Organization and Administration: Reflections on This Course

For my final post in the course, Organization and Administration, I've decided to do a videoblog post. On the heels of the Maryland Society for Educational Technology (MSET) Conference, I am inspired to lead by example. I enjoyed hearing from Chris O'Neal as he discussed how to bring technology to your school by modeling its use.

This video was created using the trial version of Camtasia. I think I am falling in love with this software!

Structure and Usefulness of Organization & Development Course

This blog post is in response to my graduate course assignment

An administrative/leadership team consists of leaders from a school with a variety of strengths and interests who come together to make a difference in the learning of all students. Typically, it is the principal, assistant principal, guidance counselor, department chairs, library media specialist, teacher representative and community representative. The consistency of the team varies from county to county, district to district. The Organization and Administration course provides students with an opportunity to work in small teams simulating real-life.

Concepts of the Course

The balance between team discussion and individual assignments works well for me. The weekly discussion topics provide a scaffold for the successful implementation of the Administration Action Plan. Because the goal of a well-constructed Action Plan is shared collaboration and data-based recommendations, the individual assignment would be very difficult without the structure of the team activities. It is also nice to be able to design components of the plan within a team structure, even though ultimately, we are individually required to construct our own Administrative Action Plan. We are able to model a variety of roles represented on a leadership team, e.g., principal, assistant principal, curriculum coordinator, guidance counselor, etc. We are also able to implement the use of a variety of Web 2.0 tools so that we can gain consensus from the team, even in an asynchronous environment.





Preparation for Administrative Roles

One growth area for me is in learning to be succinct. Sometimes (a lot of times), less is more! Within the team, I am able to learn how to communicate without the aid of visual cues. While we try to use video or teleconferencing application like Skype or ooVoo, we are frequent users of email. One topic per email means that you will probably get an answer! Too much information is probably going to lost in a sea of other requirements. Just as in a busy school day, an administrator needs to quickly identify issues that are immediate, gather needed information and communicate with necessary staff in order to come to a decision.  I am learning to use visuals in order to express myself and to clarify information. A picture says a thousand words, as do graphs, bulleted information, and charts.





Areas of Growth

Probably the area where I need to the most growth is in the financial aspect itself. Our team has created a preliminary budget, but there is so much that we do not understand. Exactly how much does it cost to get a substitute teacher in the building? Exactly how to do you know what that textbook costs, that extra planning period for a teacher costs, etc. I learned a lot from my team during this exercise. We represent five different school systems, two virtual, and we are located in two countries (and two different states). If I had to prioritize what I learned from the budget exercise, it would be to ask questions! People were very forthcoming with information and there is a lot available in books.

Steps for Change

I decided to breakdown this week's blog prompt into two different posts. You should read the previous post first before addressing this post.


What specific steps would need to be taken at my school in order to enact these policies [pertaining to the identified priorities required to integrate technology into the curriculum]?

Note: If any of the following audio files fail to play, please refresh your browser and try again!



Creative Commons Photo

Creative Commons Photo

Creative Commons Photo





Creative Commons Photo

Technology's Role in the Curriculum

Part 1 of 2:

CreativeCommons Photo

Over the last few weeks, we have analyzed multiple aspects of the Written, Taught, and Test Curriculums. The Wordle in the above image depicts my priorities with each curriculum in terms of technology. The ultimate goal for each curriculum is to educate the whole child so that every child achieves success.

The Written Curriculum should provide a framework containing standards so that it can be delivered (Taught Curriculum) in a variety of ways using technology that makes sense for each child in each lesson. The Tested Curriculum will incorporate technology so that each student can demonstrate what he/she knows and is able to do in a format that is best suited to his/her learning style.

My top three priorities for technology in the curriculum are:

1. The curriculum should promote the use of technology in the creation of authentic student projects
2. The curriculum should provide opportunities for students to learn how to select information and use it ethically
3. The curriculum should encourage the use of technology for communication, e.g., between teachers, students and families

I put together this slide show so you can visualize what I mean:

All images are from CreativeCommons and can be accessed at: http://delicious.com/christma/blogassignment3

Part 2 of this question is in the next post.....

