C'mon Get Happy (Yep It's a Partridge Family Tribute) #NTNHappy

Hello, world, here's a song that we're singin', c'mon get happy...

Easier said than done, eh?

Just what does it take to have a happy life? A happy community? A happy school?

If you are a regular reader of this blog you know I am unabashedly an admirer of the New Tech Network people I work with, both on our staff and in our schools!  

One of my fav colleagues , Sarah Field, and I Vidyo-ed a couple of weeks ago when she was inspired by this post from Upworthy….

AND A PROJECT WAS BORN!

I am very intrigued by this project for so many reasons, some personal….I feel like I was sort of "born happy" blessed with a happy nature. I tend to be an optimist, a pollyanna, an "everyone thing will be okay" kind of girl. …..nature or nurture? Which makes me wonder...

Can we…

 CHOOSE happy? 

CREATE happy?

I do know what makes me happy…the fact that this project is open to everyone, everywhere, every grade, every age!

Connecting people, projects, places, resources, ideas…that makes me happy!

I am so excited to watch how this will unfold, what our students will discover, who they will connect with , what they will teach us and what we will learn!

Now if you haven't watched the Partridge Family video at the top of the page yet, you should….(full disclosure: I did get a David Cassidy guitar sometime during the early 70's for Christmas and have had this song as well as "I Think I Love You" on my iTunes playlist forever!)

Join the Global Happiness Project!  

We are Living in a #PBLWorld and I am a PBL Girl

So we JUST ended #PBLchat tonight where we had a super high energy chat about making global connections for and with our students.

You can see the archive here in Storify (want to see it as a slideshow? Just add /slideshow to the url, trust me, it is fun to read and share this way!)

Just want to share a few loves...

I love that the folks at this chat have either worked all day, been at a conference all day, are either super close to bedtime or just before dinner time, tweeting from a soccer practice or chatting from their phone while waiting in line somewhere all take time to share and learn with others. 

I love the fact that while I get to work with an amazing network,New Tech Network ,  of collaborators, we are also a part of the larger PBL community across the world and tonight's chat made that so evident.

I love that it was fun to see "friends" at the chat tonight that I have never met, but they have become resources & experts for me via Twitter and/or their blogs or even I have met them just once and I can't wait to see them f2f at conferences this summer.

I love that I "think in PBL" I often use phrases like "I wonder" and "What are our next steps" in my everyday conversation.

I love that as I am planning the decor for an addition we are doing to our house that I want my sister to come visit and "critical friend" my plan.

I love that I can't  read or listen to the news without looking for a driving question or global connection.

I love that I watched & listened to educators run through their Ignite Talks for our national conference and they were FILLED with passion.

I love that several members of my online PLN are students and I value their opinion and so does everyone else in our PLN.

So much more to love about PBL....but that is enough for now!

Anyway...just a little celebratory post about being happy to be a part of something that I am proud to be a part of!

Join us for #PBLChat every Tuesday!  Usually at 8pm EST but once in awhile we change it up for a special collaboration or event.  Follow @NewTechNetwork to get all of the scoop!

Pinning for Parents! One More Way to Communicate!

No matter how much you communicate, it seems like communication is always an area that every learning organization needs or wants to improve. I remember getting phone calls from folks  that would go  something like this:

Parent: I had no idea that the parent night for FAFSA was last night, you need to do a better job of communicating dates like that. How was I supposed to know about it?

Me: I'm so sorry, it was in the paper

Parent: I don't get the paper

Me: Also on the radio and on our website

Parent: I don't listen to that station and I never visit the website

Me: We posted it to our Twitter feed and Facebook page

Parent: I don't use either of those

Me: It was on the sign in front of the school & sent home with your student & on the announcements

Parent: I don't drive by the school and my child doesn't tell me anything

Me: How about from now on, when something important is happening I come to your house and fold your laundry, while you make dinner and personally tell you about it?

Okay, I never really said that last line!

All kidding aside, I'm a parent of 3 kids. My husband and I both work full-time and certainly missed some important dates in our day, life is busy!

So, my motto has always been just communicate, communicate and communicate some more!

Enter Pinterest! I signed up for this tool when it came out in beta and anxiously awaited my invitation via email and when it arrived I quickly began pinning boards like recipes, garage organization, landscaping, knitting patterns etc..I've just never gotten hooked on a bookmarking tool and this one was SO working for me!

