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Announcements/Important DatesProfessional Learning

Congratulations Certification Graduates!

by Peggy Reimers
written by Peggy Reimers

TCEA would like to congratulate the dedicated and hardworking educators who have completed a certification with us during 2018 and 2019. These individuals have put in many long hours honing their craft, networking with peers, and preparing a portfolio showcasing their new skills and tools. They did an amazing job and should be congratulated on their success!

Campus Technology Specialist Graduates

Voltaire Archelus – Houston ISD

Kristy Bowers – Hempstead ISD

Janet Crawford – Medina Valley ISD

Kevin Engler – Seguin ISD

Lynne Gubichuk – Midlothian ISD

Nancy Hermes – Liberty Hill ISD

Leann Kidd – Northside ISD

Mary Kuterbach –  St. Patrick Catholic School

Lisa Lafond – Round Rock ISD

Karen McQuaid – Duncanville ISD

Hilary Miller – Merkel ISD

Gerardo Novelo – Hempstead ISD

Janice Stewart – Canyon ISD

Denise Shaffer – Beaumont ISD

Suzanne Taylor – Clarendon ISD

Emily West – Metairie Park Country Day School

Heather Womack – Lago Vista ISD

Courtney Young – Lampasas ISD

IT/Tech Director Graduates

Angelica Aguirre – Tahoka ISD

Linda Burrell – Austin ISD

Tony Brooks – Athens ISD

Melody Baker – Pampa ISD

Veronica Castillo Baca – Harlingen ISD

Larry Dutcherm- Rosebud-Lott ISD

Matthew Grubaugh – Gadsden ISD

Seth Guttenplan – Community School

Justin Hermanek – Alexander Dawson Schools

Jan Hodge – Crowley ISD

Leann Kidd – Northside ISD

Kimberly Lane – Lancaster ISD

Ana L. Murray – Smithville ISD

Carla Norad – White Settlement ISD

ISTE Certified Educators

Nicole Allien – Caddo Parish Public Schools

Veronica Baca – Harlingen CISD

Suzanne Becking – Fort Hays State University 

Diana Benner – TCEA

Elizabeth Benno Lovejoy ISD

Kathy Boulet – Schools of the Sacred Heart 

Lisette Calderon – Colegio Brader 

James Demery- Caddo Parish Public Schools

Samantha Duchscherer – Jacksonville North Pulaski School District / ARKSTE

LaJean Elder – Ogden School District 

Bruce Ellis – TCEA

Sue Elwood- Texas A&M University Corpus Christi

Michelle Farque- Calcasieu Parish School Board 

Tammy Glass – Dawson Education Cooperative

Marybeth Green – Texas A&M – Kingsville

Ciane Grossman – Dallas ISD

Miguel Guhlin – TCEA

Ashley Guillory- Calcasieu Parish School Board 

Lisa Juneau – Calcasieu Parish School Board 

Angela Kiser – Calcasieu Parish School Board 

Lori Cole Miniet  – ESC 11

Tonia McMillan – Dawson Education Cooperative 

Laura Morris – Calvary Christian Academy

Peggy Reimers – TCEA

Jason Sanders – Northside ISD

Rechelle Shaw – ESC 11

Teresa Thomassen – Gaston County Schools

Jessica Torres – Lake Air Montessori Magnet 

Jason Trumble – University of Central Arkansas

Allyson Turner – Calcasieu Parish School Board 

Holly Veith –  Calvary Christian Academy

Michael Voth – Frisco ISD

Brian Williams II – Klein ISD

 

Chromebook Level 1 Certification

Kris Bumsted – McGregor ISD

Michele Herod – Houston ISD

Ursula Idlebird – Somerville ISD

Monica Maldonado – Diocese of Corpus Christi

Stephanie Sullivan – Homeschool

Khyati Sanjana – Houston ISD

iPad Level 1 Certification

Lew Coleburn – Dripping Springs ISD

Marissa Gould – Westbrook ISD

Bethany Hair – Northside ISD

Lisa Lafond – Round Rock ISD

Jennifer Smithers  – Salem Lutheran School

Would You Like to Get Certified? 

TCEA offers three certifications to assist educators in becoming more proficient in specific areas. The Campus Technology Specialist and IT/Director certifications consist of required coursework, a final project, and a portfolio. The ISTE Educator certification is a three-part process with a two-day face-to-face training, an online course, and a portfolio demonstrating mastery of the ISTE Standards for Educators.

Advantages of Certifications:

  • Stand out among your peers
  • Ensure your knowledge is up to date and that you are proficient in it
  • Provide additional value to your school by holding a certification in a specific area, becoming the “go-to” in that area
  • Show your willingness and initiative to continue your education

Campus Technology Specialist Certification

This certification is designed to provide educators who wish to become, or already are, campus-level technology specialists. The emphasis is on developing skills to help classroom teachers successfully integrate technology into the everyday curriculum and build capacity at the local campus level. The certification is designed for teachers, librarians, and technology specialists. Attending the 2019 Campus Technology Specialist Academy will earn you six hours toward the CTS certification. 

Technology/IT Director Certification

The Technology/IT Director Certification provides a program for educators who wish to become, or already are, district-level technology or IT directors. The emphasis will be on developing strategic leadership skills, as well as the ability to provide effective and engaging educational technology experiences for both staff and students. 

ISTE Educator Certification 

TCEA is a registered Certified Authorized Provider of the ISTE Educator Certification program. The ISTE Certification for Educators is a competency-based, teacher certification based on the ISTE Standards for Educators. This credential recognizes educators who understand how to use ed tech for learning in meaningful and transformative ways.

Featured image by Gillian Callison from Pixabay

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hyperdoc
Professional Learning

Hyperdoc Happiness: Transform Teacher Inservice

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Ready for start-of-the-year professional development? Inservice workshops may prompt a groan or two. That may be from the unforgiving cafeterias seats, the less-than-exciting lectures, or the lack of choice. That last item can be the most stifling for educators. After all, one of our most cherished values is the freedom to choose. In this blog entry, I’ll share some ways to get hyperdoc happiness going in your teacher inservice.

hyperdoc

Created by Rachel Marker (@rachelmarker)

Freedom to Choose

The freedom to choose, or the “pursuit of happiness,” is a regular casualty. Our expectations for adult learners may sometimes include “Learn what I have to teach you, even if you find it boring.” And educators seldom have the opportunity to choose how they learn. Not only do they have to sit through inservice trainings, they are often constrained by 20th century technologies. K-12 students, though, can exercise their options about the learning they are interested in.