Instructional Technology's Role in the Curriculum

This week's JHU homework prompt is:

· As a school administrator and instructional leader, what instructional technology would you expect to see in the written, taught, and tested curriculum of a school or school district striving to meet the needs of 21st century learners?

Written Curriculum:

As an administrator, I would expect to see objectives in the written curriculum that would allow for flexibility for classroom teacher differentiation. More than naming specific technology, I would like to see learner outcomes that are achievable through a variety of ways, especially through the use of Web 2.0 applications. I would like to see the curriculum itself generated through a shared, collaborative space so that teachers would be able to contribute their ideas for effective practices and network with peers throughout the district. When teachers are given the opportunity to implement best practices in order for their students to learn and be able to accomplish the given standards, teachers can address their students’ diverse abilities. Each student’s strengths are recognized and provided for as the standards are met in a variety of ways.

Taught Curriculum:

As an administrator, I would work to create a taught curriculum that contains a variety of interesting learning opportunities, incorporating multiple technologies for teachers to choose from to deliver the content to their students. Words would be infused into the curriculum guides that would encourage tiered instruction, Socratic seminars, compact instruction for acceleration and a variety of grouping methods for instruction. The written curriculum should encourage the classroom teacher to challenge their students to achieve the objectives of instruction.

Tested Curriculum:

As an administrator, I would like to see a variety of assessment procedures to prevent “one size fits all” approach that is common with high stakes, standardized tests. I would work to see the addition of digital portfolios that contain a sampling of learner products covering instruction from in different subject matter areas, during a specific interval of time. I would like to see the use of video tapes showing student progress such as in a discussion or problem solving situation. Self evaluation by the learner of a completed project or other activity would be facilitated through the use of weblogs. Objects constructed related to an ongoing unit of study, using rubrics the means of appraisal could be uploaded to Flickr, SlideShare, Google Applications, or any number of Web 2.0 applications. The Tested Curriculum would dictate what is to be assessed, leaving the how to the classroom teachers and/or schools. The assessment would be a combination of formative and summative. I would advocate for these additional approaches to testing to ascertain learner achievement.

· What instructional technology would you promote to differentiate instruction for all learners? Consider some of the Web 2.0 tools discussed in Week 3 and some of the tools/ applications suggested in the UDL discussion.

The instructional technology that I would promote to differentiate instruction would not be specific to a particular brand or application, but a category of technology. This would allow for newer generation tools to be applied and prevent the addition of an obsolete technology in the ever changing 21^st Century technology arena. I would group the technology according to data collection, graphing tools, presentation tools, poster generators, translation tools, video and animation applications and rubrics generators. It is difficult to stay abreast of the latest technology available and that is why I would advocate the use of a Wiki or other collaborative site to host the curriculum in order to accommodate the rapidly changing technology landscape.

My Philosophical Beliefs

This week's prompt is the first reflection for the course titled, "Curriculum Theory, Development and Implementation."

What are your philosophical beliefs about the purpose of school, about what subjects should be taught, and about how students learn? How does your work demonstrate your belief?

I decided to answer this question in a visual format, using the Web 2.0 application, Photo Peach. Everyday I learn something new from my personal learning network and this blog post was inspired by Peggy George, an educator from Arizona who loves sharing her Web 2.0 adventures through her blog.

This presentation looks much nicer full screen. Click the full screen icon on the lower right corner of the presentation window.


I hope you enjoyed my presentation. All of the photographs come from Flickr's Creative Commons.
Citations

Finding images in Flickr for inspiration or research is made easier by using the Compfight Webite. Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that increases sharing and improves collaboration. Many Flickr users have chosen to offer their work under a Creative Commons license, and you can browse or search through content under each type of license.

In addition to the references page which I have embedded as a Scribd Web 2.0 document, I have also bookmarked them on Delicious for easy reference. You can find them with the philosophy_presentation tag. I got that cool idea from another member of my personal learning community, Bethany Smith and a SlideShare presentation that she created.

