Imagine and Teach

On September 30, 2008, I began my adventure.  That day was the opening session of our Powerful Learning Practice (PLP) cohort.  At the opening session, Will Richardson and Sheryl Nussbaum Beach had us all sign up for this thing that I had not heard of….Twitter!

And so it began.  I started to learn what a personal learning network (PLN) was.  There was a lot of googling of twitter terms going on in my life.  And before I knew it, I was building a PLN.  And what an incredible resource that has been.

So what have I learned?  Well, this is by no means an exhaustive list, but here goes.

1. I am humbled by my PLN.
2. From my PLN, I have learned so much.  My delicious account is full of links I have seen on twitter.
3. Tweet and retweet often
4. Thank your followers
5. Be selective when choosing who to follow.  I pretty much keep it to teachers. Admins, and ed tech people
6. Don’t follow celebrities
7. I often check twitter before I check email
8. The amount of followers doesn’t matter.  This is not a popularity contest.  It is about quality conversation and learning.
9. There are many Phillies fans in my PLN
10. It is incredible to connect and learn with great people around the world.
11. Time zones
12. It is good to go “off the grid” every so often.  The tweets will continue and I don’t need to read them all. Balance.
13. There are some tremendous blogs attached to members of my PLN.  I read as much as I can. My Google Reader is loaded!
14. Go to Educon.
15. My PLN on twitter has brought me some of the best professional development I have ever had.
16. It is great to see and read innovative thinkers, even and especially when there are differences of opinions.
17. I can’t wait to see what’s next with my PLN.
18. I can tweet from my iPhone!
19. On occasion, I actually find that I have something of value to say. So for those of you starting out on Twitter, keep going and believe that you have something to add to the conversation. Because you do.

As I said, this is not a complete list.  I wanted to post this on September 30, but as blogging goes, that didn’t happen. So, if you are reading this, first, thanks!  And then, if you are not on Twitter, get there.  And build your PLN.

Thanks to my first 8 followers: @erikgerm, @lawdog0140, @lrphils, @antiprogress, @ncara. @shareski. @glassbead and @snbeach. You guys are still following me!  Thanks and thanks to these 8 and all of my PLN for teaching me, learning with me, and sharing.  Here’s to another year!

BY the way, my twitter ID is @horizons93

The days are busy for high school administrators. We have our daily management duties, teacher evaluations, classroom walk throughs, parent meetings, and much more.  Sure the days are busy.  But should we be so busy that we can’t teach a class?

Disclaimer:

Admittedly, I come to this discussion as an Assistant Principal who has taught a class for each of the 15 years that I have been in this job.  I also concede that there indeed may be circumstances where it is just not possible.  So what I want to talk about is what I perceive to be the benefits of an administrator teaching.  I welcome your opinion.

Each day, a teaching administrator who teaches one class has the opportunity to be what they are at heart, a teacher.  Having the class to look forward to every day keeps an administrator in a room with students.  In a room where learning needs to occur. In a room where reality meets theory.

I teach one class of vocal music.  I need to be there at the same time each day. I have students who count on me to be their teacher. I am out of the office.  I am not on the phone.  I am not checking email. I am teaching. I love it.

As administrators, we want our teachers to embrace best practices.  We want them to bravely embrace the web 2.0 world.  We want them to run their classes as learning places, not teaching places.  We want them to teach and model ethical, moral, appropriate and productive use of social networks.  The best way to do that is to lead with example and teach.

So why should administrators teach?  Because we can. Because we will want to continue to learn, which is good for our students and our teachers. Because it will make us better admins. It keeps our membership in the community of classroom teachers current.  Students will see us in a different light.  They see us as administrators, but if we teach, they will also consider us their teacher. Because the truth is, we are in our hearts, teachers.

It has been a while since I have posted.  The preparations for the New Year, final summer relaxation, the start of school and the belief that I didn’t have much to add to the conversation has kept me away.

Well, I am not sure how much I will add to the conversation, but I am promising here to post more regularly.  My goal now is once a week.