Consider Dr. Chris Moersch’s H.E.A.T framework. Let’s take a look at each of the main components:

  • Higher-Order Thinking: Students learn/question at the Evaluating/Creating levels.
  • Engaged Learning: Students collaborate to define the task, the process, and/or the solution. Collaboration extends beyond the classroom.
  • Authentic Connections: The learning experience is relevant to students. It involves creating a product that has a purpose beyond the classroom. This purpose has a direct impact on students.
  • Technology Use: Task completion centers around student-directed technology (classroom or BYOD) use. It involves new and different ways of learning.

As you can see from the H.E.A.T. framework, what we are looking for is self-directed, relevant learning. This description of learning experiences, however, does not describe or define most teacher professional development.

How can we overcome that? How could we get closer to the potential of engagement and authentic connections? One approach might involve the use of a hyperdoc. Check out the excitement radiating from Kendra’s tweet below. Wouldn’t you like that excitement flowing from your inservice workshop?

hyperdoc happiness

Hyperdocs for Professional Learning

How could we get teachers evaluating and creating useful ideas about required school inservice content? This involves a level of engagement that grants teachers autonomy in how and what they use to create, and it offers teachers the opportunity to create useful content. Creating a digital, or even virtual, make-and-take session empowers teachers to design what their classroom needs most. Hyperdocs provide one way of accomplishing that, testifying to their popularity.

hyperdoc happiness

This is only a portion of Nadine Gilkison’s hyperdoc collection; see more. Follow @NadineGilkison on Twitter.

Explore the ISTE Standards via the EduQuest Hyperdoc

Curious about a hyperdoc to introduce teachers to the ISTE Educator Standards? Give this EduQuest Adventure a whirl. Grab a copy of the EduQuest Hyperdoc and modify it for your needs.

Get Started Now

Hyperdoc Happiness: Transform Teacher Inservice

As you gear up for teacher inservice this year, consider how easy it is to create hyperdocs. You have a wealth of resources and materials to draw upon. Nadine Gilkison’s hyperdoc collection is only one of many available. Here are a few examples Lisa Highfill, hyperdoc creator, has curated in her Back to School collection. Teachers will relish the opportunity to create content relevant to their work. If you’re worried that teachers lack the technical skills to build hyperdocs, make sure to set them up for success. Why not invite TCEA to facilitate our Google Educator Level 1 certification classes?

Photo: Mein Deal

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Digital LiteracyGood Teaching

Shift Perspectives with Global Collaboration

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

“Bring a lesson plan that you love, then we’ll blend technology into it.” I’ve heard this request a thousand times, a way to assist low-tech teachers plan a lesson. As a veteran educator, lesson planning remains a simple way to shift teachers’ focus. Often, the focus of the teacher is on the activities. But good lesson planning forces one to step back and look at the big picture. In this blog entry, we’ll shift our perspective through the use of the ISTE  Standards for Students and move from local to global collaboration.

Lesson Planning: A Work of Fiction

Since lesson planning is writing and organizing ideas, I had a lot of fun with it. You might say lesson planning was my first introduction to an idea. The idea? Creative nonfiction, defined as “true stories well told” (source). Lee Gutkind describes it in this way (revised):

“Creative” doesn’t mean inventing what didn’t happen. It is not reporting and describing what wasn’t there. The writer’s pledge to the reader is the anchor of creative nonfiction. That pledge? “You can’t make this stuff up!”

If you wonder, why bring up fiction or non-fiction at all, that’s easy. Lesson plans are works of creative non-fiction. Some go so far to say, they ARE fiction, a waste of time. According to them, the purpose of lesson plans is for some authoritarian administrator to review them. Then the admin will provide helpful suggestions. This supposes that lesson plans are those acts of creative nonfiction. I would argue they are not. And I’m not alone. Consider this perspective:

If you work for a district that doesn’t trust you to plan your own lessons and instead requires you to follow a scripted program with fidelity, then why in the world would you have to write down your lesson plans? They’re already written in the teachers’ guide that you’ve been told to blindly follow. If principals want required lesson plans, then a reasonable question is why. Why should teachers need to rewrite plans that they’ve been handed and told to use?

With the ISTE Standards for Students in mind, how can we shift these perspectives on lesson plans?

Start with the Standards

When you start with the standards in mind, you are stepping back to find greater significance in a lesson. One of my favorite student standards is that of Global Collaborator. In this standard, students use digital tools to broaden their perspectives. They seek to enrich their learning via collaboration with others. This means working in teams at the local and global level. The indicators for Global Collaborator include:

  • Student use of digital tools to connect with learners from various backgrounds
  • Using collaborative technologies to work with others and examine issues/problems
  • Collaborate and contribute in a constructive way as part of a project team
  • Investigate solutions to local and global issues

How do you work at the global level? Consider the expectation second grade students might encounter in an actual lesson plan. For example in Fig19F, second grade students must make connections to:

  • Their own experiences
  • Ideas in other texts
  • The larger community and then discuss textual evidence.

How do you make connections to the larger community?

Facilitating Global Collaboration

Ready to make global collaboration possible? In the past, we may have relied on websites like iEARN. While teacher-to-teacher, class-to-class connections are possible, even more opportunities exist. Here are some resources that may assist you in facilitating global collaborations.

Resource #1: GlobalEdGuide

Teachers’ Guide to Global Collaboration: This website encourages the  skills students need. They offer rich resources that will give you ideas on how you can bring global collaboration into your classroom. They offer project ideas such as:

  • GlobalSpeedChat: #GlobalSpeedChat is a curriculum that includes digital activities to use with your students to build an awareness of others in our world.
  • One Day in the Life: This project involves a student image exchange. Students exchange photographs/images describing days in their lives. Then they make cross-cultural comparisons.
  • Classroom Conversations: This project matches registered classes with a global partner class (or classes) of the same grade range for an asynchronous VoiceThread conversation.

There are many more projects available at the GlobalEdGuide.org website.