I hope that in addition to my presentation, my modeling ethical use of information through the inclusion of a reference page, utilizing Creative Commons images, experimenting with Web 2.0 (this is my first Photo Peach preso!), utilizing the knowledge of my personal learning network all exemplify my beliefs in education.

I hope that you have enjoyed my views on Educational Philosophy!

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Full Clinical Observation--Post Observation Conference

What strengths and/or improvement areas did you notice about the environment and tone of the post-observation?

When watching the video of my post-observation conference, I noticed immediately that the conference exhibited a collegial, conversational quality which I contribute to my choice of settings. I intuitively chose to use the work area of our media center because it is out of the way of traffic and I knew that it would be conducive to creating an uninterrupted environment. A bonus about using this space is that it contains a round table. In hindsight, I reflected that when my administrator conferences with me, her preferred choice of setting is her conference room, with a round table! I personally like this format and I think it was instinctive to use this space for this activity because of my positive experiences with this setting.

When I first viewed the video, I had the sound muted and I just cued in on the nonverbal behavior; i.e., body language, eye contact, hand gestures, etc. Because we were sitting side by side, the teacher and I were both able to view the post-conference write-up together and I was able to address the artifacts I gathered by pointing to them at the same time that the teacher was viewing the documents. I think the environment that I created enhanced the conversation, but it was also obvious that the teacher and I had built up a relationship prior to this activity. Our first contact was when I initially approached this teacher about this assignment. The second was our pre-conference meeting where I gathered information from the teacher about the class, the particular lesson that I was observing and the curricular unit that it is a part of. I also had the opportunity to work with this teacher on an unrelated project earlier in the year and have come to the conclusion that the more an administrator can observer the teacher in a variety of settings, the better the administrator can gauge the quality of the teacher's instruction.

The main artifact that I gathered from the observation is a floor plan of the computer lab and on it, I denoted which students the teacher worked with, when he worked with them and for how long. I discussed this with the teacher during our pre-conference and he was interested to see the results. Working with students in the computer is more demanding that many teachers realize and I know that it is easy to miss a lot of off-task behavior and students requiring assistance, so that is why I chose this particular form of data-gathering tool. During our post-observation, the teacher quickly noted that his approach to assist the students was chaotic and it was evident on the chart that several students were not addressed at all in the 50-minute time period. The teacher said that he was going to use the seating chart in the future and actually assign particular seats for optimal learning. This class had 7 students on IEPs and there were several instances were I noted off-task behavior. The teacher concluded that if he had a seating chart and created a check-list of expected outcomes from the class period, he could walk around the room in a systematic way, checking off completed requirements and address each student in a more orderly manner, ensuring that each student was addressed by the teacher at least once. The form is below:


Computer Lay Out for Rm 230_observation

What strengths and/or improvement areas did you notice in the conference about strategies to improve instruction?

Overall, I feel confident in this teacher's ability. While there were definite areas of concern, the teacher is willing to take suggestions and is self-reflective without being prompted. He offered to me that he already changed up his lesson for the 2nd and 3rd days because of what he experienced on the 1st day, the day I observed. This lesson was unique in that it took place in the computer lab and that setting offered a challenging set of circumstances.

In the conference, which behavior did you seem to predominantly use? Do you think this was an appropriate approach given the developmental level of the teacher? Briefly explain.

I used the approaches of listening and presenting alternatively. I noticed that I did provide a few explicit suggestions pertaining to instruction for the teacher, but I felt that they were appropriate guidance for a first-year teacher in his first semester of teaching. I will admit that a couple of times, the teacher volunteered suggestions on what to do next time before I had an opportunity to broach the particular topic and it was comforting to know that he and I were on the same page. I think it is appropriate to use direct assistance to beginning teachers and it was particulary effective since we had already built up some sort of trust between us previous to this post-observation conference. I also think that since I am technically not this teacher's administrator, he probably looks upon me as a fellow teacher, which also enhanced the reception of my post-conference feedback.