Then I had a little "aha moment" as I was talking with some friends who were in LOVE with Pinterest. This group of friends was made up of all women who aren't at all the tech addict that I am. They read books, not on e readers, they don't tweet, their computer is actually still in on a desk in their home and not right beside their chair in the family for immediate & full time access. But they were VERY engaged with this site. The visual aspect worked for them.

So, for me, Pinterest became yet another way to pull in teachers who are reluctant tech users and to reach more parents where they are! You can see ways teachers are using Pinterest in this great post from +Edudemic

I'm wondering how many schools are also pinning for their families and community! Consider boards like:

College Virtual Tours
Financial Aid
Classroom photos
Financial Literacy for Your Child
The Truth About Bullying
Helping Your Child Study
Online Safety
Learning Games
Student work
Project Based Learning explained
Standardized Test Info
Scholarships
Internships
Great books (so many sub-topics here, too!)

Pretty much any topic the School Counselor wished they had time to talk to parents and students about!

How are you using Pinterest to communicate with families? Share the link to your board in the comments! We'd love to follow you, follow our boards, too, I pin education resources as New Tech Network

Seriously, STOP Blocking & Banning for Educators!

As Connected Educator Month draws to close, I'm appalled by the fact that many of our teachers & students are prevented from participating  due to blocking of ALL social media sites at school for both teachers & students

I am often asked the following question:

"How do we get our <Principal, Superintendent, IT Director, School Board, State Department of Ed> to stop blocking social media at the very least for teachers, if not for students?"

Here is where I would like to jump up on my soapbox and just RANT about trust, freedom of speech, access to information, fear-driven decision making, keeping everyone in from recess because one teacher misbehaved...but, I know how busy you are so let's skip the outrage and go directly to action steps:

Become knowledgeable:

The technology is there to facilitate the work not the other way around. The tech dept should not be making curricular decisions. In order for this to happen you must actually understand CIPA and Erate, so that when someone says to you, "Nope, all forums & social media must be blocked, if we don't comply with CIPA, we'll lose our E-Rate funding" you can refute the complete incorrectness of that statement!  Common Sense Media provides a great resource for you as does Dr. Mark Wagner in this slideshow.

Stop blaming the Technology
Facebook does not cause bullying. If you have a bullying problem in your school, that is a culture problem and all of the blocking in the world isn't going to make it better. Blaming the technology is an excuse for not solving the larger problem. Ignoring the prevalence of student's online lives is much more dangerous than blocking their access during the school day. We should be modeling and teaching digital responsibility in a safe environment where students can see that digital tools are not simply for entertainment but can be used professionally to expand their knowledge and create a digital footprint that will not come back to kick them later.

Accept that you are a BYOT school
Your students AND staff are using their own technology at school, whether they are texting within the  pocket of their hoody or surreptitiously in the bathroom between classes, they are bringing their own devices and they are using them. I have witnessed so many cases of teachers asking children to break the "no cell phone" policy. When a site is blocked on the school computers, teachers simply look the other way so students can access the needed information via their own cell phones.

Social Media IS a part of the "real world"
Educators are very fond of telling kids what the "real world" is like. Pretending that sites like Twitter & Facebook don't exist while students are at school is simply a denial that the real world exists inside your school. Students will be googled by their future (and current) employers.( Every mom I know googles potential babysitters and if they see a Facebook page that looks remotely irresponsible, that sitter will NOT be allowed in the house!) For the most part students don't have any idea that their tweets are being housed in the Library of Congress for all of eternity. We teach students about sex ed, stranger danger, drugs & alcohol, texting & driving why would we not teach them about social media, both the good and the bad?