Resource #2: ISTE Connect Global Collaboration Network

It may come as no surprise that ISTE Connect supports global collaborations as well. ISTE Connect seeks to support network and collaboration year-round as a platform for ISTE’s Global Collaboration Network (GCN). The GCN seeks to:

Promote digital technologies for connecting and collaborating beyond the classroom walls. The Global Collaboration Network offers best-practice curriculum design. The design embeds global learning experiences into everyday teaching. The community shares tools and methods, curriculum developments, and opportunities for collaborations.

Connect with Amy Jambor, Anne Mirtschin and Makisha Rogers and see their ISTE 2018 presentation. They encourage the use of Twitter global hashtags, Flipgrid, Voxer, and Voicethread. One example they share is the Winter Around the US slides. See a list of global projects via this Google Sheet:

global

Shift Perspectives with Global Collaboration

The more connected our society becomes, the more essential global collaboration becomes. It goes beyond building cultural understanding and empathy. Teaming and problem solving with remote collaborators is essential. When you start with the ISTE Student Standards, you can take a broader view of lesson plan activities.

To learn more about how to best use the ISTE Standards, consider becoming ISTE Certified. Our next cohort will begin July 11 and others will be be scheduled in the fall. It’s not too late to register for the ISTE New Zealand cohort, if you happen to be in Queenstown on July 2 & 3rd. Register now.

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Good TeachingProfessional Learning

Five Guideposts for Making Learning Connections

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

How do you connect your own learning with others? One way that I create learning connections involves blogging. It translates into reflecting on my own efforts and setting loose learning goals. These flexible goals allow me to learn at my own pace as I move forward towards measurable growth. But I did not always approach learning this way. It began when I decided to blog for a global audience. In this blog entry, let’s explore what it means to be a learner in a hyper-connected world.

ISTE Standards for Educators: Learner

Though there are seven ISTE standards for Educators, the Learner begins with you. It puts the focus on you and how you can learn from others. The how involves taking specific steps that make you a student. In this way, you, as learner, are able to leverage technology to improve student learning. Here’s how you do that:

  • Set personal, professional learning goals to explore.
  • Apply pedagogical approaches that technology makes possible.
  • Reflect on the effectiveness of these tech-enhanced, pedagogical approaches.
  • Pursue professional interests.
  • Create and be an active participant in local and global learning networks.
  • Stay current with research that supports student learning outcomes.

Wondering how to start your journey? Let’s walk through a road map of steps to start.

Guidepost #1 – Set Professional Learning Goals

Not sure where to begin, where to sink your shovel in? Your goals need to be flexible and reflect who you are and where you are in your career. Teachers have to be able to set their learning goals before beginning any training cycle. For early to mid-career educators, learning goals tend towards curriculum and instruction. For late-career educators, extra-curricular tasks and innovations are more relevant (source).

From a coaching perspective, assist others in this process. Help them set meaningful goals and clarify steps to achieving those goals. Learn more about coaching others in setting goals.

Action Steps: Get a coach that can assist you in setting learning goals. Pick three technology-enhanced actions that you can start with.

Guidepost #2 – Apply Pedagogy That Technology Makes Possible

Making learning and collaboration at a distance serves as one example of this type. Dr. Judi Harris (September, 1998) described activity structures as design tools. These tools assist teachers in using the internet to achieve curriculum-related learning goals. Dr. Bernie Dodge and Tom March (1995) employed activity formats in the same way. In 2017, Lisa Highfill, Kelly Hilton, and Sarah Landis came together and their work resulted in inquiry-based learning and self-paced student-centric opportunities known as hyperdocs. From subject samplers to hyperdocs, technology-enhanced pedagogy has been around for many years. These approaches are inquiry-based, collaborative, and involve self-directed learning. Project-based, or problem-based, students must solve a problem using materials at hand.

Use Dr. Chris Moersch’s H.E.A.T. observational framework to describe students’ efforts. In the best ways, students engage in:

  • Learning or questioning at evaluating/creating levels of Bloom’s
  • Collaborating to define the task, the process. The solution extends beyond the classroom walls.
  • Creating a product with a real-world purpose beyond the classroom that impacts students

Projects and technology work well together. Well-implemented PBL develops students’ critical thinking skills, improves long-term retention of content learned. What’s more, it increases students’ and teachers’ satisfaction with learning experiences (source). How does the teacher gauge success?

Action Step: Embrace PBL, design thinking, engineering design process, or the 5E Model. Then blend in simple technologies where appropriate. Don’t be afraid to try DIY activities.

Did You Know?

A team of trained professionals is available to perform a technology audit. Whatever size your district is, our educational auditors can help. They will provide insights that can help you grow. TCEA is a non-profit association. The cost of the audit will be less than if a commercial entity did it for you. The team of TCEA Technology Auditors is ready to assist you. Make contact now.

Guidepost #3 – Reflect on Success

The HEAT observational framework provides some insight. In activity-rich environments like classrooms, approaches may not impact learning. That is why reflecting on an activity remains important. In these projects, students self-select technology. When designing lessons, teachers can use this simple reflection-on-action checklist:

  • Did students use tech to create something and then test to see if it worked? (Rapid prototyping)
  • How did students use technology to focus their work, how they went about it? Did students use technology to collaborate on a solution extending beyond the classroom?
  • When did students engage in a real-world, real-life problem solving opportunity?

Whether it’s a blog, an audiolog, or vidcast, make the effort to reflect on teaching and learning. Assume the stance of a community member peering into your classroom. What would they see? Without this reflection, we miss the power of transformation. Dr. Wilson and Dr. Alaniz suggest reflection must be active and persistent. How persistent is your reflection?

Action Step: Use a blog to keep track of your reflections. Share what you expected to see and what you observed. Explore the gap between the two.

Guidepost #4 – Be a Global Connector

Ready to get started with social media? You may have a Twitter or Facebook account. How do you move into the role of being a global connector with a worldwide reach? Embrace the power of ideas and change in your life. Find ideas that align to your efforts. Apply new concepts to your work. Share that online via a blog, audiolog, or vidcast. It’s that simple. You build your professional learning network (PLN) one step at a time, one person at a time.

Action Step: Connect with others online, pursuing your professional interests as an educator. Become a hashtag hero. Accept the #OBSERVEME challenge. Start a district Twitter chat. Make connections beyond your current experience.