Overall Impressions

I really enjoyed this assignment. This was the first time I was responsible for a full-clinical observation and it was satisfying to see the complete cycle; pre-observation conference, observation and post-observation conference. The teacher was receptive to my feedback which informs me that my technique was not off-putting. I plan on working with this teacher on another assignment in the Media Center this semester and we will discuss how the modifications that he made impacted the student learning. This particular observation also gives me much to consider as a future administrator because I found myself questioning the rationale that is used so frequently with new teachers in education. This teacher is part-time, only teaching three periods a day. During those three periods, he has 25 students on IEPs and each class has a special education co-teacher; a different co-teacher for each class! I found myself more upset about the situation than the teacher, because as a new teacher, he doesn't know how it could be better! The special education department in my school is frustrated with the lack of planning classroom teachers do with the co-teachers, but if classroom teachers must plan with a different co-teacher for each period and also have a high quantity of IEPs to plan for, then I don't see how there is enough time in the day for a teacher to do it all! I know the situation could be better because there are some teachers who exclusively teach AP courses and Honors courses and then there are other teachers who only have the assisted classes. Why not share the load? So the results of this observation not only had me reflect on the assignment to observe teachers, but the bigger questions of how teachers are assigned classes, and why are new teachers are given the more difficult classes and experienced teachers given the smoother running classes?

A Successful Arrangement!

The reflection prompt this week is to consider the physical classroom arrangements in our school in relation to the teachers’ preferred method of instruction. A supervisor can analyze the strategy that a teacher utilizes in order to maximize and support student learning. “Matching room arrangement with lesson purpose is a strategy for arranging the classroom in a manner to support the purpose of the lesson” (Evertson & Poole, n.d.). For students, the classroom environment is very important and the thoughtful arrangement of the environment will support learning goals for students.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

My high school has an enrollment of 2200 students in grades nine through twelve. My school building experienced a complete renovation in 2001-2002. It has two and a half levels, including and administrative suite, guidance counseling suite, media center, gymnasium, auditorium and multi-purpose classroom that can seat approximately 150 persons. Each subject department has a suite with a work area, several offices and book room. There are four computer labs for department (shared) use. The media center has two teaching areas, one with 35 computers and one with tables to facilitate group dynamics. During the summer before the 2008-2009 school year, Promethean Boards (Interactive White Boards) were installed in the majority of classrooms in my building (including one in the media center). Although films may be viewed on the Promethean, each classroom also has a TV (in-house and network cable) and VCR mounted from the ceiling (and must be located by the cable drop).

The teachers in my school are limited in how they can arrange their rooms by the size of their room, the number of desks that the room has to accommodate (as many as 35 in some instances), the location of the Promethean Board (Interactive White Board), the location of the Internet drop (there is no wireless access in our building), teacher computer and desk, window placement and the location to the entrance of the room. Also, many teachers “float” from room to room throughout their day, so unusual room arrangements may not be conducive to the teaching style of all teachers using the classroom.

In order to complete this assignment, I interviewed our full-time (in-house) staff development teacher in combination with walking around the building to observe a variety of classrooms. I found that there are three main physical arrangements for the classrooms in my school, 1) traditional rows facing forward, 2) each half of the room facing each other, and 3) some alternate arrangement to facilitate group discussion. Over half of the rooms are configured in the traditional model; however, many teachers will have the students move the desks around when small group discussion requires it. This is especially true in shared classrooms, where the default arrangement is in traditional rows.

One unique arrangement that I observed was developed by a novice teacher (less than three years teaching) and that was to divide the room into thirds (each cluster facing in toward the center of the classroom). This allowed for smaller groups of students to be arranged in a cluster and all of the clusters were facing inward so that they could see each other in a whole group discussion. This room did not have a Promethean Board, so the side of the room that did not have a cluster of desks had a clear view of the white board. It was onto this board that video and overhead transparencies were projected. While I was in the room, the teacher was working and she expressed her frustration to me about how she wasn’t totally happy with the arrangement, but it was a compromise. Her dissatisfaction stemmed from the fact that one of the clusters was even with the white board and it was awkward for the students to view anything projected onto it. Another cluster of desks hid the chalkboard (this was a math class) and students navigated between desks when they needed to use the board. We discussed how she could cluster 4 desks together, but she was bothered by the “cluttered” look it gave her room. Also, building services would have a difficult time keeping such a unique arrangement intact when it differed so much from the other classrooms.