One of the brightest spots in my day is my one class. As an admin, I only teach one.  It is a vocal music class and I love it.  It keeps me in the classroom, which I think benefits any admin.  But that is going to be another post.  This year, my class room, known as the green room (as you can see) received a smart board. An excellent addition.

When we learn a new song, typically, I would print a ton of lyric sheets for the kids.  After all, they need the lyrics.  But now I have a projector and smart board.  So today I was ready.

When the students arrived, I had the lyrics to a new song on the board.  Put them in two columns so they would all be there. I said “Hey guys, is that readable?” and they said an enthusiastic “Yes!”

So I moved my keyboard slightly to one side so that I wouldn’t block their view while I was playing and we started to learn the song. And one of them said “the green room just got greener.” And so it has.  A paperless vocal class. It’s a start.

That’s right, it talks to me! Of course, by now, the word is likely out on the new iPhone 3gs and its accessibility functions. But it is a whole new world for me and many others.

I had heard about voice over coming with the new iPhone. Being someone who loves being connected, and a school admin who wants to see the newest tools, I have always been interested in a “smart” phone. But being a visually impaired person, there was little possibility of using one effectively.

But through conversations with friends, seeing online demos, listening to podcasts such as the mac-cessibility and MacCast, I figured the time might be now.

Conveniently, my wife and I were due for an upgrade on 7/11. So we went to the Apple store, and came hone with 2 iPhones! Then the fun began. Once I was shown how to access the accessibility functions, I was on my way.

Through the innovative way that this phone works, I can access all of the functions and most of the apps available to fully sighted users. I can type on it, read my mail, surf the web, use my beloved twitter, and so much more. I am learning how to do something new with this thing every day. Thank you Apple for building accessibility into your products!

So, I know this doesn’t tie in perfectly with a blog site called Imagine and Teach, but it is summer. And this is a transforming experience for me as I now have all the phone provides available in a usable way. But having this phone also reinforces my belief that cell phone bans should be a thing of the past. They can be used instructionally, and appropriate, moral, ethical, and productive use of smart phones can become part of what students learn, particularly at the secondary level. I know there are challenges when we permit students to have phones with them, but they have them any way, don’t they?

Teachers and admins, what is your school’s policy? What challenges do you think will be faced by schools if those with bans change their policy? Do you have any recommendations on successful instructional use, particularly at the secondary level?

Thanks for taking the time to read this and enjoy summer!

As we wrapped up another school year, book collection became a major process.  For the past few weeks since school ended, the steady stream of students and parents coming in to turn in books or to pay for lost ones has been the focus of much activity. And the replacement charge is always high, in the $70 range.

Well, I was thinking. With the nature of content these days, the ability to collaborate, the growing use of the cloud, iPods, iPhones, netbooks and other mobile devices, has the long-standing image of the textbook as an essential instructional tool begun to fade?

I don’t mean the format of the textbook.  Sure it could become an e-book, or a Kindle book.  I mean cease to exist.  I am just asking. We have seen the demise of the encyclopedia.  Isn’t a textbook a subject specific encyclopedia?

I know that Gov. Schwarzenegger has proposed something like this for California and has pointed out the savings that could be generated. It would be huge.  It would be a challenge. But it could be worth it.

In addition to the financial benefits, is it possible that learning would increase if we had to teach without the text and students had to learn without it?  Possible?  Imminent? Crazy idea?

Thanks for taking the time to read this.  Please feel free to comment.

With the advent of netbooks, the possibility of a 1 to 1 school has become considerably more economically feasible. Looking at my own school, a large high school, I remember how we looked at a 1 to 1 laptop program in the mid 1990’s.  The program didn’t  get off the ground due to the cost of laptops at the time and a lack of evidence as to how they could be used in school to increase achievement.

Well now here we are, focused on learning.  And the infinite array of online tools, such as Google Docs, You Tube, wikis, blogs, moodle, animoto, slideshare, and ning to name a few, combined with the ability to co-create and connect globally makes 1 to 1 make so much sense. And now netbooks are here.

Netbooks are smaller, lighter, and affordable.  If we had netbooks and could eliminate the need for calculators and consumable books such as workbooks, the cost per family might even be less!