Guidepost #5 – Curate Content for Yourself and Others

Are you ready to keep up to date with research on what works and what doesn’t in the classroom? You need to make it easy to keep up with learning new things. Building a global professional learning network is step one. Step two involves finding a way to manage the torrent of data and ideas coming at you. To do that, learn to curate content in ways that make sharing it easy.

Action Step: Adopt a content curation tool you can use to save and organize online content any way you want. Learn to automate sharing of content. Align your social media to your learning needs.

References

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RoboticsSTEM/STEAM

Engaging Strategies for Physical Computing

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

“I enjoyed the hands-on and engaging session,” said one workshop participant. “It was awesome,” said another. The session was Physical Computing and Computational Thinking. How can we make connections between teacher as facilitator and computational thinking? Let’s explore key design principles aligned to the ISTE Standards for Educators.

Did You Know?

You can get ISTE Certified via the TCEA’s ISTE Certification program. This digital credential recognizes educators who understand how to use edtech for learning in meaningful and transformative ways. Learn more about that opportunity here.

ISTE Standards for Educators: Facilitator

Though there are seven ISTE standards for Educators, the Facilitator one stands out. It stands out because it shifts our focus from the teacher to student empowerment. In the Facilitator standard, educators ease learning with technology. They do this to to support achievement of the ISTE Standards for Students. Several ways they make this happen include:

  • Fostering a culture where students take ownership. Students own their learning goals and outcomes, as individuals or as part of a group.
  • Managing the use of technology and student learning strategies. This happens with digital platforms, virtual environments, hands-on makerspaces, or in the field.
  • Creating learning opportunities that challenge students. Two ways to assure this include design process and computational thinking. The purpose of using these two approaches is to scaffold innovation and problem solving.
  • Modeling and nurturing creativity and creative expression. This is to make communicating ideas, knowledge, or connections more effective.

Let’s take a look at the first three points (fostering, managing, and creating). We can look at these via the lens of Physical Computing.

Physical Computing

Not familiar with the term “physical computing?” Wikipedia defines it as “building interactive physical systems.” You make this happen through the use of software and hardware that have senses and respond to an analog world.  Handmade art, design, or Do-It-Yourself (DIY) projects use sensors and microcontrollers. These devices translate analog inputs to a software system and/or control devices.

A host of small micro-devices are available in classrooms. From the Ozobot to Adafruit’s Circuit Playground Express to Micro:bit, they are legion. Even more of these small devices comprise the Internet of Things (IoT). IoT may reach 50 billion devices in 2020. Learning to code, control, design, and deploy is thus all the more important.

Strategy #1 – Fostering a Culture of Ownership

For students, owning an idea can mean having access to resources to make. In maker-rich environments, students identify a problem or innovation they want to pursue. They may solve an existing problem or develop a new way of getting something done. A culture of ownership moves beyond providing resources. It involves making an emotional connection that engages students in a problem. One way, aside from humor and personal stories, involves activating students’ imagination. This can involve students imagining a scene from a text or visualizing a historical scene. It can also involve taking an imaginary journey or teaching with controversy. You can learn more about using emotion to increase engagement and student ownership.

Make the Physical Computing Connection

If you want to foster a culture of ownership with physical computing, then try the micro:bit Global Challenge. Their challenge asks students, “Can you help solve a problem in your community using the BBC micro:bit?” They include cross-curricular resources such as lesson plans, classroom presentations, and student worksheets. See their teacher resources online.

Strategy #2 – Managing Technology and Learning Strategies

In this strategy, teachers assist in the selection and use of digital platforms. This can range from learning management systems to social media tools. In many situations, students and teachers may not have a say over what digital platforms they can use. The district or school governing authority may have said, “Microsoft Teams must be the one” or Google Classroom, Schoology, Canvas, and host of other LMSs. As educators, we must speak up and choose the LMS that least restricts student learning. LMSs in the past have shut the virtual classroom door. Today, LMSs are often working to serve as a gateway to learning beyond the confines of a classroom.

Make the Physical Computing Connection

Want to use a digital platform to engage and connect with others outside the classroom? Create a hashtag for Instagram and Twitter. Use your class Instagram account to share images of a problem in your community. Invite others to devise a solution for it. One example may be to create a night sensor for areas that are not well-lit at dark. Learn more about this idea.

Strategy #3 – Create Challenging Learning Opportunities

Creating challenging learning opportunities for students can involve design thinking and computational thinking. Both approaches expect students to break down complex steps into simpler algorithms. Computational thinking is a way of solving problems. This thinking has four elements which include decomposition, pattern recognition, abstraction, and algorithm design. Watch this video. Computational thinking does not mean you must be a computer science whiz.

The four elements of computational thinking appear below (Source):

  • Decomposition: Breaking down data, processes, or problems into smaller, manageable parts
  • Pattern Recognition: Observing patterns, trends, and regularities in data
  • Abstraction: Identifying the general principles that generate these patterns
  • Algorithm Design: Developing step-by-step instructions for solving this and similar problems

The goal is to make these elements student accessible.

Make the Physical Computing Connection

Students can learn to use diagrams to express a solution. This involves abstraction, or identifying general principles that generate recognizable patterns. Students make up rules that reflect an observed pattern. The Rock-Paper-Scissors activity with the micro:bit is one way students learn that. Students use “on shake” to create a reaction (e.g. rock, paper, scissors). Over time, students may notice a pattern. These patterns for playing the game (e.g. scissors, paper or rock) are observable. Students program the micro:bit so it can understand the game’s logic. Students learn to figure out the game in a way they can code into a computer (Source).

Want to Try Physical Computing?

Want to give physical computing and computational thinking a try? Contact TCEA for a face-to-face workshop. Don’t take my word for how much fun learning can be. Listen to Julie, and  Ethel, workshop participants, share.

References

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CTO/CIOLeadership

The Lone Ranger CTO

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

Are you a lone ranger CTO? The title comes to mind when I consider a conversation I had a few years ago. It also highlights a common problem in districts, the tyranny of competence.