While I was disappointed to see the large quantity of classrooms arranged in the traditional style, it did facilitate the use of the perimeter of the rooms, where the white boards and bulletin boards are located. Many of the teachers used the outside wall under the windows as an organizational tool to keep extra books, assignments, papers to be distributed, etc. All of the classrooms that I observed placed the teacher desk in a corner of the room nearest the Internet drop.

More than the variety of classroom arrangements, I noticed a variety of strategies to facilitate equitable practices. Once classroom (pictured here) had numbered the desk chairs so that calling sticks (for random calling) could be utilized. This instructional strategy keeps all of the students on task and paying attention because they never know when they will be called upon to answer. It also prevents the teacher from calling on a particular side of the room that they are partial to, or calling on only boys or girls, etc. Many of the classrooms had motivational signs on the walls and bulletin boards and all of the rooms had classroom expectations on at least one of the classroom bulletin boards. It was obvious to me that these strategies are the result of a combination of over two years focusing on creating positive classroom environments and improving the use of equitable practices. Our leadership team has created a one-page document of “look-fors” in informal observations to supplement the full, clinical observations. As supervisors observe teachers, they can easily see where modifications need to be made and this data is what we use to develop the staff development model in our school.

As ideal as it sounds to arrange the classroom for the success of all students, I think that a combination of factors need to be considered along with the desk arrangement. It may be easier to move students around than it is to move desks! Teachers with a difficult combination of student personalities will assign seats, use teacher proximity or other strategies to keep their students on task. It is through teacher interview in pre and post observation conferencing that the supervisor can fully understand the teacher’s rationale in the arrangement of their rooms. This was an enlightening activity and I found it to be quite thought provoking!

References

Evertson, C., & Poole, I. (n.d.). Case study: Effective room arrangement. In Iris resource locator. Retrieved October 5, 2009, from Vanderbilt University website: http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/case_studies/ ICS-001.pdf

Effective Leadership

This week's blog is centered around two central questions:

• How has what you've learned so far in this course shaped your concept of an effective leader?
  

• Based on what you've learned so far, what are the top 3-5 characteristics you believe a successful principal must possess?

My concept of what it means to be an effective leader has been evolving for several years, even before I enrolled in this course. I had random ideas of a vision of leadership, but nothing concrete that I was able to articulate. I did know a few things about leadership:

1. There can be many leaders in the building/organization besides the main leader.
2. There are different ways that a leader can be effective and it largely depends on the innate qualities of the person as to how they will become effective (drawing on their strengths).
3. A leader cannot do it all by themselves.
   

After being in the Effective Leadership course for 3 weeks, I have some new insights on effective leadership. Just as Leonard C. Burello writes in the preface of his book, Educating All Students Together, "we need to revisit the definition of student success and engage our communities in a deliberative, democratic planning process to determine how we will acknowledge and value new measures of student learning" (2001, p. viii).

1. Administrative leaders must assume a role as a public intellectual and practice servant leadership "based on a deep commitment ot values and emerging from a groundswell of moral authority" (Sergiovanni, 2007, p. 78).
2. Leaders should create a shared vision within their organization/school is what Peter Senge says "fosters a commitment of the long term" (Senge, 2007, p. 11).
3. Flexibility and adaptability are key when it comes to assessing our vision. Leaders need to recognize that "as circumstances change and improve, it is regularly revisited, discussed, wrestled with and reoriented" (Burello, 2001, p. 42).
4. There is a difference between school leadership and educational administration. Educational administrators make is so that school leaders can lead. They can bring about actions that allow the school leadership to achieve their goals. (Burello, 2001, p. 183-184).

