This week I ran my first Professional Development sessions with content completely designed by myself. In previous years, I’ve either worked together with somebody to train teachers in a topic, or have basically delivered content that was deemed essential by my administration. This time I have to sink or swim all on my own.

I talked with my principal a few months back about offering training sessions to show people how to communicate with other teachers online. I then promptly spent several months pondering what I wanted to do, and outlining the basics. After Christmas Break, I committed myself and sent out an e-mail to everybody in my school offering to teach them about “Using the Internet to Communicate and Collaborate.” I gave them a Google form to fill out to gauge interest, and got enough that I planned to do each session on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I then had to take a bit of a sidetrack as I jumped through bureaucratic hoops to ensure that the teachers who come can get their Act 48 (Continuing Education) Credits.

I have two missions for the four sessions I’m planning on running:

1. Primary mission: help teachers to learn about the tools they can use to build their own Personal Learning Network.
2. Treat them like adults. I’m not going to just read to them.

The first part I spent months planning out. The second part continues now as I truck along. I decided to, whenever possible, use my own photos or screenshots to demonstrate ideas and concepts.  Almost all my slides will be heavy on images and light on words. Words will be in a large font. If I use somebody else’s work, it has to be Freeware or Creative Commons. I did rapid prototyping of my slides in Docs, then I made the refined versions in Keynote. I imported back into Docs for easy sharing and adding links as needed.

Here’s my first slideshow, showing what building a PLN has done for me. This was the most me-talky phase of the whole thing, but I wanted to get it right out there why PLN has been so great to me, getting them to understand why it could also be great for them. Fortunately, it was short.

I’m really glad that I started this the week after EduCon, since I’m still on a bit of an education high from it all. It’s no coincidence that the first session I went to was “Subversive PD.” It helped focus me on the need to make sure that I engage the people I’m working with in conversation as much as possible. When talking about my nerves the morning of my first presentation, Bill Ferriter reminded me of that in response:

So I tried. I didn’t always succeed, but I did my best to bring people into the conversation. There were plenty of good questions as some of the people there really wrestled with the idea of uses for Google Docs both in our teaching community and in their classrooms. Whenever possible, I did my best to point them int he direction of ideas I know others have tried, and I frankly admitted when I didn’t know how to do something. For me, the not knowing was a strength in many ways, because as I pointed out, I may not have done a certain activity, but if I wanted to, someone in my network would probably be able to point me in the right direction.

Here’s the Google slides. Structure: Show them a tool, we talk about the uses in school. Next slide, another tool, more discussion. Finally, get them to sign up for Google accounts and start collaborating on a Doc sharing their contact info to start.

So how do I know that I didn’t suck? Both days we went a half hour over the allotted time and nobody seemed to be restless or needed to rush out right at the official stop time. They stuck around, we got everybody signed up and they all edited the document.

Today I e-mailed them all and gave them homework to add everybody to their contacts list. I’m feeling upbeat, so I added this:

Extra credit: create a document saying something nice to somebody in our network, then share the file with them. Smile.

I spent the latter half of my awesome second day wracking my brain for changes that I can absolutely make in my classroom on Monday, keeping in mind the restrictions I already have to teach under. This couldn’t be a full on reboot of my classroom, but I knew I had to do something drastic enough to prove to myself that I’m committing to improving myself as a teacher.

I finally decided that I need to release some of the responsibility in my classroom to the students.

Perhaps in a bit of overreaction to my terrible first year as a teacher, I became a benevolent dictator of a teacher. It’s worked for me, especially in light of the curricular restrictions placed on me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be something better.

I’ve spent the year telling my class that I’m always trying to be a better teacher, so that made the first part of my explanation easy. I told them that I wanted to try something new with them, and that I couldn’t do it without them. I reviewed the first half of the year for them, and some of the seating arrangements that we’ve tried this year, some more successful than others. I had them stand up and move their desks all to the edges of the classroom. I then dropped the bomb:

They were going to choose where they sit.

Not just in the sense that I would place desks in nice, neat rows and let them choose their seat, but that they would have control over where their seat was placed. I talked about different arrangements they might want to choose, such as sitting with a desk touching a partner’s desk, or setting up a table of four desks. I talked about how, if they’re the type who feels they need more personal space, they might choose to sit a bit away from others in the class. I talked about how this would give us increased flexibility in setup of the classroom, and how, if a student ends up not liking his chosen spot, he or she is free to move it at any time.