The Lone Ranger CTO

“How many people are on your staff?” I’d struck up a conversation with a district technology director when we had run into each other at an annual TCEA Convention and Exposition. “I’m the only one,” she responded, “chief cook and bottle washer.” “You do the networking AND the instructional stuff,” I asked, “all by your lonesome?” Hard to hide, my shock was palpable. I had avoided those kinds of “demi-god” tech director jobs for years. They represented organizations who didn’t believe in appropriate staffing models. My opinion didn’t stop them, though.

“Yes,” she replied. Her hard smile spoke of grim determination and commitment to a job well done. No matter how wonderful she was, her organization had set themselves up for a difficult time. Let’s explore the role of the leader and a concept known as “tyranny of competence.” Those who embrace the tyranny of competence may be called “Lone Star” CTOs. They seek to dominate the heavens as the source of all knowledge, the star attraction in the Technology Department.

The Role of the Leader

If you’ve taken on the role of a Lone Ranger CTO, you have accepted mission-critical responsibilities. The ISTE Standards for Education Leaders define these responsibilities.

Did You Know?

You can get certified as an ISTE Certified Educator via TCEA. ISTE Certification is a new competency-based, vendor-agnostic educator certification based on the ISTE Standards for Educators. This digital credential recognizes educators who understand how to use ed tech for learning in meaningful and transformative ways. Learn more.

Leaders engage others as visionary planners. They set a vision and a strategic plan in place. They articulate an ongoing evaluation cycle for transforming learning with technology. As a director of technology, you learn how to build a strategic plan. You take an impartial measure of any project’s effectiveness. Then you are ruthless about pruning projects that deal with boxes and wires. You work to safeguard your most important investment, people.

Avoid the temptation to be a Lone Ranger CTO. Build a team that engages others. Once you decide to do that, the question arises: How do you lead teams whose joint work makes strategic plan implementation possible?

Avoid a Strategic Planning Pitfall

One way to lead teams is to assign key staff authority and oversight. This type of delegation works well. Yet empowerment can create a problem without the right relationship in place.

One challenge we face in limited numbers of staff filling many jobs is the “tyranny of competence.” In one district I served, paraprofessional educators filled the role of degreed staff. There, I encountered a challenge I have seen often. It arises in districts where funding is inadequate or not allocated well. Paraprofessionals are tasked with high demand jobs, yet are often not compensated or provided with requisite training.

In those all-too-common situations, one person becomes the problem solver, the doer. The organization comes to rely on the unique technical work that a person does. The more unique the work, the more powerful a person becomes. One symptom is that tyrannical technology staff block instructional goals. I’ve seen this happen in finance departments as well as technology.

When that person exits the district, the organization finds itself in a deep hole. “How did he configure the servers? Who knows the passwords?” are two questions I’ve heard after seeing a network engineer leave. Often, organizations compound the problem. They choose to replace from within. On the surface, this seems sound. Yet in districts with funding issues (many smaller districts), tyranny of competence increases; too much power and responsibility is given to someone who may be too young or worse, young and lacking the technical chops to innovate.

A Problem of Competence

Put experienced people of high technical competence in leadership roles. In this way, when you encounter inevitable problems that arise, they can innovate. That innovation moves the district forward rather than maintains the status quo.

For example, your network engineer is a high school student who began as a technician. Over the years, the technology adept student learned his or her trade on the job under a mentor. When the mentor with more experience or training leaves, the district faces a problem. With a mentor, the mentee could do the job. Alone, s/he lacks the skills and aptitude to research and solve new, complex problems that arise. The district continues with the mentee since it is unaware of the lack of depth or because it lacks funding.

In a few years, problems begin to arise. In no time, the district has assumed that the growth of the network has been commensurate with the needs. The truth is, the network is failing and big issues have grown expensive. A technology audit might catch this issue, but maintaining the status quo is top priority. A failure to cross train has made the district subject to the tyranny of competence.

Did You Know?

Earn TCEA’s coveted Technology/ IT Director Certification. It provides a venue for educators who wish to become, or already are, district-level technology or IT directors. Coursework includes sessions such as Building a Technology Vision and Plan, PLN for IT/Tech Directors, Creating a New Vision for Public Education in Texas, and/or Social Media in Schools. Register now.

Avoid the Tyranny of Competence

To avoid the tyranny of competence, take these steps when you discover a key team member is leaving.

  • Craft a transition plan
  • Schedule meetings to explore how this person did his job
  • Assign the how of the other person’s job to other staff
  • Adjust deadlines and expectations
  • Get all usernames/passwords for key technologies
  • Get a commitment for ongoing support for three months, at least, with an offer of compensation

Going forward, avoid tyranny of competence. Do this instead:

  • Hire new staff that can 1) work as a team and 2) have the requisite technical skills
  • Change the culture to focus on teamwork
  • Set your team up to avoid making any one person a tyrant of competency in a key area

Avoid Sudden Disasters

When you’re short-handed or key personnel are gone, you have to pick up the pieces. You learn to rely on technologies and teaming that differ from what you’ve done in the past. Avoid putting yourself as CTO under the thumb of tyrants, benevolent or not.

In my own work, I see cross-training as an absolute must. Have an important job assigned to one person? Rotate the job among available staff so each builds capacity. If you have a network gal who is the only one who can do network configuration, then you have to cross train. “No” is not an acceptable answer. We must teach each other what we know. That way, when we get hit by a truck at a gas station, the organization won’t have to struggle to figure out what to do.

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Lesson Planning: 5E Model + Tech with the ISTE Standards (Part Two)

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

In Part One of this 5E Model plus Technology with the ISTE Standards blog, we explored the Engage, Explore, and Explain aspects of a 5E Model lesson plan. For fun, we took a look at blending the 5E Model with technology from the perspective of the Dust Bowl. In this blog entry, we’ll continue our journey through the Dirty Thirties, focusing on the Elaborate and Evaluate aspects of the ISTE Standards.