As my own definition of effective leadership evolves, I am constantly looking at examples of leadership within my school district and assessing the characteristics that I feel assist leaders in becoming effective.

• Integrity--effective leaders do what they say and say what they do
  
• Honesty--effective leaders say what they mean and mean what they say
  
• Flexibility--effective leaders are not afraid to change/adapt to fit the needs of the situation
  
• Commitment--effective leaders are committed to improving student learning
  
• Realism--effective leaders are able to assess what state their school is in and realize the steps it is going to take to get the school to the point of the shared vision of the school community.

References

Burello, L. C., Lashley, C., & Beatty, E. E. (2001). Educating all students together: How school leaders create unified systems. Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press.

Senge, P.M. (2007). 'Give me a lever long enough...and single-handed I can mopve the world'. In The Jossey-Bass reader on educational leadership (2nd ed., pp. 3-15). San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons.

Sergiovanni, T.J. (2007). Leadership as stewardship: "Who's serving who?". In The Jossey-Bass reader on educational leadership (2nd ed., pp. 75-92). San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons.

Transformational Leadership

This week, one of our individual assignments is to reflect on what it means to be a Transformational Leader. After processing two weeks of assigned readings and interviewing a supervisor on what it means to be a leader, I feel prepared to answer this question!

We are teaching students for a global society in which we have no idea what that society will look like! We don't know what kinds of jobs will exist for today's students or what kind of technology they will be using. We need to examine how schools are organized so that we can provide today's students for this future. The paradigm shift required to make the necessary change to the school organization "demand[s] a fundamental shift of dramatic proportions" (Burello, Lashley, & Beatty, 2001, p. 77). The educational system as it exists now is in crisis. The call for educational reform has existed for decades. A Nation at Risk was published in 1983. No Child Left Behind Act came later, in 2001. Recently, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been advocating for changes and in his speech at the Forum in Education (2008), Gates said, "big advances only come when committed people study the same problems and build on each other's work." The new work of leaders that will create these advances is the transformational leader. "A new metaphor for leadership must replace the school commandant and charismatic visionary approaches that dominated our conceptions of schooling in the 20th century" (Burello, Lashley, & Beatty, 2001, p. 93).

The idea of transformational leadership will greatly impact school administrators. The system that they inherit today is not the system that they are going to create. Administrators will need to lead in ways that may make them uncomfortable. Peter Senge stresses in his book, The Fifth Discipline, "innovations in education represent a bigger task than educators can accomplish in isolation" (2006, p. 362). School administrators will be required to build a mental model that encompasses the shared vision of their stakeholders. They will need to create teacher work teams and foster trust and sharing. They will need to be patient, nurturing and empowering if they are to succeed. All of this in the context of an atmosphere where parents and community members and sometimes their peers value traditional, yet often out-dated techniques requiring the administrator to "communicate the school's mission clearly and consistently to staff members, parents and students" (Kelley & Peterson, 2007, p. 360). In my own school setting, many teachers are deeply entrenched in the thinking that "it has always been done this way," or "this is how I was taught," and it is very difficult, but not impossible to overcome these obstacles. My principal has allowed our new staff development develop a training program and supports her when the complaints come along. The principal publicly acknowledges her support which reinforces the staff developer's efforts. The staff developer always has a smile, an attitude of "let's go" and is a great listener. I think the principal is doing a great job of allowing the staff developer to lead. When I think of transformational leaders, the descriptors passionate, energetic, enthusiastic and visionary come to mind.