Great things happen when students & teachers get connected

• Connect with higher education
• Find scholarships
• SKYPE with authors, scientists, and more.
• Create student culture with a Student Voice Chat like Lakeland Leading Edge 
• Get involved in the Election with projects like #MYparty12
• Model for students how Social Media is being used for global change 
• Teachers connect with others all over the world through chats & hashtags like #PBLChat, #edchat #kinderchat, #sschat, check out a very thorough list of ed hashtags here.
• Check out Pinterest Boards with Teach not Block Resources, Social Media & Digital Citizenship links
• Your community can find out from YOU what is happening at school via Facebook. Some great examples:
• DaVinci Charter Academy
• Dumas New Tech High
• Delaware New Tech Academy
• There are countless more great examples here on this crowdsourced doc from @Joe_Mazza 
• Need more resources? Try these books & sites
• Communicating and Connecting With Social Media
• The Dragonfly Effect
• The Connected Educator: Learning & Leading in the Digital Age
• Unmasking the Digital Truth Wiki

Take steps to make changes

• Update your Acceptable Use Policy
• Crowdsourced AUP
• Worlds Simplest Online Safely Policy
• Livebinder with BYOT AUP examples
• Do the research for your school board or administrators
• CoSN's MAKING PROGRESS: Rethinking State and School District Policies Concerning Mobile Technologies and Social Media
• ISTE's NETS for Admin, Teachers & Students
• You simply cannot meet the NETs with overzealous blocking
• National Education Technology Plan
• Online communities are a part of the plan but we block them locally...REALLY?
• Let Students Lead the Way
• Consider this as a student led project
• Empower them to develop the new policy based on their own needs, research & conclusions
• I wonder what their driving question would be? 

I'd love to see examples of driving questions in the comments, examples of schools that have had success in making this change happen for their staff and students or resources that have been helpful for you as you continue to have more open access to the Internet at school!

A Little Less Talk & A Lot More Action

Last week I followed and tweeted during the NY Times Schools for Tomorrow  #NYTedtech conference, I spent my Sunday afternoon tweeting and listening to the conversation happening at Education Nations’ Teacher Town Hall.. While I am very happy that these conversations are happening on national platforms with large audiences, I crave as Elvis Presley once crooned "A little less conversation and a little more action, please".  

To get a little more action, I traveled to Columbus, Indiana to Columbus Signature Academy, a New Tech Network school, and spent two days at this school with a model that Jay Mathews called "A Wild Idea for an Ideal School" that has been cultivating a culture of trust, respect and responsibility for going on 5 years.

I could write pages about the school culture led by empowered students and teachers. The autonomy with which the students worked, the work spaces clearly designed for collaboration for both students and teachers or any number of ways the students and staff were engaged in the business of learning.  I will try to describe my two days in about 500 words, give or take a few.

Originally, I was invited to be in Jose Martinez and Katie Ferguson's Social Justice course (an integrated course of Eng10 and Current Problems, Issues and Events)  to sit on a panel and give feedback to students who were presenting videos they had created for a project around Censorship, the 1st Amendment and Fahrenheit 451.  Through Twitter, another facilitator (aka teacher) learned I was coming to campus and promptly requested a workshop with his students on utilizing Twitter to find experts as resources.  We set this up for first thing in the morning. The students were engaged and inquisitive as to how to create their own PLN via Twitter, which is unblocked for both teachers and students. 

During a conversation with the Director of Columbus Signature Academy, Mike Reed, we began discussing Social Media and the role it plays for schools. I suggested that the right person to manage the school's Facebook page might just be the students.  Mr. Reed nodded thoughtfully, looked at his watch and said Publications is at 11:00, does that fit your schedule?

Just before eleven I arrived in the work space for Publications, had a seat and pulled out my laptop.  Students arrived and began work on their tasks, not waiting in rows for a bell to ring or a teacher to call the class to order, they were engaged and busy as they walked in the door.  A few students recognized me from the morning workshop or their Social Justice presentations, sat at my table and inquired my purpose in this class.  I asked if they were interested in discussing how Social Media might fit into Publications and immediately a group of about 7 moved to my table to get started.  Clearly taking an idea from a thought to an action is a process this group knew well.  One young lady popped up her laptop, stating "I'll start a Google doc".  Then for about an hour we discussed knows, need to knows, challenges, possible solutions, veered off topic when an exciting idea came up (careers in social media, like mine), were brought back to topic by someone in the group and finally with about 10 minutes to go, someone piped up, "What are our next steps, what do we need to do to make this happen".  With every student chiming in the next steps were listed, and contact information exchanged.

All of the ideas I found interesting in the conversations happening at NYT Schools for Tomorrow and during the chats around Education Nation were alive and happening at Columbus Signature Academy. Here is a school with a culture that empowers, teaching that engages and technology that enables. 

So, while the conversation is good, let's model what the students at CSA did, what are our next steps so we can have a little more action!