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Showing posts from 2016

Getting Students Connected to the Internet at Home to Close the Homework Gap and Digital Divide

The recent  SchoolCIO Summit in Baltimore  focused on closing the digital divide across the United States. SchoolCIO Summit attendees, comprised of K-12 edtech leaders, came from different backgrounds ranging from large urban school districts like Baltimore, to small rural ones like Neosho, Missouri, and everything in-between. Attendees identified the toughest digital equity challenge to be Internet access. Many attendees equated the Internet with water or power--a utility that is necessary in today's modern world. There are government agencies, communities, and businesses partnering to close this gap, such as the nonprofit  EveryoneOn , whose Chief Programs Officer, Veronica Creech, led a panel discussion on the topic at the summit. The "One Million Project" ( #1MillionProject ) sponsored by  Sprint  seeks to close one-fifth of the five million unconnected families through WiFi hotspots.  Comcast’s Internet Essentials , which works in partnership with the U.S. Department

What You Do is Amazing

One of the challenges in working in education is the ease in which the public can attack schools. I believe that there are several societal changes that have led to the rise of teacher and school bashing: 1. The death of the local free press: It used to be easy to get a reporter and photographer to show up at school to see the awesome things going on. Now a lone reporter, who is spread too thin, tends to only show up when things go wrong. It is the bad news that gets Web visits. 2. Bad news has more places to travel fast: Social media promotes the travel of bad news--especially when it can be delivered in a punchy headline, picture, or video. 3. Schools are just buildings from the outside: The public drives by and sees our buildings but can't easily see what is going on inside of them. Without evidence that school is different, the public is left to believe that school is a place that is worse than before and headed in the wrong direction. We need to change this perception. What ed

Balanced Intentions

The calendar has now flipped to August and teachers are getting ready to return to school. As I reflect back on my early teaching career, I remember spending many hours planning amazing lessons, but not as much time thinking about the people I would meet. As I became a more veteran teacher, I realized that the time at the start of the school year was better spent getting to know my students and investing in building relationships. This school year, I challenge all of us to intentionally focus time on the learner. Push off some of the early time dedicated for content to connect with students. Research tells us that you will make that time back in effectiveness with the relationships you build. This strategy holds true for administrators as well, as the relationships we build at the start of the year will offer us insights into the student experience as the year progresses. Once the school year gets started, all educators should consider following the example of  Karen Ritter , assistant

Start Getting Ready for Next Year with #GoOpen

We are finally reaching a point in schools where the divides between students, devices, and connectivity are closing. One of the last divides to close is easy access to instructional resources as many schools still use outdated, static, and heavy textbooks. With the onset of easy-to-use tools like  Google Classroom  for distribution of content, teachers need to be on the lookout for easily distributable open resources. Summer is the ideal time to start pulling some of this material together. Phil Lacey has pulled together a catalog  of many online repositories where teachers can get started. One of my favorites is  CK12  which is now easy to share with students using Google Classroom ( here are instructions ). For schools looking to move in this direction check out the # GoOpen  resources provided by the U.S. Department of Education. Here, John King explains: "Openly licensed educational resources can increase equity by providing all students, regardless of zip code, access to hig

Community Crossovers

I never even considered. We have seen the devices become the primary computers in homes that never had computers, which has introduced younger students to computers and allowed parents to use computers for tasks like applying online for jobs. Our 1-1 program has also offered our students the chance to become amazing technology leaders through their work with our student-run helpdesks. One of the challenges this brings to us as a staff is providing "staff development" for our students. As a result, we host a  Student Technology Leadership Summit  to allow students to build their skills and share with their peers. I have also seen the benefits of 1-1 in a Cub Scout troop I help lead, where all students are from a 1-1 school. One of the badges involves building a computer game. Because every kid has his own device running Scratch, my kitchen table will become a computer lab. Sometimes, the unexpected extracurricular outcomes are as great as those we see in our classrooms.

Becoming a Change Agent

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As we move into a new era of ESSA, we must take lessons learned from the disassembling of NCLB. The past few decades have focused on standards, accountability, and higher level thinking in education. The common visualization used to legitimize these goals has been the pyramid of Bloom's Taxonomy.  But, under NCLB, schools have focused on only one of the three domains of learning in Bloom's Taxonomy: Cognitive. What about the other two domains of learning, Psychomotor and Affective? How have educators reached the mind, body, and heart of each student? We have failed at reaching all children and really changing education because as a profession we have focused on only one of the three parts of the whole child. This has resulted in what I call, “The Investment Gap.” It’s time to close that gap and invest more of our efforts into the other two domains. To become a change agent, and really impact each individual student you serve, there needs to be a connection beyond content, bey