So I am looking for schools that have gone 1 to 1.  If you have, here are some questions:

• When did you start?
• Did you start with the entire school or with a pilot group?
• Do the parents buy the computers through the school or on their own?
• What infrastructural changes did you have to implement?
• Anyone doing this with netbooks yet?

Thanks for any comments.  I could ask a ton more questions!

Just this past Tuesday, we had our culminating celebration for our PLP cohort, The Archdiocese of Philadelphia Cohort.  The cohort included teams from all 20 of our high schools.

Prior to September 30, I was not a web 2.0 guy.  I had never tweeted, blogged, facebooked, wiki’d, or ninged.  I will admit to being one of those teachers who saw no benefit in social networking. But then PLP happened. I met Will Richardson, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, and Clarence Fisher. At the opening meeting, they had us all sign up on twitter, join the wiki, and join our PLP ning site. And then the fun, and the learning began.

As I ventured into our ning site, the discussions became lively, Many of us found ourselves pushing boundaries and questioning convention. As the ning grew, the conversations grew as well. Then there is twitter.

Like so many others, I started with twitter, not understanding how this could possibly be useful.  started to follow a few people that Will, Sheryl, and Clarence were following. Then  following some of those whose @name appeared after that RT thing. (Which took me a while to understand was just a retweet!) As I read what was being posted, I was humbled.  Feeling way behind despite my years in education, I kept reading, found out the value of reading blogs, and joined some other nings. Clicked on as many ustream broadcasts as I could and tweeted as many things as I could to get use to this new found personal learning network. Thanks to all I have met on twitter for teaching me and sharing.

And now the PLP year is over. But not really.  Our school team has set up a ning for our faculty.  I have a wiki for my class.  I have this blog.  And I now have a pretty good understanding of twitter! Here is our  PLP wiki.

But most importantly, PLP has opened my eyes to the possibilities for our students. There is so much to learn, so much to share, and so much to change.

Thanks to Will, Sheryl, and Clarence for their leadership, push backs, take aways, and encouragement.  And thanks to all of the cohort members. We have established a community that will continue, to share, continue to grow, and continue to learn.  The journey has begun. Thanks PLP!

I recently was fortunate enough to attend a presentation by Daniel Pink. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia Office of Catholic Education hosted the presentation for administrators from our elementary and secondary schools. It was a great event and an indication of the vision shown by the office.

Having read A Whole New Mind, I was really looking forward to the day, and I was not disappointed. Pink’s talk was outstanding and got me thinking about many things, one of which is the subject of this post. I am sure that I have been driving family, friends,  and teachers crazy with my energetic response to this book. So I thought it was time to share an idea that came to me through it.

One of the ideas that is deemed important in the book is that of story.  Pink asks the reader to recall two facts from earlier in the book. I will not spoil this for those who have not yet read the book, but I can elaborate a little.  There were 2 questions.  I could not remember the answer to the first one, but could the other.  This was what the author expected.  How did I recall the answer to the second?  Because the answer sought was part of a story told. That cemented the “story” idea for me.

So here I am a Catholic High School administrator. Increasing enrollment is always a goal.  It is always a challenge, and the current state of our economy does not make it any easier.

But our mission is clear. We have a long tradition of outstanding education embedded with Gospel values. We have a storied history. We are starting to embrace the great shifts in teaching and learning. So what’s our story?

Recruitment has become a major part of our efforts.  Would story help? Facts, stats, and statements are no longer enough. Think of all of the grads we have who have tremendous stories that began in our schools. How can we gather them and use them to tell our story?  If Daniel Pink is right, and I truly believe he is, this could really help to get the word out on  our schools and help us to continue to grow so that these great stories will continue.

I welcome comments, suggestions and ideas,

The benefit of arts education has been widely documented,

But what I want to discuss is my first hand experience with high school theatre. (I don’t know why, but we have always used the British spelling.) I just finished directing our school’s production of The Wedding Singer. We had a student company of about 135 including cast, crew, and musicians. The show was a huge success.  Every student contributed to the effort.

