Remember the Past, But Always Be Present

I absolutely LOVE working with kids because it gives me a legitimate reason to keep up with pop culture. If it wasn't for children, I may very well have succumbed to a life of "90s music stations and watching NCIS years ago. Not that there is anything wrong with either...

Today was one of those days that I was happy to be living in Virginia...71 and sunny at it's highpoint...at the beginning of February. I paid homage to the Beetle convertible sitting in the garage by washing her off, shining her up, and driving her around town with the top down in this GLORIOUS weather. At one point, Wil Smith's "Summertime" came on the radio, and it almost felt like summer (if you could forget about the fact that all the trees were bare). I have to admit that I probably did turn up the volume to a slightly obnoxious level at one point today. 

I bring this up because while I enjoy a '90's moment like that from time to time, I also work very hard to live in the present. Why? Because it is what the kids I work with on a daily basis are living in ALL THE TIME.  

It makes me cringe sometimes when teachers and staff members I work with reminisce on old materials they worked with, and wonder why they can't work with them anymore. Living in the now is a very important concept when working with children. It's all they know. The past is "old school" to them, and they treat it as history as opposed to nostalgia. While it is OK to be nostalgic about Cole Porter, Frank Sintra, The Beatles, Aerosmith, NKOTB, or Britney Spears...yes, Britney Spears; as educators, it is so important to have the ability to acknowledge the past, but live in the present. Your students live in the present. You need to be able to relate to them. There are actually organizations in corporate America that encourage it's staff members to to read People magazine. 

Take time this week to truly relate to your kids and the world they live in. You may actually enjoy it! 

Getting Ready For A Safety Audit, and Blogging About It!

The nice thing about preparing for a safety audit within a few months of starting a new job is that I get to learn my new building inside and out in record time. The audit performed by our school division is pretty comprehensive: over 130 pages of checklists and requests for artifacts. Ratings range from "fully implemented" to "not implemented". I actually spent a good chunk of my winter break pouring over these checklists to make sure I had all my ducks in a row for a successful safety audit.

Here are some things I learned in the process:  

Review your previous audit, even if it was from a few years ago, and criteria have changed.

• What were commendations and recommendations made by the audit team?
• Are there any recommendations that weren't acted upon? Why weren't they? 

Have a variety of different people perform a "pre-audit" of your building.

• People who don't visit your school on a daily basis are a great resource because they will look at the safety of your building from a completely different perspective. 
• Ask staff members to tour parts of the building they wouldn't normally go. You will be surprised with what they will notice!
• Talk with your parents and students. Get their thoughts on how safe they perceive their school to be. 
• Police and Fire Personnel – Many secondary schools have police contacts, but not everyone takes the time to include the local fire captain. Reach out to them. Invite them to tour your building and give them an open invitation to your safety committee meetings. These individuals can be especially helpful in making sure drill procedures and routines in place are appropriate for the situation. 

Keep your safety related artifacts in one location.

• Each section of the audit in our division has a page that tell us which artifacts the team will be reviewing.  Much of the time I’ve spent preparing for this involved gathering these artifacts. They include copies of facilities manuals, MSDS information, maps, protocols, and handbooks. Thankfully, most of these are available in an electronic format, and the school system allows us to share the artifacts electronically. I took these artifacts and loaded them to a Google site I created. This way, auditors only have to go to one location to look at our artifacts. 

Many school divisions perform safety audits of their facilities every two or three years. Safety protocols and procedures can be effectively reviewed on off years by maintaining an active committee tasked with making sure components of the protocol remain relevant. Keeping those components in a format that is easily revised (like Google Docs) is helpful when corrections/additions need to be made. 

Teacher Concerns About 1:1 Learning

So...the school system I work in is going to be giving every middle school student a Chromebook this fall. What's really interesting about this whole thing is that the adults working with these students aren't being given Chromebooks too. As an administrator, I was lucky enough to get one to play with for two weeks. The teachers got to play with them in a "petting zoo" environment hosted by our technology integrator. I made it a point to make sure I did a LOT of classroom observations on it (we currently use Observation 360) and showcased it to the teachers during each post-observation conference. Thankfully, our school system has been very proactive in providing teachers with several experiences to learn more about how Google Drive works.

Since I've found out that students are getting Chromebooks, I've been asking the following question during post-observation conferences:

"How will this lesson look different when every student in your class has a Chromebook in front of them?"

