ASCD
NHASCD President Gerry Buteau, NHASCD's "EDies" Award Winner Terri Forsten, NHASCD Executive Director Sue Copley, and yours truly.
Wikis: Solid “Old” Technology
One of the early tools of Web 2.0 was the Wiki. This was before Google Docs, Twitter, and the term Web 2.0 came into vogue. Ward Cunningham was the first developer in 1995 and into the early 2000s businesses started using them as interactive sites for their employees. Schools found their use before long and in 2001, the ubiquitous Wikipedia was launched.
In our school district we utilize Wikis as organizational devices to store documents, links, meeting agendas and minutes, and to provide live document editing during meetings. In the last year we have used one for our Curriculum Council, Assessment Committee, Wellness Committee, Math Task Force, Playground Committee, Technology Committee, as well as for my staff at Harold Martin. I’ve been a wiki member for outside committees such as a state wide group on Technology Standards, New Hampshire’s Chapter of ISTE, and I maintain a personal wiki to store everything from workshop notes to Twitter help.
There are three major wiki choices, PBworks, Wikispaces and Google Sites. Each have their advantages, but due to familiarity and ease of use, we have used Wikispaces most often. For the amount of space we require, Wikispaces meets our needs and if you verify that the wiki is being used for educational purposes, the site is both free of charge and free of ads.
Commoncraft produced a Wiki in Plain English video, which is three years old but presents a solid overview. I’ve embedded it below.
Don’t underestimate this “old technology gadget”. It can be a strong organizational tool in your school.
Apple Summer Institute for Principals
I’ll admit, when the email came in a few months ago, I jumped at the opportunity to attend the Apple Summer Institute for Principals. It is a sold out event and even our high school Principal Chris Sousa was not able to sign up in time. After one day here at the Colonnade Hotel in Boston, I have some thoughts:
1. Apple’s products have significant potential for teaching and learning, if districts can afford the quality Apple provides. It is difficult for School Boards to jump at the higher cost when a Dell Laptop or a Netbook carries much (but not all) of the same functionality. As a Mac Fanboy and someone who has both PC and Mac experience, the value added with Apple products can make the difference between a student truly integrating technology into their learning or not. But the price differential is prohibitive for some districts.
2. Apple needs to embrace the cloud. Our lead presenter demonstrated Pages (Mac’s version of Word) and the ability to track changes and make comments, a feature that Word has had for a long time. This technique was highlighted as collaboration tool. When someone asked about Google Docs‘, the presenter dodged the question and curiously, barely mentioned Mac’s burgeoning version of Docs, iWork.com. When I approached the presenter later, and joked that perhaps she wasn’t supposed to mention Google at all, she didn’t reply to my jest. Her colleague did admit that Apple has not promoted iWork.com and perhaps they need to. Let’s face it, iWork and iLife client software is powerful, but the future is in the cloud.
3. The iPad and iPod Touch are muscular tools for learning, but they are primarily input devices not creation devices. You still need a laptop or desktop to edit video and audio, to podcast, and to write larger pieces. Nonetheless, a combination of the three would provide a robust technology triad for any school. Apple should clearly define the distinct role of each device and package them in such a way to make them appealing and affordable to schools.
The Apple team here in Boston is truly knowledgeable, professional and cheerful. The event is well organized and is respectful of our time. More to come after day 2.
The Summer Principal
HMS Teachers cheering the students as they leave for summer vacation.
Walking through my local grocery store yesterday, I ran into two of my students’ parents, which in the town I work in, is generally a very pleasant experience. Both parents kindly asked if I was enjoying my summer vacation and without appearing defensive, I explained that I still work in the summer months, but that it is truly a more relaxing work experience. Questions inevitably ensue regarding what work actually transpires for an administrator during the summer. Here are some thoughts in no particular priority:
Facility Issues: After students leave for the summer, each school building must get back in shape. Truth be told, with hundreds of children and adults moving through the building for 180 days, we never really catch up until July and August. So, there’s a fair amount of careful cleaning and painting going on right now. In addition:
- For years I have been pushing to increase the size of our nurse’s office, so this summer, we will blast out a wall which leads to a small room and a bathroom. The space will finally reach state regulations.
- Our multi-purpose room will receive a new floor. Of course, this displaces the summer recreation program, but they have been quite flexible.