Get a copy of the Google Slides version of this infographic

ELABORATE

  1. How? Activities that capture the students’ attention, stimulate their thinking, and help them access prior knowledge.
  2. Technology? Some example activities appear below.
    _ Forum (Google Classroom)
    _ Product creation
    _ Virtual field trip
    _ Ask an Expert video chat
  3. What Success Looks like?
    1. Students develop a solution to a real problem that incorporates their knowledge, communicating that in a variety of media formats. Students would rely on a combination of audio/video creation tools to articulate their perspectives and then express those online, soliciting feedback from the community and knowledgeable parties.
    2. Students could rely on VOIP tools like Skype, Google Hangout Meet, or Appear.in to connect with other teams of students exploring the Dust Bowl in other classrooms around the district or globe as appropriate.
    3. After self-selection of a design process such as the Engineering Design Process, use video documentary creation tools and/or virtual world (e.g. Minecraft: Education Edition) to create their representation of the problem faced. Then they would offer solutions from various stakeholder perspectives pertinent to their own group. These would be incorporated into their digital representations/creations.

Did You Know?

TCEA offers teams of educators, as well as individuals, certification in the ISTE National Education Technology Standards (NETS).  ISTE Certification is a new competency-based, vendor-agnostic educator certification based on the ISTE Standards for Educators. This digital credential recognizes educators who understand how to use edtech for learning in meaningful and transformative ways. Find out more.

EVALUATE

  • How? Students, with their teachers, review and assess what they have learned and how they have learned it. Students can be given a summative assessment to demonstrate what they know and can do.
  • Technology? Some example activities aappear below.
    • Video feedback on product
    • OneNote notebook with feedback
  • What Success Looks like?
    • Students create a OneNote notebook (or Google Slides/Sites) with embedded videos reflecting on content.
    • Students’ creations are notated from a perspective of real life usability rather than teacher satisfaction with a transitional student product.

ISTE NETS Considerations

The primary ISTE Standards addressed include the following. How would you extend these?

  • Innovative Designer: Students use a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve problems by creating new, useful or imaginative solutions.
  • Creative Communicator: Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals.
  • Global Collaborator: Students use digital tools to broaden their perspectives and enrich their learning by collaborating with others and working effectively in teams locally and globally.

Digital Tools

Curious about some of the digital tools available that could be used to facilitate this lesson? Here are a few ideas to get you started.

  • Intended Use: Empower students to  create a digital memory box to better capture resources needed for digital stories expressed as video documentaries or Minecraft virtual creations:
  • Tools:
    • OneNote + Office Lens: These two free apps, which work on a multitude of mobile devices, allow you to store text, audio, images, and embed videos and could easily be used to collect information. The Office Lens app lets you digitize content, snap a picture of paper items or photos, and save them to OneNote, a digital notebook. With OneNote’s built-in digital ink, students can easily fill in the chart and storyboard their digital story. The teacher can take those student creations, combine them with the final products, and publish them on Docs.com as a OneNote Notebook (which is free for everyone and works great on iPads, Chromebooks, Windows/Mac computers, and Android).
    • Google Photos + Google Drive:  With these two apps, you can save photos or videos taken with your device to Google Photos, saving content online.
    • Assorted Image Apps: Collecting images can be straightforward with mobile apps like Camera Awesome (iOS and Android), Camera MX (Android), and Google Camera. Image annotation becomes easy with Annotate (iOS), Photo Editor by Aviary (Android and iOS), SnapSeed (iOS and Android), as well as EyeEm Camera and Photo Filter (iOS and Android). Don’t be afraid to take advantage of green screen apps (DoInk for iOS and Green Screen Pro for Android) to further enhance photos, making your own green screen with a $1.00 Dollar Tree store green plastic tablecover.
  • Intended use: Video Documentaries
    • Tools:
      • Mobile Apps like Shadow Puppet EDU, Adobe Voice, and Storymaker 2, as well as MS Office Powerpoint (Windows/Mac) and iMovie
      • Screencasting tools such as Screencastify or PowerPoint Screen Recorder
      • Google Slides/PowerPoint plus Gifmaker.me to create animated GIFs that can be incorporated into video documentaries
      • Green screen tools
  • Intended use: Virtual World Construction and Digital Architecture
    • Minecraft: Education Edition
    • Office 365 accounts for students and teacher(s)

Final Thoughts

Students have a wide variety of technologies available to them at no cost, as well as others that tap into the Windows laptops, mobile iOS tablets (e.g. iPads), and/or Chromebooks that allow them to interact on both small and large screens. This interaction is collaborative given the nature of built-in collaboration options available to Google Suites for Education, Microsoft OneNote with Class Notebook and Microsoft Teams. Remember to start your engaging 5E Model + Technology lesson with a problem scenario and/or emotional hook. Then set up collaborative activities that facilitate solution development.

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Lesson Planning: 5E Model + Tech with the ISTE Standards (Part One)

by Miguel Guhlin
written by Miguel Guhlin

“How do you blend technology into a 5E Lesson Plan?” The question motivated me to write the blog entry, Lesson Planning: 5E Model + Technology. In conversation with a colleague just this  week, we reflected on the power of collaborative lesson planning. Co-planning lessons, including those that blend technology, enhance the actions and impact on students. In this blog entry, we’ll explore a portion of the 5E Model plus Technology in the context of the ISTE Standards, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and TPACK.

5e model
View this as a Google Slides Infographic Template You can Adapt for Your Own Use

The Value of Co-Planning Lessons

“Lesson planning is too important, challenging, and time-consuming to try to do ALL of it on your own…It’s wonderful to utilize the experience of other teachers and time-tested instructional strategies so you don’t have to spend as long planning out your lessons,” says Angela Watson in her blog entry, 6 Ways to Make Co-Planning Lessons More Efficient.

My first experiences as a first year teacher included trying to figure out how to best introduce a lesson to students. For me, the emotional hook, like the lead of a blog entry, had to be compelling. I often failed my first year. What saved me was taking the time to create a lesson planning template. Today, 5E lessons can take the shape of hyperdocs. If you must plan alone, remember there are many websites that offer suggestions. Let’s check out 5E Model plus technology in the context of the Dust Bowl.

Did You Know?

TCEA offers teams of educators, as well as individuals, certification in the ISTE National Education Technology Standards (NETS).  ISTE Certification is a new competency-based, vendor-agnostic educator certification based on the ISTE Standards for Educators. This digital credential recognizes educators who understand how to use edtech for learning in meaningful and transformative ways. Find out more.