This one question sparked a LOT of conversation. Language arts teachers talked about using Google docs for peer editing. Social studies teachers brought up the ability to research current events, attend virtual field trips, and create presentations without having to book lab time. Virtual labs were the center of conversation among science teachers, and math teachers were excited about using videos like Kahn academy as part of the spiral review process. Teachers have even started administering student assessments through Edmodo and Google Forms.

There were also some very genuine concerns:

• Will I receive additional training to teach in this new way? 
• Will students be able to take their state assessments on a Chromebook? (while laptops are OK for testing purposes, Chromebooks are still being decided upon.)
• What happens when a student breaks/misplaces their Chromebook? 
• Will there be a schoolwide procedure for keeping students' Google Drive folders organized? 
• How much "hacking" can be done to a Chromebook? 
• Will I be expected to teach everything using the Chromebook? 

Two things help ease these concerns:

1. Keep the Lines of Communication Open - Having conversations with teachers regarding their anticipations and concerns over this initiative helps in a couple of different ways. First, acknowledging an individual's concern can greatly help decrease the anxiety that person may be feeling in any situation. Also these conversations are wonderful opportunities to find out what any common fears may be. That qualitative data can then be used to put together professional development sessions that are relevant to the needs of your staff members. 
2. Understand that it's OK to say "I Don't Know" - Depending on how your school division manages its resources and implements its programs, you may not necessarily know how everything is going to work. If someone asks you a question, and you don't know the answer, say "I don't know. Can you give me some time to find out the answer for you?" Your staff members will appreciate your honesty for doing that. Just make sure you do get that answer for them!

This is going to be an exciting time for both our teachers and students. I think it will be a year during which the teachers will learn as much as our students do, and I'm glad to be part of the process! 

Increasing Teacher Comfort With Google Drive

Since every middle school student in the division that employs me is getting a Chromebook next year, I am doing my absolute best job to embrace everything that is Chrome; especially since there is currently no plan to give Chromebooks to the adults who work directly with these middle school students.

Thankfully, anything that can be done on a Chromebook can be done on a computer with the Chrome browser installed. I can still completely understand why teachers would like to have their own Chromebook on hand, though. It's all about increasing the comfort level. While our school system has done a fairly good job of providing opportunities for teachers to learn how to use Google Drive, (through workshops and online modules) it's really up to administrators to make sure they have plenty of opportunities to practice. Of course, we all know that the best way to practice any newly acquired skill is being able to apply that skill to real-life situations.

Here are some things people in our building have put in place which basically ensure teachers get to use Google Drive on a regular basis.

Lab Schedules - We have an amazing technology integrator who visits us a couple of days a week to share with teachers all that is cool and fabulous with technology. He worked with our library staff to create a Google Spreadsheet teachers could access to sign up for computer lab time. The revision history makes sure someone doesn't go in and erase someone's time and puts their own name in their place.

PLC Meetings - PLC Agendas are drafted in Google Docs. The link to the agenda is shared 24 hours before the meeting, and teachers are able to add items to the agenda. On the day of the meeting, one person types notes directly into the agenda creating instant minutes. The minutes are then stored on a Google site created just for the grade level so teachers don't have to go searching through their email if they were unable to make a meeting. The site also stores other important bits of information like meeting schedules, bus duty rosters, and links to state and division resources. In addition, I used tinyurl.com to create a shortened link that is easy for teachers to remember.

The School Calendar - Our office staff are responsible for keeping the calendar up to date. Now they put all events on a School-Use Google Calendar that is share with all staff members. I have gone a step beyond to place that very same calendar on the home page of the PLC site I mentioned above for easy reference.

Lesson Plans - I teach a class every other day for a small group of students who are in danger of failing the grade level. My plans for the class are stored as a Google spreadsheet that teachers can access to see what I'm doing. I've given editing rights so they can also list any missing or make-up work Some teachers in my building have started using Google docs to store their own lesson plans. One teacher recently commented to me that it is actually easier to store plans on Google Drive because she can simply share the plans with other members of her PLC.

I could go on and on with examples, but the purpose of sharing these is to get your own mind thinking about things you can do in your own building if you end up in a similar circumstance. It is my ultimate hope that teachers will be able to take the skills they learned and use them to assist their students when they get their Chromebooks next fall!

Best PLC Meeting Ever!