- I am pleased to state that we have a generous donor that is willing to contribute a sizable amount to help reconstruct our playground, now over 20 years old. Our resurrected Playground Committee is meeting regularly.
Hiring: We try very hard to hire before the school year ends but sometimes that is just not possible. We are interviewing this month for a part-time reading teacher and a new custodian. Both positions require a full contingent of colleagues collaborating on finding the best.
Summer Curriculum and Planning: Teachers are often in the building during the summer months doing work which is supported by the budget to a certain extent. We are focusing on topics as diverse as analyzing data, designing math and science centers, planning assemblies around our “3 B’s”: (be safe, be respectful, and be responsible), reading comprehension, our district math committee, and spelling. Next week I am working with a team of teachers to talk Professional Learning Communities and how we can modify our schedule to provide more time for teacher collaboration and targeted instruction.
Vision: I have an obligation to read and think in order to plan goals and develop vision for the following year. Next week I am attending the Apple Summer Institute for Principals in Boston (I hope to blog from the event) and I’ve been reading titles from Doug Reeves, Leading Change in Your School, Fisher and Frey’s Enhancing RTI, as well as mainstream books Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin (the story of Lincoln and his contemporary adversaries), and True Compass, the autobiography by Ted Kennedy.
Logistics: Then there’s reviewing handbooks, writing letters to staff and families, finalizing schedules, planning the first staff meeting…so much.
My Superintendent Steve Chamberlin cleverly states that June is Friday night, July is Saturday, and August is Sunday when one looks at summer from a school perspective. Right now it’s about Noon on Saturday. Still plenty of the weekend left.
Duncan’s “Principals”
The role of government in education has varied greatly in the last 30 years. Traditionally, the governmental power within education was allotted to states but with the advent of NCLB, the Feds now have tremendous power through mandated assessment and most recently, an infusion of cash to school districts which is nearly impossible to pass up but comes with major strings.
In a new video to US Principals, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan backs off a bit from previous rhetoric by stating that assessment will no longer be used as a punitive measure against schools. Clearly, this has been the major criticism from educators In addition, Duncan states that much of the federal funding for education and support will go to the lowest 5% of all schools as part of the Race To The Top. The tone in the video is compassionate and caring but Duncan is hardly comfortable in front of the camera.
These are some questions I have as we head into the summer before the 2010-11 school year:
- What will the attention on the bottom 5% performing schools mean for the other 95%?
- What will be the new mandates to states regarding assessment and the Common Core standards? Will this result in a federal assessment in the end? And who will pay for it?
- How will the feds assess our schools using the growth model that Duncan discusses? Will it hearken back to the work of William Sanders, the best known proponent of the “value added” philosophy?
Music Technology: A Level Playing Field
I just returned from the recording studio, a habit I’ve been able to maintain since the 1980s. Being a lover of both music and technology, I am amazed how the field has changed so dramatically in the last quarter century. When I first began recording, I played at a studio in Eliot, Maine run by Steve Buzzell and actually recorded many of the songs I played at my wedding. At that time, analog was all we knew and the click track (the beat that everyone hears in the headphones to make sure timing is on) was actually recorded by putting a mic up to a metronome. Later I spent years recording at Double Edge studios in Haverhill, Massachusetts where Dave Spaulding, now an ISP owner, was one of the leaders in New England in developing digital music technologies. I remember how thrilled he was to be hired to do the digital drums sounds for Boston‘s tour one year.
I recorded a children’s music album at Double Edge in the 1990′s with my buddy Jim Eaves, now a fellow Principal, and the drums, keys, and bass were all digital. Everything else was analog, although in the end, the recording landed on a DAT (digital audio tape) before being pressed to cassette. I also worked part-time for 16 years in radio and while I saw the advent of CDs take over from 45s and LPs, I left the biz just before complete digital studios were introduced.
Fast forward to 2006, and my church group Covenant recorded a live album produced by Grammy Award winning Studio Metronome in Brookline, NH, one of the top studios in the east. This is when I discovered how far digital music had come. It wasn’t just the recording truck that arrived at our concert to record every track….(every singer’s voice, acoustic and electric guitars, bass, keys, five or six tracks for drums and congas), but the post-production back in the studio. Using the Mac version of Pro Tools, the industry standard music production software, we could be so precise that if a bass note was incorrectly played as a Bb, we changed it to a C at the click of a mouse.