We talked about the purpose of school, and how we needed to take that purpose into consideration when choosing where to sit. I explained to them that I had two requirements for them:

1. They had to choose a spot where they can see the board and projector screen.
2. They had to leave enough space for people to be able to walk around the room freely as needed.

I then plated the final thought in their heads that they needed to choose who they sit next to carefully, as they would be best off trying to avoid people that will possibly get them into trouble, either by fooling around or arguing. I made them sit and think quietly on that for one minute.

Then I let them loose.

Here’s what we ended up with by the end of the day:

II had to make two slight adjustments to their arrangement: the front row was claustrophobically close to the board, which made it awkward for moving around up there, and the six seats right up front there were all jammed together originally, so I split them in half so we could have a space to easily walk between the board and desks.

Observations:

• They wanted to be a lot closer to the board than I anticipated
• Slightly more than half the class (6/11) wanted to be very close and chummy, slightly less wanted their space, so they hung back some, but even still very close in
• The desk that’s pushed farthest to the back and opposite side was actually much closer before, but he moved it in the middle of the day to be back further, and at the end of the day moved again because he always wants to talk to my assistant, which then makes him ignore his work or have her get mad because she’s trying to get work done!
• Nobody wanted to try facing each other right now, they all wanted to face forward. I’m guessing that’s all they’re used to, so it’s what they’re most comfortable with right now
• The kids were absolutely beaming at having this responsibility

The best part of the entire thing for me was after they were finished moving their seats around. I asked them if they would like to explain why they moved their seats to where they did. They talked about wanting to be closer to the board because it was easier to see, or because they like going to the board so they want to be able to get to it quickly if they’re called on. They talked about sitting close to their friends. They talked about being near somebody, but it being somebody they thought they wouldn’t talk to at inappropriate times. They talked about how they don’t like to sit too close to other people. They talked about ow easy it would be to share things in the new setup. Kids who rarely want to talk in class volunteered this information, in addition to the usual suspects that would monopolize the time if they could. They showed a lot of thought put into their places.

They started to take some responsibility for their own learning. Rock on.

I do at least want to throw in some shout-outs here to Danja Mahoney, Mike Springer, Beth Knittle, David Warlick, Mike Wacker, Christine Southard, Kathleen McClaskey, Brian C. Smith, Lisa Parisi, Paul Bogush, and Beth Lloyd for facilitating the conversations I went to this weekend. You were all knowledgeable, informative, and inspiring, and the things I did today and the things I plan to do in the future wouldn’t be possible without you.

Different strands of my life as a teacher have started to sync up in unexpected ways.

After kind of fiddling around with a bunch of ideas for months, I decided to basically go public with what I’m doing online these days. For a while now, I’ve basically been living two lives as a teacher: there’s me, here, online, and there’s me at school. I’ve been feeling the friction more and more these days as I increasingly find my evolving educational philosophy somewhat at odds with the way I’m expected to do my job. I’ve mentioned before that I have to spend 2/3 of my day teaching scripted reading and math programs, and when you pile on the other things I’m expected to do in the classroom and with paperwork, I’m finding that the way I’m teaching now and the way I think I want to teach don’t match up very well.

Regardless, a few weeks ago I finally bit the bullet and sent out an e-mail to the staff in my school offering to teach them what I know about connecting with other teachers online. I got a fair amount of interest as well as some questions about Act 48 hours. After jumping through hoops with my district, I’m now ready to offer 4 sessions on “Using the Internet to Communicate and Collaborate.” I’ll blog more what I plan on doing in those sessions in the next week or so. I’ll also post my slideshows, in case you’re interested in that sort of thing.

Last night, I chaperoned a dance at my middle school, where I co-supervise our Student Council.

After the dance, a bunch of the teachers who chaperoned went out to get some food and drinks. Needless to say, teaching dominated the conversation. We discussed possible new programs to get laptops for all teachers, teacher evaluation procedures, the cyclical nature of education initiatives, thoughts on becoming an administrator, and more.

I think I surprised the other teachers, and, to some degree, even myself, by my passion during these conversations. I’m not particularly known as a person to get verbally fired up very often. I’m generally more of a stew in your own juices kind of guy. This past week I also got a few comments noting my obvious excitement about the presentations I’m planning.

