like lunch) to do this.  Training and PD has to be regularly planned/scheduled, and preferably differentiated too.  That is why I have found Speed-Geeking activities to be more effective, well received, and showed greater overall growth across the faculty than traditional "coffee mornings" or "tech lunches".  
3. Do not rely on online or video-based self-guided training – it will fail over time as it falls into disuse and becomes out-of-date.  There is a time and place for its use, but it should not be the only means of delivery of training/pd across the school.  I created a bank of "how to" MacOSX videos when we went through the platform change process with the entire faculty and student body.  Initially, I used these videos to differentiate learning and transitioning to the Mac for faculty depending on their experience with OSX.  This appealed to some of the teachers with some experience and who wanted to learn on their own, and to most of the more advanced users who really only needed to fill in some details of the set up of our school machines.  When the rollout moved to the entire student body the following August, I again used the same bank of videos to differentiate student-led training workshops for about 100 of 300 students.  Since then, the videos have been used repeatedly with new students coming into the school laptop program as part of their tech orientation.  Now that some years have passed, I would be surprised if these same videos are still being used as they would be very out-of-date.  Video training definitely has its uses, so my takeaway here is not to rely on it as the sole means of delivering PD.
4. Forcing the integration of technology into the curriculum also does not work – many teachers (especially in the HS who teach content heavy curriculum/courses) need to see the “value added” or the benefits of doing something with technology first, before they will engage with it. The same argument of “I don't have the time” will always come up and can be properly translated into “it's not a high priority”.  So how do you change this mindset?  How can you change the priority level for teachers?  Part of the answer relates back to #1 above where Ed Tech integration needs to be a school-wide priority which is ongoing.  But be careful here - do not connect integration to teacher evaluation or offering contracts as this will undermine why teachers are doing anything with integration at all (it will be seen as just jumping through hoops or checking off boxes as part of the job).  Instead, integration should be directly connected to professional learning, growth, sharing and collaboration through connecting training/PD to professional goal setting, professional learning communities, and support/coaching/training in and outside of the school.

How do you think these 4 common mistakes apply to your school and your personal/professional reality and perspective?  Did the article make you think about PD in a different way?

Can Shared Leadership Really Work?

Note - this post was originally written back in June (over 6 months ago, so all references to dates are for the 2015-16 school year) but never was published for a variety of complex and personal reasons which I won't get into here . . . but I found the text in my notes and thought it needs to be published.  So here goes, with a few small tweaks and updates . . .

This year, I became a "director" for the first time in my career. Now that the school year is almost finished, I would have to say that this social experiment in shared school leadership is partially successful and partially a failure. Just to back up for a moment, the school director had no intent to explore shared leadership for educational technology - he wanted to either continue with the traditional leadership structure with a Tech Director, or split off educational technology from technology services and support.  In discussing this latter option and what that would look like, I was asked to draft a job description for an Ed Tech Director. Some of you reading this now will remember me asking for copies of your job descriptions and a structural breakdown of technology at your school (BTW - everything that I collected from you back in the fall was greatly appreciated).  As the job description started to take shape, it became apparent that out of our team of 4 tech coaches, more than one of us would be interested in the director of ed tech position. With the potential for terminal discord and a fracturing of our working relationship as a team, we jointly decided to propose a shared leadership model.

After about a month of planning how we would work together to co-lead educational technology across the school, the four of us (tech coaches) were appointed to be Co-Directors of Digital Learning. Our proposal separated ed tech from tech services, and a new person would be hired to manage and lead IT which includes hardware, infrastructure and tech support. The four tech coaches (2x ES, 1x MS and 1x HS) would have dual roles supporting tech integration in our school division (or assigned grades), plus collectively leading educational technology across the school.  

With shared leadership - is everyone looking/moving in the same direction?  Is there a clear, shared and articulated vision?