To record my monthly podcast I currently use Garageband on a MacBook with a simple Shure SM58 microphone through a M-Audio USB adapter. It is laid out in simpler but similar fashion to Pro Tools and while the features of Garageband don’t compare (GB free with Macs, PT tens of thousands of dollars for full featured) I can easily edit out my aahs and lip pops with a mouse drag and click.
My buddy Mitch has built his own recording studio, The Tracking Station, in New Boston, NH that I reference at the beginning of this post, and he is able to compete with some of the more expensive studios due to the level playing field that technology has created. He also has Pro Tools, some great microphones, and enough space to make it all work. He doesn’t have the band apartment for rent or incredible view in the country that Studio Metronome has, but at the end of the day, the sound quality doesn’t vary dramatically. iTunes has exalted the single song over the album and unknown bands can become famous through digital downloads, without a major recording contract. Technology also allows teachers, students, and the rest of us to express our artistry with quality and minimal expense.
Tech Thoughts for May
Here are some random thoughts regarding technology rolling around in my brain:
- Google Chrome is out of beta for the Mac. It is clearly the fasting browser I use; if I can’t get something to work in Safari or Firefox, Chrome will work. The biggest problem is it’s lack of support for 1Password, the best password manager out there for the Mac.
- I spoke to our Apple Representative last week. His best guess is that Verizon may come to the iPhone by Christmas. But does he really know? I don’t think so. I also had a chance to play with the iPad. Is it a big iPod Touch? Absolutely. But the Touch and iPhone are revolutionary devices so the iPad is a larger revolution. My wife is dying to have one. The iPad is a perfect non-geek device for content consumption.
- I admit that I am a Mac Fanboy. But my Droid Eris does not come close to the style, speed, and polish of the iPhone. I just don’t see Android becoming a serious rival anytime soon. Of course, if someone made a slick Android walk-through app for me to use when visiting classes, I’d carry the Droid around more than the Touch.
- My son Benjamin just graduated from Saint Anselm College this past Saturday. Can you guess what his gift was? I bought him a Mac Powerbook which was recently upgraded from the previous version-in fact, it’s specs are very close to a MacBook Pro. The difference is now nominal until the 13 inch Pro is upgraded. As a former Dell user, he’s a happy man.
- How can one beat the battle of the print? RSS readers such as Google Reader and NetNewsWire are excellent, but I think I’ve found something better. Give Feedly a shot. It uses Google Reader but has an elegant interface, excellent suggestions on new feeds to subscribe to, and an easy way to subscribe. It’s great for the Principal who needs to keep up with research, blogs, and news.
The No-Nonsense Doug Reeves
courtesy of: lecturemanagement.com
Every time I hear Doug Reeves speak it’s a bit like a whirlwind of research data, passion, and challenge in brief package. In fact, one Reeves workshop could fill ten blog posts and 50 tweets. Among many other topics at a recent workshop in Nashua, NH, he spoke of the Common Core standards which have just been released. Education Week has just asked Reeves to review the standards and offer his opinion. His positive points:
- K-5 grade level articulation. Reeves appreciates the work done at the elementary level. There is solid integration between grade levels unlike most standards documents which are so subject matter specific.
- Clear endorsement of performance assessments. Perhaps we may finally move away from the predominance of multiple choice exams as a way of proving student, school, and district achievement.
- Solid emphasis of nonfiction reading and writing. Through the years, elementary teachers have had a bias toward particular curriculum areas, such as environmental science and fiction reading and writing.
Of course, in New Hampshire we have a hard time accepting anyone’s edict, (Live Free or Die after all). Gary Stager quotes Alfie Kohn (who’s really a Bean Town Boy) as saying,
“There’s a strong political interest in representing national standards as being merely “core” standards and to emphasize that the feds aren’t driving it (just funding it!)…I’m troubled by the P.R. campaign I see: We’ll satisfy the politicians and corporations that want “rigorous, specific, enforceable, clear, defined standards” — but we’ll also reassure teachers that we won’t tell you how to teach. This doesn’t add up.”
I remember when Ronald Reagan wanted the Federal Department of Education to go away in a victory of states’ rights. It appears that Presidents G.W. Bush and Obama have at least one view in common: they want increased educational power in the hands of the feds.