I’m seriously afraid that passion wouldn’t be here today if I hadn’t started building my Personal Learning Network two years ago. I’ve been more excited and challenged with my thoughts and ideas online than I ever had before. As I think over the conversation I had last night, and the work I’ve done on my presentation, I realize how much my thinking has truly been influenced by my network.

When I get fired up about truly using technology to transform education, I find myself channeling conversations with Ira Socol and Karen Janowski. When my passion burns for disparities in educational opportunity, I go back in my mind to discussions I’ve had with Deven Black, Diana Laufenberg, and Mary Beth Hertz. When I talk to people about the power of connected learning, I think about the chances I’ve had to sit and talk with Kevin Jarrett. When I talk about the lack of opportunities for teacher advancement other than going into administration, I channel Bill Ferriter. When I try to make my presentations look more “delicious,” I harken back to David Bill’s conversation at last year’s EduCon.

So, thank you to all of the above people and so many more who have truly had an impact on my development as a teacher.  2010 is going to be a huge year for me, and so much of that wouldn’t be possible with all of your contributions. I am more knowledgeable and more passionate today about my role as a teacher today than I would have thought possible two years ago, when I clearly felt that I was stagnating as a teacher. I may not have stood out much in your mind, but so many of you have made an indelible impression on me.

Thanks.

I’m honestly surprised they don’t have “cell phones” on there.

After a year of taking pictures, I’ve done it. Slightly over a year ago I received my first digital SLR camera as a super-generous Christmas gift from my parents. I knew from the start that I wanted to really get in a lot of practice with my camera, so I committed to participating in Project 365, in which you attempt to take at least one photo a day for an entire year.

Here’s the first picture I took of my brother right after I pulled my camera out of the box and had fiddled with the settings to ensure the one thing I knew I wanted to do, shoot in RAW:

While I was totally blown away by the quality of the photos from this camera, I still had a long way to go in learning how to use it…this was shot in P mode, which is fully automatic. I knew that I loved the “blurry background,” but had no idea how to do that. I was really flying blind. Fortunately, I brought my network with me. I got a lot of starter advice from Craig Nansen, who helped me understand a lot of the basics to using a DSLR. As time went on, I also got several pieces of advice from my good friend Brian Taylor.

Speaking of the network, here are the most important pieces of advice I can give to somebody who wants to do a 365. Join Flickr. Then be sure to join at least one group that’s dedicated to doing a 365. Submit your photos to the group every day. For me, I topped it off by following the RSS feed for one of those groups in Google Reader. If, like me, you check your RSS feeds every day, following your group’s feed will constantly remind you to take your picture every day. I would have forgotten many times if not for my group posting their pictures, and I thank them immensely for that. When I started to realize that I would sometimes get comments on my photographs, I also started to follow my activity feed. Feedback from other users will make you look forward to posting your better shots. While I got plenty of great comments from people over the course of the year, I especially have to call out Kathy Onarheim for her consistent efforts at commenting on my pictures, and, I’m sure, the pictures of many other people. I also got a lot of nice comments from Damian Bariexca.  When I paid for my Flickr pro membership, I did it specifically because of the community.

Over the course of the year, I actually ended up taking over 7000 exposures on my dSLR. That’s more photographs than I had taken in the previous 7 years of owning a digital camera combined. It’s overwhelming to me how many pictures I took this year, and, more obviously, how much I disliked so many of them afterwards. Looking at my “favorites” smart folder in iPhoto, I seem to be really happy without about 6% of the photos I take.

I first knew that I was understanding how to actually use my camera about 3 weeks after I got it. We went to dinner at a hibachi place, and I got this shot:

It took some serious playing around on my part to get the shots just right, so i felt pretty proud of myself after seeing how this one came out. I’m still learning, but it surprises me that now, when somebody recently asked for advice on how to take pictures of fireworks, I was able to point him to some of my shots from Independence Day at the Art Museum and rattle off the settings I used.

One of my favorite parts about having completed the project is the ability to look back at a year of pictures, and see some of the themes I returned to over and over again. So, to conclude this post, some of the more common themes and subjects I used in my 365:

Pictures of animals, most frequently my cats: 64

Pictures related to food in some way: 50

Pictures of buildings: 41

Pictures of complete strangers: 34

Pictures with a nature theme: 30

Pictures featuring my wife, Beth: 19

Self-portraits: 12

Pictures of my godchild, Nora: 8

Pictures of my nephew, Julian: 3

Pictures of Abe Lincoln:2