About the Dust Bowl

Not familiar with the Dirty Thirties? This time came to be known as the Dust Bowl due to intensive plowing on the Great Plains that removed the deep-rooted grasses. These grasses trapped moisture in the soil during periods of drought and high winds. When drought plagued American prairies during the 1930’s for eight years, high winds kicked dirt and dust into the air. “The drought and erosion of the Dust Bowl affected 100,000,000 acres,” states a Wikipedia entry.

ISTE NETS

The infographicabove addresses three of the relevant NETS. Those include Innovative Designer, Creative Communicator, and Global Collaborator. The infographic shares activities that address each standard.

5E Lesson Plan

Let’s review some of the main points of the 5E Lesson Plan, as well as explore the technology connections possible. You can find the 5E + Technology Lesson chart in this companion blog entry. You will also find an infographic depicting some of the main ways the ISTE National Education Technology Standards (NETS) are represented in the lesson.

ENGAGE

  1. How? Activities that capture the students’ attention, stimulate their thinking, and help them access prior knowledge.
  2. Technology? PBL component, creation of video/audio explorations of a topic
  3. What Success Looks like?

“Quick, Jennie-girl,” cried Grandma, “cover the beds!” The clouds appeared on the horizons with a thunderous roar. The turbulent dust clouds came in from the North and dumped a fine silt over the land. Mom, Dad, Grandma, and I stayed inside the house. Sheriff Marcus would always come by afterwards–“How you farmers doing?”–to check on us after a dust storm. Each of us wore a handkerchief over our nose and mouth. When Pa went outside, he wore googles over his eyes because the wind was so hard. My job was to plug up all the holes, ripping up cloth and sticking them into cracks in the walls, doors and windows. It didn’t make much of a difference, though. The silt, like Ma’s talcum powder, found its way into everything. During a storm, Ma waved wet gunny sack through the air and tied damp sheets over our beds so the dust wouldn’t settle into our sleeping sheets. Pa’s face was gray; the wheat crop was dead. “Oh,” I cried, “how can we stop this from happening?”

Get a copy of the Google Slides version of this infographic

EXPLORE

  1. How? Enable students to explore their ideas, singly and in groups, in the classroom or at a distance. Provide students time to think, plan, investigate, and organize collected information.
  2. Technology? Students are guided through the PBL process, composed of the following steps:
    1. IDENTIFYING HUNCHES: WHAT WE KNOW, WHAT WE NEED TO KNOW
      Ask the following questions and have students work to identify their responses to the following:
      What hunches, or guesses, can we make about the problems, the people in the problem?
      What do we know for certain about the problem? Be sure to explain to students that these are certainly in the text kinds of answers rather than extrapolations based on what they have read.
      What do we need to know in order to help Jennie?

ONLINE ACTIVITY – To get this activity going, use a wiki page (or Google Doc/OneNote/Word Online) for each area with the titles above. Group students and encourage them to fill in this information.

  • IDENTIFY AND EXPLORE STAKEHOLDER ROLES
    Now that we know what we need to know, what stakeholders can we identify in the problem? Some sample stakeholder roles for this problem include the following:
    Farmers
    Local authorities, like police
    Crop buyers
    The government
    Children/Spouses of farmers
    Local business people
    Note: As the lead learner, I would not provide this list to students. They should tease it out of the problem engagement.

TPACK, Anyone?

You can also make TPACK connections for PBL models:

Content: In this lesson in particular, the required content knowledge is science, specifically the causes of weathering. Students need to develop a strong understanding of weathering, identifying what farm practices turned grasslands and wilderness into dirt and dust.

Pedagogical: The required pedagogical knowledge is the best practices for middle school students. PBL research studies at middle school indicate that this approach enhances group dynamics, student collaboration, critical thinking, and problem solving. It also increases students’ motivation and engagement (Sources: BIE, TFO, ASCD).

Technological: Students work in collaborative teams to develop documentaries that present the Dust Bowl problem from a stakeholder perspective and offer a relevant solution (Model to Follow, NonFiction Documentaries). Students also have the option to re-create physical spaces in virtual space using tools like Minecraft: Education Edition a la Block by Block approach. Students would also be encouraged to explore a variety of creation tools, ranging from WeVideo, Toontastic, or iMovie, and are invited to incorporate green screen technologies.

EXPLAIN

  1. How? Students acquire opportunities to connect their previous experiences with current learning and to make conceptual sense of the main ideas of the topic being studied.
  2. Technology? Giving this a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) spin, consider the following connections possible:
    • Multiple means of representation:
      Encourage students to organize their data gathering–and illustrate through multiple media–about their problem, stakeholders, and solution, as well as plan their documentary video (e.g. traditional or Minecraft-based screencast or blend per student choice). The organizational tool would be Microsoft OneNote, which provides ample ways to students to interact with content. Both students and teacher(s) can create visual guides students can interact with (e.g. semantic webs) with audio/video narration embedded. OneNote would facilitate decoding of text, mathematical notation, and symbols. Although students are not working with many other languages in this scenario, they could rely on tools like Google/Microsoft Translator apps to promote understanding across languages.
    • Multiple means of action and expression:
      Given a combination of available apps and software tools, students would have the opportunity to rely on multiple tools for construction, composition, and communication. Students could also rely on teacher-created rubrics for virtual space design (e.g. recreating the Dust Bowl situation and factors that led to it in Minecraft: Education Edition). Rubrics would assist student groups in self-monitoring progress.
    • Multiple means of engagement:
      Students will work in collaborative groups self-determined from their interest in stakeholders embedded in the PBL scenario relevant to the Dust Bowl disaster. They will work together to develop problem solutions that consider various demands and resources. The success of their solution development, whether as a documentary or virtual world, will be evident and defined by the rubrics they develop to assess their success.

Wrap-Up

We’ve only covered the first three “Es” of the 5E Model. Elaborate and Evaluate remain to be shared in Part Two (read it now).

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Embracing the Extraordinary at ISTE 2017

by Susan Meyer
written by Susan Meyer

Were you one of the thousands of educators in San Antonio this week for ISTE 2017? If so, we hope you were also one of the thousands who came by the TCEA Showcase. We had a lot of fun meeting and talking to educators from all over the world. We loved hearing the unique perspectives, challenges, and innovative solutions occurring in different classrooms, districts, and states.