Performing transformational leadership will also impact the school administrator as technology is integrated with instruction. Technology flattens the playing field. Students become the master of their own education and work with their teachers to creatively solve problems. The collaborative, open-source mentality creates a world where everything is visible. Students and teachers reflect in blogs, create wikis to work through the curriculum, and communicate with students and teachers across the globe. This free flow of information sharing and "thinking out loud" can cause anxiety among administrators, teachers and students. My high school was lucky enough last year to receive Promethean Boards for almost every classroom. As exciting as this development was, it caused high levels of anxiety as teachers struggled to adapt the interactive white boards into their curriculum. The most successful teachers were the ones that worked together with their students to create dynamic and exciting lessons. While most of the students were new to Promethean Boards, it was amazing to me how many students were able to troubleshoot, create presentations and teach their teacher how it all works. These conditions can make leadership challenging in schools and this is why I feel that transformational leadership and servant-leadership go hand-in-hand. The administrator will not lead authoritatively, but orchestrate an environment where team building, leadership development, shared decision making and collegiality are valued. It is time for transformational leadership and I for one, am ready!

References

Burello, L. C., Lashley, C., & Beatty, E. E. (2001). Educating all students together: How school leaders create unified systems. Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press.

Gates, B. (2008, November 11). A forum on education in America: Bill Gates. In Bill & Melinda Gates foundation [Prepared remarks by Bill Gates]. Retrieved July 24, 2009, from http://www.gatesfoundation.org/speeches-commentary/Pages/bill-gates-2008-education-forum-speech.aspx

Kelley, C., & Peterson, K. D. (2007). The work of principals and their preparation. In The Jossey-Bass reader on educational leadership (2nd ed., pp. 351-401). San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons.

Senge, P. M. (2006). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. New York: Doubleday. (Original work published 1999)

Lessons Learned at NECC 2009

This post has been brewing in my head for the past month and I am finally able to put a few thoughts down to share my experience with my colleagues.

This year was my first attendance at the International Society for Technology in Education's (ISTE) annual conference and exposition. This was the last year that they titled their annual conference National Educational Computing Conference or NECC. In the future, the conference will hold the same name as the organization. Next year, ISTE 2010 will be held in Denver, Colorado. Note to self: pack hiking gear for post-conference fun!

This year's 2009 annual conference was held in Washington, D.C. and mandatory attendance was a requirement of the A&S Certification program through Johns Hopkins University, in which I am currently enrolled.

While I have been to many, many school library conferences (national, state and local), this was my first all technology conference and the experience was quite rewarding. I am still processing the conference in my head and trying to decide what practices and technologies I will add to my repertoire this school year.

In order to meet the needs of the large membership of ISTE (20,000+), they have developed Special Interest Groups or SIGs. I joined the Sigms (Special Interest Group--Media Specialists) and it was fun to see the people that I normally see at the library conferences and they were totally immersed in the technology--blogs, wikis, twitter, and all things web 2.0.

Any of the breakout sessions or keynote talks, ISTE can be viewed on their ISTEvision .

One of my JHU cohorts, Scott Smeech, has created a handy spreadsheet that contains all of the blog postings containing anything on NECC 2009. It can be found at Google docs.

One of the best sessions that I attended at NECC 2009 was the Sigms Forum. There are several reasons why this session is in my top five.

1. It was at this meeting that I realized the full impact of being involved in a Sig. ISTE has around 20,000 members and it is in the Special Interest Groups where the rubber meets the road. I sat at a table of folks that I know from AASL, ALA and our state organization, MASL. Our table had at least 4 different school sytems represented. I enjoyed seeing "old" friends (we don't normally see one another during the year), collaborating with peers and discussing the upcoming AASL Conference in the fall.
2. It was at this session where I realized the full impact of using Wikis for collaboration. The Wiki for this session can be found at PBWorks. The session had four presenters who are leaders in the school library world. Each speaker has links to their presentation as well as ancillary information located right on the Wiki. While the room was organized well for everyone in the audience to see the panel and one of two large screens, the audience could also follow along with the presentations on their own laptops. I was creating bookmarks as people presented. I took notes electronically on Word. I was fully immersed in the presentation and I was working on integrating the topics into my repertoire right at the time of the presentation. This differs vastly from past conferences where notes were taken down by hand on notebook paper, links were furiously written down to access "later" and I sat passively and listened to the presenter talk. I never seem to get around to looking at the website when I arrive home after the conference and what do I do with all of those pieces of paper containing messy scrawl that can't be deciphered anyway?
3. I fully realized the potential of the "back-channel". I didn't know what a back channel was prior to NECC 2009! "Back-channeling is the practice of electronically passing notes among some or all of the audience/students during the lecture. When sanctioned, this practice is particularly useful for speakers who are attempting to dynamically modify their presentations based on immediate feedback from the audience." (Wikipedia) The audience sent tweets on Twitter and we were able to contribute to the presentation or follow other presentations in other areas of the conference in a least distracting manner. The presenters provided a Twitter Search string to make it convenient to follow! Sweet!