So what we had was a large group of students, engaged in an activity that started when we returned from Christmas break.  And when I say engaged I mean it. The evenings during the week were filled with staging, singing, dancing, and dialogue rehearsals.  The band rehearsed once or twice a week in the early going.  The stage crew worked every Saturday and many Fridays after school. And as we got closer to opening, the rehearsal schedule intensified. ,During the last two weeks, all of the parts are put together, and a show is born. Tons of work, and tons of learning.

I call the stage crew our imagineers. Not only do they build the set, paint,, it light it, and mic the actors and band, they identify challenges, suggest ideas, come up with solutions and in short make the perceived impossible truly possible.

One simple example.  As in the movie, the character of Glen arrives in his Delorean. So, we needed one.  A friend fabricated a sheet metal door for the car.  Then the imagineering began.  The door needed a frame.  It needed to be mounted on something, and it needed to open the correct way. So a few members of the crew got together,, went to an auto parts store, bought a hydraulic strut, built a frame, edited the sound effect and the” Delorean” was ready. This process was repeated with the entire set, parts of which left the audience scratching their heads wondering how it was done!

So last night, we closed the show.  And my wife, our choreographer and my assistant director referred to our theatre program as one of the best classrooms in our school. And she was right. What these kids accomplished was much more than five outstanding performances.  Sure we  had a script and a score, but the rest had to be imagined.  The actors had to use left brain thinking to remember lines and blocking, but had to bring life to that with creativity and imagination. They learned to collaborate, to lead to follow, to inquire, and to create.

And assessment?  Each night the audience provided authentic assessment for all of us.  The laughs, the applause, the standing ovations were real.  As were the notes we gave to the students after each performance.

Sure we challenge them.  And they challenge themselves.  There are tough rehearsals, unexpected challenges, great audiences and tougher crowds,  BUt thrugh it all, learning occurs. And the students are at the center of it all.

Kudos to every school that supports its theatre program.

Now we plan the next one.

You can see some images of the show here.  By the way, the lighting you see in the photos was ultimately designed by a student..  Pretty cool.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

It has taken me several weeks to collect the thoughts in my head for this post, so here goes.

On Sunday, January 25, 2009 my wife Denise and I were driving back from EduCon 2.1.On the way home, my cell rang.  It was a call from a colleague giving us some very sad and tragic news.  One of our grads, John Williamson ‘05 had just lost his life in a car accident. John was also very close to us as he was in our theatre program, having been in many shows and also having played Ebenezzer Scrooge in A CHRISTMAS CAROL and jesus in GODSPELL.

As teachers, we never want to see our students go before we do.  This was stunning news and made the ride home a very quiet one.

The week began, and I found myself in an uncharacteristic fog.  We are working on yet another show and the memories of John were right in front of us.

On Tuesday, I received a call from John’s older brother Dan, also a grad and a theatre grad.  He called to ask if our choir, the choir that both he and John were active members of, could sing during the viewing at the Church. I immediately said of course,  He also asked if it would be OK if some of the grads of the choir could join us.  I said that would be great.

So I contacted a few grads and asked them to spread the word.  So that’s where facebook comes in.  They spread the word.  Students came home from college, came home from their jobs, and came to sing. JOhn’s family encouraged us to sing wit the energy that we usually do and we did.  We started quietly, then did some Godspell and a song called “God Bless Us Everyone” from A Christmas carol. A little Broadway in a Church and it was so right.

To see these kids, our current students and our grads, sharing their talents, and their grief was incredible.  The ties that bind were so evident. I am personally so grateful to them for bringing what they did to this sad occasion.

Flash forward to Ash Wednesday and the Gospel.  I am on stage with the choir, standing listening to the Gospel. It is from Matthew, the Gospel on which Godspell is based. It was  Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-18. Here is a section of it:

“When you pray,
do not be like the hypocrites,
who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners
so that others may see them.
Amen, I say to you,
they have received their reward.
But when you pray, go to your inner room,
close the door, and pray to your Father in secret.
And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.

And I stood there and it hit me.  In my head I heard John saying, instead of “repay you” he would lead the cast in “He will reward you!” And Ash Wednesday, February 25 would have been John’s 22nd birthday.

We miss you John.  Long Live God.