We have been working with this model since about November of this school year, and I have really mixed feelings about how successful it has been.  In general, we have been able to move forward with a number of initiatives and projects which probably would not have happened or have progressed as far in a short time if we had stuck with a traditional Tech Director model. As there are four of us Co-Directors, we could divide up the work and push forward with projects which interested us or were important to us. For example, some of the bigger projects that I led were:

• promoting and organizing the third annual Hour of Code, which featured events spread across the entire school
• formally adopting the ISTE Standards for Students (through embedding the standards in our PYP and MYP planners), Teachers (currently working on adding the standards into our new teacher appraisal process), Coaches (which we adopted as tech coaches a few years ago) and Administrators (which we adopted as Co-Directors of Digital Learning)
• writing and formalizing our job descriptions as tech coaches and as Co-Directors, to make them into usable documents which accurately describe both of these roles and what they truly entail
• bringing Learning2Europe to Warsaw, taking on the role of conference chair and forming a team of teachers and staff who will form the core of the organizing committee and support team 
• initiating an exploration and testing of Google Expeditions Beta along with Google Cardboard for use in the classroom
• proposing a new project to put iPad Pro's into the hands of teachers (as an interactive whiteboard replacement and to facilitate teachers being able to annotate, comment, sketch/draw/graph on the fly in class) through a two stage approval program

So what were the challenges and problematic areas?

1) With a group of four individuals who are given "carte blanche" to initiate new ed tech projects, there is no single decision maker to say whether it is the right time and/or place to start each project, or to oversee how it all fits into the overall vision for the school. As a result, what we end up with is a collection of projects all in various stages of development, which may be disjointed, out of alignment and sometimes even at odds with each other. Without a single decision maker, everything moves forward on their own pathways, but sometimes in different directions.  

With shared leadership - are everyone's views of a similar hue, or completely different colours?

2) How well the group functions together really depends on the different personalities involved, their individual styles, and how well they mesh together. Any friction or lack of trust creates disharmony in the group and the team breaks down immediately. We all know how hard it is to regain trust once it is lost, and how quickly trust can disappear entirely. Given #1 above, trust will always be eroded as friction builds from differing opinions on direction and vision. Conflict will also come from the simplest of things, like how the group interacts with each other, talks to one another, and is inclusive or exclusive. In fact, the team started off with a feeling is distrust due to how we came to even brooch the subject of shared leadership. As the school director favoured a business approach to leadership, he pitted the four of us "against" one another and was looking to appoint one of us to the director role. This approach forced us all into feeling distrust for one another, which we had to address as a team before anything productive could be done as a group. 

3) Following on from #2 above, I think that the current school organization with two coaches in the ES, but only one each in the MS and HS created an imbalance, as two of the Co-Directors work very closely together and tend to have a unified position on any issue. Not that this is a bad thing - having at least part of the group working closely together is better than not having any of the group at all.  However, this made making decisions about the whole school difficult with four "votes" in total, but an internal coalition of two in place. This last point is key if shared leadership is to work smoothly. Instead of having each member of the shared leadership team be all things to their constituency (their school division), they should all represent the entire community at all times. Or perhaps it could be divided up by school division, but in a more balanced way such as two for elementary and two for the secondary school.  

Epilogue on this last point - this re-organisation of the tech coaches has actually happened for this school year, but not for the co-directors role (I think the school just kept three co-directors now that I have moved on and changed schools).  I think shared leadership would have a better chance of succeeding with a smaller group than 4.  I can think of many dual partnerships which were spectacular (Lennon and McCartney, Jobs and Wozniak . . . you can add to the list), but it becomes harder to think of some great examples of groups of 3 or 4.  Too many chiefs or chefs in the kitchen perhaps? 

In retrospect, I am happy to have had the opportunity to work in a shared leadership environment as it provided a unique learning experience and collaborative work at the highest levels. If another shared leadership opportunity comes up in the future then I will be better prepared and so much wiser about what the pitfalls are and try to address them up front.  Can it work productively and smoothly?  I am sure that it can, and I wonder if it is happening anywhere out there?  Have you ever worked in a shared leadership role? Did it/Does it work? What was your experience like?  What were/are the challenges?