Image From - www.bn.com

I am a firm believer that the Professional Learning Community (PLC) model is one of the best tools we canpublications provide strategies that are easy to implement and can produce results quickly.
utilize to support teaching and learning for our students, and for one another. This purpose of this post is not to describe what a PLC is, or how to establish one in your building. If you want to start using PLCs with fidelity start by reading up on the Dufour's work on the subject. Their

The purpose of this post will hopefully paint a picture of why PLCs can ROCK!

Our grade level PLC meets every other week to discuss student performance, upcoming events, and discuss any issues among the grade level or the building. A couple of days before, our admin team meets to draw up a broad agenda, and I send it out to the grade level so that they know what to expect. I send it out as a Google doc so that they can add items if they need to. The really nice thing about using a Google doc is that the agenda transforms into the meeting minutes when our note taker types notes under each agenda item. I also have all agendas stored under a single shared folder.

On this past agenda, I added a line titled academics, and put this underneath:

• Language Arts
• Math
• Science
• Social Studies

I asked teachers to share with one another what was going on within their content area. The results were pure magic! The language arts teachers shared that they were working on the concept of comparing and contrasting. While they were discussing their strategies, the math teachers jumped in and said they easily integrate the vocabulary and strategies when they talk about graphing. Social studies and science teachers began to ask questions about reading strategies and non-fiction passages, and wanted to learn how they could help. I was soooo proud of my teachers! The teachers left feeling energized and ready to work. I really thought it was one of our best meetings so far. 

I've said before that I am new to this building this year, and the first thing I did was implement PLC procedures and protocols. I've also made the commitment to never miss a meeting unless I'm out of the building. Though these norms are revisited often, we still get off track from time to time, but bringing the team back to task gets easier; and when they are on task, there is nothing they can't accomplish! 

When Students Get Chromebooks

This fall, every middle school student in the school system I work for is going to receive a Chromebook. As a middle school administrator, I've been spending a fair amount of time researching Chromebooks in education, and even created a Pinterest board dedicated to the subject to share with colleagues. In my research, two major themes related to Chromebooks in education have surfaced:

• Implementing a Chromebook program within a school or school division
• Ideas on how to teach with Chromebooks

Ironically, there are very few sites dedicated to getting started with Chromebooks once they end up in the hands of the students. I am a firm believer that well-developed and implemented procedures and routines are one of the key components to a successfully run class. Effective teachers have procedures for practically everything: For handing out and collecting work, for whole-class and small group instruction, for keeping notebooks organized, for transitions...I could go on, but if you've been in a classroom, you probably get the idea. When students get these Chromebooks, they are going to potentially become their backpacks, lockers, textbooks, notebooks and libraries all rolled into one. 

 Picture From - http://www.eveningsun.com/

The interesting thing about the Chromebook versus the laptop is that all student work is stored in the cloud using Google Drive. I can still imagine students losing their homework, classwork or projects within their Google Drive if they haven't been properly instructed on setting up folders for each class, with homework, classwork, and project subfolders set up within the class folders. I can also imagine them getting off task while surfing the web if teachers aren't frequently checking in on students. It's my belief that there will need to be an established set of schoolwide procedures and routines in order for teachers and students to be successful with the Chromebooks. That being said, there will still be a group of students who will require some extra supervision. 

The teachers who are going shine brightest through this initiative are the ones who  realize there will be a need to rethink their teaching practices right down to the very procedures and routines they may have been using for many years. This is going to be a MAJOR culture shift. As school leaders, we can facilitate this process by doing the following: 

• "Walking the Talk" - We need to make these apps part of our everyday lives if we are expecting our teachers and students to do the same,
• Conversing with teachers regarding their apprehensions over an initiative so large,
• Providing short professional development mini-lessons to ease these apprehensions during faculty and PLC meetings; and enrichment sessions after school for those teachers who want to take the program a step further, 
• Asking teachers for their assistance in developing some general school-wide procedures and routines to help them get started,
• And carve out time during the instructional day for students to successfully set up their Chromebooks
• I understand I may get some pushback here, but taking some time at the beginning of the year to get everyone on the right page to begin with will make things go a lot more smoothly later on. 

While I anticipate some people getting frustrated and discouraged along the way, I also anticipate some wonderful success stories as well. Lending a sympathetic ear to those who become frustrated will be necessary. However, It will be equally important to celebrate successes, to provide opportunities for teachers and students to share what they have learned, and to keep student success at the forefront of everything we are doing.