At TCEA, we want to support you in your quest to have the most engaged students and productive learning outcomes possible. We want to introduce you to new technologies and new strategies for using those technologies in the classroom to make your job easier and to further student success. Our goal with the TCEA Showcase at ISTE 2017 was to provide refreshing bursts of content with timely and relevant takeaways that educators could add to their toolbox. Here are some of the ways we shared ideas at the convention.

Demo Slams

Our professional development team rocked the TCEA Showcase with a number of demo slams. These 20-minute presentations provided extremely valuable content in fast-paced, resource-rich segments. In less than a half hour, educators could walk away with an understanding of how to launch a digital breakout, new ideas for back-to-school ice breakers, the perfect apps for the social studies or math classroom, and much more! Attending a demo slam was a great way to pack in a lot of PD in a short time frame.

If you weren’t at ISTE or weren’t able to make it to all of the demo slams, you wanted, you can find links to some of the presentations you missed here. Check them out for some great ideas and resources!

Poster Sessions

Poster sessions were another way for educators to take a break from the hustle and bustle of ISTE sessions and exhibits while still learning. Presenters shared about a number of different topics from STEAM and digital storytelling to programming and robotics and augmented reality. Poster sessions allow opportunities for discussion and for the poster visitor to ask in-depth questions of the presenter. The relaxed atmosphere makes it easy to drop in for a dose of innovation before continuing on your way. For a deeper dive into one of our Monday poster sessions, check out my earlier post for some great STEAM ideas.

Always Time for Making

A big convention can be a lot to take in, so sometimes it’s nice to kick back and take a break with something creative. As part of the TCEA Showcase, we offered a little makerspace activity: creating luggage tags out of colorful duct tape. In addition to being a fun outlet for participants, it also illustrates how easy it is to create a makerspace activity without a lot of resources. Instructions were provided, but participants were also free to go off book and let their imaginations take the lead. Makerspaces don’t have to be expensive or high tech to provide opportunities for engagement. Duct tape is just one of many relatively inexpensive tools that can provide the foundation of a meaningful makerspace. For more great makerspace ideas, check out our FREE makerspace eBook Ready, Set, Make! It contains all of the details you need to get a makerspace up and running at your school.

Were you in San Antonio at ISTE this weekend? If so, did you make it the TCEA Showcase? We’d love to hear from some of our new readers and followers. What was your favorite thing at ISTE 2017? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section below. If you weren’t at ISTE, we’d still love you to share what ideas you are most excited about getting started in the new school year.

 

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What’s Hot in Ed Tech? A Sneak Peek at the TCEA Showcase at ISTE 2017

by Susan Meyer
written by Susan Meyer

There are so many incredible things happening in ed tech right now. From augmented reality to programming and robots, technology–when implemented well–can support student learning and create the next generation of confident, collaborative critical thinkers. TCEA is excited to share the latest innovations and how they can be applied to your classroom at our interactive playground at the ISTE 2017 Conference & Expo in San Antonio.

TCEA members from all over the country are coming to share their incredible wealth of knowledge. They’ll showcase what works in their classrooms, libraries, and schools and what doesn’t. As a sneak peek for our readers who will be attending ISTE 2017, we wanted to share some of what we have in store in the TCEA Showcase Area. This includes our exciting poster sessions and resource-rich demo slams.

If you’re not sure if you can make it to ISTE 2017 this June (although it’s not too late to register!), you can still gain a great overview of the trends, topics, and tools that will continue to revolutionize classrooms this fall.

Hot Topics

The interactive playground will be found in the TCEA Showcase Area at ISTE. Here, TCEA members will be leading the way with two-hour poster sessions on the latest in innovative educational technology. The sessions are more intimate than typical presentations, allowing attendees to casually drop in at any point and talk to presenters one-on-one. Here are just a few of topics that will be addressed, along with a quick crash course in why they’re getting so much buzz.

STEAM

The Department of Education predicts that STEAM careers will continue to grow at a rate of 14 percent over the decade–much faster than the national average. Even beyond workforce aspirations, helping students develop science, technology, engineering, art/design, and mathematics thinking will help them become better problem solvers and collaborators. And the tools used in STEAM can provide students with an outlet for creativity and new ways to communicate their learning.

Programming and Robotics

Coding and robotics programs are booming in schools because few technologies offer a better way to emphasize problem-based learning, allow for the direct application of knowledge, encourage hands-on creation in cooperative groups, and produce immediate results from new learning. Furthermore, digital and coding literacy is quickly becoming mandatory for students to understand the information-based technologies of the future. Programming and robotics curricula give students the skills and knowledge they need to keep up and succeed.

Augmented and Virtual Reality

Did you know you can recreate a 3D environment of a Civil War battlefield and have students experience a virtual field trip without ever leaving the classroom? Or they can imagine the classroom is a rain forest and learn about the environment while seeing bromeliads sprouting from the whiteboard and spider monkeys swinging from the ceiling. The possibilities for augmented and virtual reality being used in the classroom are almost limitless, once you learn some go-to apps and sites and how to use them.

Constructivist Learning/Maker Movement

Makerspaces provide students a place to problem solve and think critically without creative limits. They have a safe space to experience failure without consequences, to learn from those failures, and to set their own measures for achievement. Best of all, makerspaces don’t necessarily require a ton of tech, resources, or storage space to be implemented–all you need is the right attitude, approach, and strategies.

Learn how other educators are applying the above technologies and ideas in their schools! Check the ISTE 2017 schedule to find the dates and times of the topics that interest you.

Seeing Is Believing

In addition to the poster sessions at the TCEA Showcase, our incredible professional development team will also be putting on demo slams for attendees. These are fast-paced, 20-minute sessions that will provide resources you can immediately implement in your classroom.

These sessions are highly focused to give you an in-depth look at everything from digital breakouts to podcasting with Microsoft Sway. Have you wanted to learn how to annotate online videos or maximize your Chrome experience? Are you in need of fresh iPad math apps, classroom icebreakers, or terrific tools for social studies? Regardless of your grade level or curriculum specialty, there is a demo slam for everyone at the TCEA Showcase.

Register for ISTE 2017

There’s still time to register for the ISTE Conference & Expo, taking place on June 25-28 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio. The conference is a great source for learning the latest in ed tech from innovative thought leaders. Learn more about registering for ISTE 2017 here. We hope to see you at the interactive playground for the TCEA Showcase this summer!

 

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