The tweet above stirred some thoughts in me tonight.
This summer has provided me with many personal learning opportunities. This is the first summer in several years where I have had little vacation, because of all the “learning and working” I get to do. It started with summer school, which I wrote about here and a bit here.
Then, I had the fabulous opportunity to attend InstructureCon, put on by the awesome folks at Instructure, who are creators of the Canvas LMS. Our district moved to the Canvas LMS last year and when I was offered the opportunity to learn more about it – in Park City, UT – in the summer – when it would be 100+ degrees here – I jumped at the chance! And, I am so glad I did! I wrote a bit about it here and will be posting more about it eventually, as I solidify my learning and practices a bit more. Suffice it to say, I learned so much more about the power of our LMS, made made many new contacts, and have so many ideas to take back for our faculty that my mind is still swimming from it all.
Because I attended InstructureCon, I was unable to attend ISTE, although a colleague went, so I know he will bring back some great stuff. This is still one of my professional bucket list goals – which reminds me – I need to post that here someday. But, as I was looking around at all the fun I wouldn’t be having, I stumbled across my old (not really old, more like untouched for a few months – like almost 2 years) Twitter feed and found the #notatiste15 tag. Finding this tag allowed me to BE at ISTE, without really being at ISTE. This awesome idea was spearheaded last year by Jen Wagner (@jenwagner) and was continued again this year. There were so many things to do and see.
A bit about my Twitter past (@aquiram2011) – I have actually probably had 2 or 3 different twitter accounts. Every time “Twitter is the new EDU tool for teachers” has been promoted by techies and others, I have jumped onto that bandwagon with two feet first. But, each time, I have fallen off. It gets away from me. It’s too hard to follow along with threads in conversations the deeper they go – and I like deep conversations (almost as much as Tori Amos dislikes or at least distrusts deep thoughts đŸ˜‰ ). I always found great people to follow. I always learned great things and found new tools or resources. But, in the end, I just couldn’t stay connected to it in the way I felt it deserved. So, I let it drift away. I am a tiny bit afraid it may happen again, but…that’s for another day.
Back to #notatiste15 – while I was following that tag, I was also following the offical #iste15 and #iste2015 tags. By following these three tags and participating in all the greatness the #notatiste folks had arranged, I was able to watch some great keynotes, read far too many tweets, found many new resources, even watched some poster sessions live through the Periscope app because of Tony Vincent’s (@tonyvincent) awesomeness! There were live Google Hangouts for those of us #notatiste hosted by some at ISTE and some by others who were also #notatiste. This was a truly global, personalized, professional learning opportunity and I took full advantage. I have collected resources and have so many notes to go through while putting ideas together for next year.
But, is it up to the administrators to provide this ability? Aren’t we, as educators, capable of this ourselves?
Next week I am attending a Gilder Lehrman seminar on Lewis & Clark’s Expedition in Missoula, Montana. I have had the opportunity to be a part of several Gilder Lehrman seminars in the past and am looking forward to this year’s just as much as the ones I have attended in the past. These seminars always lead to new connections with teachers who are as passionate about history as I am, new thinking about old topics, and a new set of lessons and activities for my classroom. It is also an opportunity to visit a new place – so far I have been able to see Stanford University – 2 times! – (my DREAM university as a kid – no I didn’t end up attending)/San Jose & San Francisco and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas which led to the Brown v. Board of Ed site and two presidential libraries. I missed the New Orleans WWII museum last year, due to a move and my school year starting earlier than usual. Next week I add another state to my list of states visited and more resources for another content subject area.
When I return, I head back to work for two weeks of prep work before school even begins. I will spend time with administrators and the coaching team working on PD for our new and returning teachers. Many of the ideas we will be working on are coming from the opportunities many of us have had this summer.
MINDSETS
Too many teachers wait for PD to come to them. Then, they complain when it’s too,
- BORING
- A WASTE OF TIME
- NOTHING THEY NEED TO LEARN
- or any of the other words used to describe the prescribed, mandatory, often perfunctory and rarely followed-up on professional development offered by schools
MESSAGES
We need to step up, as teacher leaders, and show how learning on our own, often past the end of the school day, is advantageous to student learning and outcomes. We need to show it is fairly easy to do, can be fun, and is often full of new ideas or at least provokes thought.
CHALLENGE
We need to help teachers feel empowered in developing their own personalized learning plans, incorporating school and district goals.
Messages & Mindsets 