I can't emphasize the full power of the Wiki and I have accessed this particular session's Wiki numerous times since the conference. The Wiki allowed the presenters to be engaged with ALL of the audience and address issues that they may not have prepared for in advance, but can insert into their presentation ad-hoc. This two-way interaction made the session much more meaningful for everyone. I hope to integrate the use of Wikis into my library media program this school year. Joyce Valenza, Library Media Specialist extraordinaire in Pennsylvania has converted all of her library pathfinders into wikis and here is one example. I love the the embedded search widgets and the interactivity that can be achieved with students.

Besides the content of the sessions offered at NECC, I was also impressed by the variety of formats offered. Among my favorite formats are:

1. Playgrounds--single or multi-day events that provide educators with opportunities to "play" with interactive technologies for creativity and learning.I was asked to volunteer for a time slot in the 21st Century Media Center Playground to demonstrate Twitter. I had a great time visiting with conference browsers as they strolled through our area and I managed to convert a willing few to the "dark side" i.e. Twitter!! Several of us who presented created a Diigo group for all websites pertaining to Twitter.
   
2. BYOL (Bring Your Own Laptop)--These sessions were a big hit. I attended Joyce Valenza's Library Tools Smackdown as well as Earth Mashing: Web 2.0 Meets Google Earth. I hope that Joyce continues with her smackdown format at AASL as I know that sheh is a regular and favorite presenter there!
   
3. Birds of a Feather--Informal, one-and-a-half hour discussion format providing a special opportunity for like-minded educators to gather and network. Great networking opportunities with like-minded peers.
   

The technology used at NECC 2009 was phenomenal! Wireless access was everywhere (okay, sometimes spotty, but it was nice when we had it), ISTEvision was taping in almost session, keynote & meeting and then posted online using Ustream, everyone was a-Twitter! and people were more apt to use their Second-Life name than their "real" name! This blog post describes some of the technology from NECC 2009.

That wraps up my reflections, for now, and I hope to continue my journey with technology at the AASL Annual Conference and Exhibition, November5-8, 2009 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hope to see you there!

Online Learning

This week was the start of yet another adventure in my quest for learning. I began a two-week orientation in preparation for a Graduate Certificate in Administration & Supervision from Johns Hopkins University. This particular program is unique in that it is a cohort of people who advance through the course together through a web-based format building on a research-based approach to online learning. JHU has partnered with ISTE (International Society of Technology in Education) and this course will focus on instructional technology.

The JHU School of Education gives this description of the program:

This initiative is designed to prepare aspiring administrators and supervisors with effective strategies and tools to deal with issues regarding instructional technology while ensuring that all students, including students with diverse learning needs, succeed.

The Electronic Learning Community (ELC) provides for ongoing collaboration for both participants and instructors. While using the ELC is new to me, I feel very comfortable with online learning and feel secure in adapting my knowledge of other web-based formats to the ELC. While I am still learning the unique features of the ELC, the scavenger hunt activity did a great job at directing me around the various features that the ELC has to offer students.

My main concerns about online learning center around my ability to remain focused, complete assignments without being in a face-to-face situation and organizing my time to be able to multi-task my daily job, home life and each course's requirements. I anticipate that being part of a cohort of individuals that I will get to meet in person in a few weeks will encourage me to be active in the discussions and will provide incentive for me to remain on target. I respond well to personal interaction and it appears that this course provides for that kind of learner.