Going Paperless
(Image courtesy: http://www.amalaserline.com/)
Thanks to a Twitter conversation between myself, and the Pams, @pammoran and @pamelamcleod, I’m thinking about the value of going paperless in my job and perhaps in other areas of my life. I have only just begun in this cause and while the environmental aspect of a paperless life is laudable, the organizational piece is where the value really lies.
Why paperless?
1. Yes, it saves paper. New Hampshire is still 90% forested, so we’re probably not in danger of killing that natural resource but the cost of paper can be significant over time. I approve enough paper purchases for the school…now if I can get my staff to stop printing emails.
2. I don’t lose anything. I consider myself relatively organized, but if I can’t get my hands on that elusive paper, I’m pretty ineffective.
3. It increases my productivity. Everything is in one place and accessible quickly. Paperless assumes the trend of powerful searching as evident in Mac’s spotlight, Window 7′s new features, and Google’s search. We’re tagging files more instead of throwing items in folders.
How am I paperless?
- I have been convincing those I work with to send me items digitally as much as possible. Very little comes over in paper except perhaps resumes, School Board packets, and timecards.
- I’ve been helped by the advent of software such as My Learning Plan which digitally keeps track of employee leave and professional development and BudgetSense our district financial system. Once upon a time, I would sign reams of leave forms and budget requests. Now, I do such little handwriting that my signature is all I write. In fact, as a natural result, my handwriting is now labored and messy. There’s another blog post idea.
- I’ve begun to use Evernote as a clever productivity tool to capture smaller pieces of paper. (Going on a spring conference to ISTE or ASCD? Keep track of your receipts that way.) I can take a picture on my Droid and access it on my iPod Touch as well as the Mac Evernote client.
- The office copy machine in my school has been configured by our crack IT department to easily scan an item and place it into my administrative assistant’s folder on our school server. She can then easily email a PDF version to me. I keep a paper folder for items to be scanned.
- Google Docs is beginning to be part of my work flow. This doesn’t replace paper among those who are digitally based, but it can be a digital alternative for many. This year our district had our Title 1 review from the Department of Education with the usual accompanying paperwork. Much of the writing was done on two Google Docs in collaboration with a half dozen people. We easily would have been trading hard copies without that tool.
- Of course, underlying all of this is backup. I have a separate hard drive connected via USB and I use the imitable Time Machine Mac backup daily. Most IT experts will say that there needs to be three sources for your data, your computer’s hard drive, your backup hard drive, and online backup. The thought is that if you have fire or water damage, your computer and backup are next door to each other and might both fail. One online backup system is Mozy which you can have for a monthly charge.
How are you paperless?
Haiti, 2010
There is no place on earth that deserved a devastating earthquake less than Haiti. Just miles from our coast, in our own Hemisphere, Haiti is one of the poorest nations on earth. Lacking in natural resources, suffering from major deforestation, and having to endure decades of corrupt government, millions of Haitians are now lacking their most basic human needs.
The question for us blessed Americans is: what can we do? Here are some ideas.
I’ll be updating this list and I invite others to contribute as well.
From our friends at Twitter:
- Text HAITI to 90999 and you’ll donate $10 to the recovery effort via the American Red Cross. The money is billed to your mobile phone account.
- Musician Wyclef Jean’s Haiti-focused organization, Yele is also accepting text-message donations. To donate $5, text Yele to 501501 or visit the foundation’s web site.
- Oxfam International has also set up an earthquake response fund. You can visit their web site to make a donation to this fund.
- To follow each of these recovery efforts as they progress, we can follow @redcross, @wyclef, and @oxfam.The Huffington Post, CNN, and The New York Times have spent time curating special lists to track events related to Haiti.
Also:
- You can donate to the American’s Red Cross’s work in Haiti via iTunes. There’s a simple “Donate” button once you click the large red cross symbol in the middle of the store’s set-up page. Donation levels are: $5, $10, $25, $50, $100, and $200.
- Hollywood Stars will be hosting a telethon for Haiti relief on Friday, January 22.
- Other diverse charities are involved in Haiti relief as well such as Catholic Relief Services, Oxfam, UNICEF, The Salvation Army and The United Way.
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